Nightly Ramble:The Meeting; Unions And the Bailout; Who Will Obama Appoint; More

Welcome, dear reader, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere.. Bit’sBlog’s Nightly Ramble

Hope your weekend was a good one. We’ve got lots of ground to cover, so let’s get to this.

• Barack Hussein Obama and George W Bush, along with their transition teams, met today. There is a lot of people who would like to be a fly on the wall for that meeting. I’ve heard some suggest that this meeting will not be as tense as say, Reagan/Carter, since Reagan ran directly against Carter…. the suggestion being that Obama didn’t run directly against Bush. Yet, in many ways, and demonstrably so, Obama did run against GWB.
• There’s on old joke about PETA members going after rich women in furs, rather tha bikers in leather, because rich women in furs are not likely to kill you for attacking them. So, in that context, I notice they’re marching against Rick Warren’s Chuch? Oh, well, I guess the same rules apply, here. it’s not a Mosque…
• Note Billy’s use of the phrase “organized criminals “, here. It’s already happening, folks. The comparison to Hilter’s early days is compelling.
• Interesting; The New York Times seems to feel Jamie Gorelick is on Obama’s short list for AG.. Says Beldar: this morning,
  

  Short of appointing an actual member of al Qaeda, I cannot imagine a more offensive symbolic repudiation of the Global War on Terror — nor a more enthusiastic embrace of the chronic mismanagement, cronyism, and graft which led to this fall’s credit crisis — than the appointment of Jamie Gorelick as attorney general.

  I wonder how may people who voted for Obama gave any consideration to stuff like that?? Another name that keeps coming up for various positions, including Atty General, is Janet Napolitano, and Eric Holder. I note No Quarter openly wonderingabout the possibility of Bill Ayers as Secretary of Education. Horrifying, to be sure, and I’d not put it past them, and it’s certainly online with their far left mantra. Beldar, always a favorite of mine, notes in the same post I linked above.

  The Democratic Party’s ethical standards have now plummeted significantly below those which prompted Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards to joke in 1983 that “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”It appears that we have no example extreme enough to provide an answer yet to this critical question: How badly do you have to screw up to stop getting promoted, much less destroy your career, in the Democratic Party?

  And that’s really a central question, going forward. Then again, what can you possibly expect from a party still committed to big government socialism, in spite of the long known failures of such? Oh… and I’m hearing chatter that Henry Rivera would end up at the FCC. Yeah, I know… “Who?”… Rivera was in the FCC previously, and was a major roadblock to the so-called “fairness Doctrine’ being removed from the books. Remember we said that was coming back, and got laughed at for our pains? SITYS. Watching this unfold is like watching like the re-release of a slice and dice movie. It’s that point in the movie where you begin to understand just how seriously screwed the hero is.

• So why is the UK threatening to silence the media? GIven he damage the supposedly American media just recently, one can understand it. But what these people are proposing is equally dangerous. In short, they’re moving the same direction, already having collected the guns.
• I’m watching this with some interest… Boortz, this morning:
  

  Congress is gearing up to bailout the auto industry. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsonto “review the feasibility . . . of providing temporary assistance to the automobile industry during the current financial crisis.” Temporary? Yeah, sure. Check back with us in a year or two. The Pelosi/Reid part of the Troyka They want Paulson to use the bailout money for the auto industry because “a healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market security.