NY-23: Gingrich Explains His Support for Scozzafava

From NRO’s The Corner:

…“I endorsed the Republican who has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, opposes the Obama health plan, signed the ‘no-tax-increase’ pledge, and supports a comprehensive energy plan like I do,” says Gingrich.

Third-party candidates like conservative Doug Hoffman, Scozzafava’s challenger, often serve only to divide the GOP, says Gingrich. “Just look at what’s happening in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race,” he says, pointing to the campaign of independent candidate Chris Daggett, who has siphoned support from Republican candidate Chris Christie. “What’s happening in New York and in New Jersey should be a sober warning to every purist in this country.”

“If you seek to be a perfect minority, you’ll remain a minority,” says Gingrich. “That’s not how Reagan built his revolution or how we won back the House in 1994.”

I don’t think we’re searching for a perfect minority – but we are searching for a cohesive party which is absolutely committed to liberty as the Founders envisioned. Mrs. Scozzafava has indicated support for the fascistic “card check” legislation; only grudgingly signed the no-new-taxes pledge; has not committed to running as a GOPer in 2010; is the most liberal Republican in the New York State legislature – this is someone who is almost certain to cut us off at the knees when the chips are down on core, Republican principles. The rank-and-file are tired of pouring out sweat and treasure on behalf of leadership-approved Republicans who then drop dime on us at the worst possible moment – no more Specters, no more Chaffees. If we are to work for GOP victory, then we want absolute assurance that when the votes are cast, our House and Senate members vote against taxes, against profligate spending, against anti-democratic measures.

If we can’t win on a platform of low taxes, low spending and liberty, then what is the point of winning? It might make senior leaders feel good to be called “Mr. Chairman”, but it doesn’t do us any good if the legislation coming out of Congress is antithetical to GOP ideals.

And, also, I think that this is the path to victory – the people want a party which has strong beliefs and sticks to them. Part of the unpopularity of Congress is directly traceable to the Democrats abandoning their own base in favor of political expediency. Say what you like about our liberal friends, but they believe in the “public option” and are enraged that a health care bill might clear Congress without it. Justifiably, they are wondering why the put all that effort in to victory in 2008, only to have their side run screaming from a core, liberal belief. The Democrats are set to limp in to 2010 with a weak economy, and increasingly unpopular President and a base which is dispirited – just as the GOP base became dispirited from 2005 forward as the GOP leadership threw over core GOP beliefs in favor of political expediency.

If we believe our ideals are correct, then we should unashamedly advance them – not pausing to wonder if such adherence is alienating some voters. Some voters will be alienated – there’s no way around that. Unanimity is not possible in a Republic. To be sure, we should use patience and tact; we should express love and forgiveness for those we oppose; we must shape our message in to the most palatable terms possible – but when push comes to shove, we must show an iron determination that our views will prevail. And we can’t do this if we’re busily electing people with an “R” after their name who will vote against us at the crucial moment.

Gingrich is a wise and intelligent observer of politics, but he’s missing the bus on this new political dynamic. It is a revolutionary time – and the people don’t want weak excuses, but clear action.

Harry Reid to "Vaporize" GOP Challenger

I’m sure we’re all shaking in our boots:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is prepared to run a sharply negative campaign if that’s what it takes to win reelection next year, with a top adviser predicting that the Nevada Democrat will “vaporize” his Republican challengers with attack ads.

This is the Majority Leader of the United States Senate? We can and must do much better.

Phrase of the Day

Sage advice on why we shouldn’t let the enemy prevail in Afghanistan:

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession. – George Washington

What is Obama Waiting For?

Victor Davis Hanson gives an excellent run down on all the good reasons to send the troops and prevail in Afghanistan. There really is no downside to giving McChrystal what he wants. So, why is Obama dithering?

Is he just so ignorant of military affairs that he can’t tell who is giving him good or bad advice?

Is it that he’s just such a leftist that he can’t stand the thought of America having a clear cut, military victory?

Or, is he just a coward afraid to make up his mind?

Unless he acts quite soon, the answer will have to be one of the above…

The San Francisco TEA Party

San Francisco? Are you kidding me? Nope – there really was such an event. Happened on October 15th. Zomblog has the pictures. One of the groups present was Bay Area Patriots:

Bay Area Patriots are citizens who participated or expressed an interest in participating in one of the Tea Parties that took place in the Bay Area on April 15, 2009. The nationwide Tea Party protests were born out of grassroots frustration about excessive government spending in the form of bailouts and stimulus packages and the exponential growth in the size of government occurring in the short time the Obama Administration has been in place.

Bay Area Patriots come in all shapes and sizes, colors, religions, party affiliations, genders and income levels. We are united by the core principles of limited government; controlled government spending at the local, state and federal levels; and lower taxes–all of which are necessary to ensure true liberty and future prosperity for this country.

Bay Area Patriots have members predominantly in the greater Bay Area, including San Francisco, the North Bay, the East Bay, the Peninsula and the South Bay…

I’m telling you, fellow GOPers and conservatives, we have a fantastic opportunity to move in to the liberal strongholds. No, we’re not going to get a lot of traction by opening up branch offices of Focus on the Family or Knights of Columbus (though both organizations are not unknown in the Bay Area) – but we can have an effect with a strongly libertarian program. Not, perhaps, as the GOP but certainly as an alternative to the dreadful, stultifying conformism of the left which rules such areas. An alliance, as it were, with those people of the Bay Area who are not with us on all issues, but are with us in the defense of liberty.

Now is the time for all good men (and women…and, given this is San Francisco, “other”) to come to the aid of their country. We daren’t let this opportunity pass – we can entirely reform our government and make it what our Founders intended. That done, we can have all the arguments we want over gay marriage – but if we don’t defend our freedom, then all our arguments are moot.

Democrats Lock Republicans Out of Committee Room

Childish and weak, Democrats:

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to keep them from meeting when Democrats aren’t present.

Towns’ action came after repeated public ridicule from the leading Republican on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), over Towns’s failure to launch an investigation into Countrywide Mortgage’s reported sweetheart deals to VIPs.

And there’s the really bad part of it – Democrats are engaging in this nonsense in order to protect their own corrupt members, and their fat cat, corporate buddies.

Just disgusting…

What is it With These Obamaniacs and Mao?

Now its Obama’s “Manufacturing Czar” – telling us that the free market is nonsense and that he agrees with Mao about power growing out of the barrel of a gun. Do any of these twits have even a cursory understanding of what they’re saying? Or are they just regurgitating what professors shoved down their throats in school?

Housing Prices Expected to Have Additional Steep Declines

We’re not at the bottom of the housing crisis:

If you thought home prices were bottoming out, you may be wrong. They’re expected to head a lot lower.

Home values are predicted to drop in 342 out of 381 markets during the next year, according to a new forecast of real estate prices.

Overall, the national median home price is predicted to drop 11.3% by June 30, 2010, according to Fiserv, a financial information and analysis firm. For the following year, the firm anticipates some stabilization with prices rising 3.6%.

We can hope and pray for that 3.6% increase in 2011 – but if my house drops by 11.3% in 2010 and gains 3.6% in 2011, it still works out to about $15,000.00 drop between now and December of 2011 in the value of my house…on top of the approximately $210,000.00 drop since 2006. Not a pretty picture, and I’m just one of millions. The really bad news: Las Vegas will actually do worse than most areas, and so I can probably expect much more than an 11.3% drop next year, and I wouldn’t bet a nickel on a 2011 increase out here.

This is why the stories of a strengthening economy are so much moonshine – housing prices are dropping, wages are dropping, unemployment is rising…with this sour brew of economic collapse, the bankers and their buddy, Obama, are telling use we’re going to get a nice, cold beer out of it. Its just not possible – all we can hope to do is ameliorate the suffering and, if we’re smart, lay down the foundation of a reborn economy by encouraging savings, providing sound money and balancing the federal budget (with a preference for lower taxes, but that might not be possible for a few years – certainly, however, any tax increase will be the work of an insane person).

Hard work and adversity have never daunted Americans and they won’t now – the only thing which can stop us from fixing this is government attempts to fix it.

What Obamacare Will Bring to America

Read it and weep, liberals:

THE National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.

More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information act show that NHS administrative staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers have also been given free private healthcare. This has covered physiotherapy, osteopathy, psychiatric care and counselling — all widely available on the NHS.

You see, liberals, the problem with government health care is that it doesn’t work. Its not that it can be done better than it has, but that it never can be any good, at all. Even the much-hyped French health service is going broke and waiting times are rising. It just can’t be done – you can’t de-couple the cost of health care from the consumption of health care and have a good system. If its “free”, it will be used more than it should – and if its government controlled, there is less incentive for supply to increase (supplies normally increase when there is additional profit to be made, you see? Or am I speaking in terms too difficult for you liberals to grasp). Unless you can staff the entire health system with self-sacrificing saints, it just won’t work.

Give up your insane dream – work to provide health care for the poor (it is ok if you, personally, go out and volunteer your time and money….seriously: you’ll feel great when you do it), but don’t try and make perfection out of imperfect human beings. Leave the salvation of Mankind to Our Lord – you just work on trying to make the day a little better for those around you.

Goldman Sachs and Your $70 Billion

It was a match made in heaven…for them:

Guess which two Wall Street banks were acting as informal agents of the government in order to support the bond and stock markets and reinflate them?

Two big banks that are showing record trading profits, and a small group of enablers and assistants.

Its a near layup when the US fronts you the money and then works with you to take the markets higher via its Working Group on Financial Markets. Especially when it is on thin volumes based on ‘news’ which you help to create and control via frequent calls to young Tim who is your coordinator, in addition to all your other well-placed backchannel sources. You get a heads up, you use the futures to prop the markets. You need some good news, some can be arranged. Just like the good old days when Timmy was riding herd on the NY Fed desk.

Proof? No. But I was wondering just who was doing it – who was taking the stock market up on thin overall volume but massive volume on the most beat down financial stocks? Who was buying all these stocks when the Wall Street insiders were bailing out of stocks at a record pace? Well, it seems it was you, taxpayer – it was your money being used to play the stock market, artificially inflate it, give favored banks some big (and entirely illusory) profits. Why? Because the big banks and the big government need you to feel that things are getting better – so that you’ll go out and spend, so that revenues to big corporations and big government will rise, thus allowing them to carry the toxic assets for one more year, or so. To call this smoke and mirrors is to be nice about it – outright fraud is a better description.

Think about it – we’ve been bombarded by “good” news for months now. What is the good news? Well, when you dig in to the numbers, its all about how things aren’t as bad as some people predicted, while profits are better than some other people predicted. That less-bad doesn’t actually work out to good and beating the street after your expectations have been massively lowered doesn’t mean squat isn’t at issue – because along with this “good” news was the rapid rise in the DOW. The latest bit of “good” news I’ve heard is a story being floated in financial circles that consumer spending is expected to pick up for Christmas. With millions more out of work than last Christmas – which was a miserably bad season for sales – we’re being told that things will perk up this Christmas? Yes, we are.

The big question: How long can they sustain this?

I don’t know – its flabbergasting what they’ve already done. This is the biggest swindle in human history – Ponzi would be aghast that people could be this financially corrupt. But, if you’re going to be absolutely dishonest and use the taxpayers money as if it were free candy, then you might tap dance around catastrophe for a while, yet. I suspect it will be some months before it all comes home to roost – though it is certain that Timmy and Barry are hoping the collapse holds off until December of 2010 or, even better, until December of 2012.

Once we do get back in power, we’re really going to have to clean house, from top to bottom – and a lot of people simply must go to jail over all this.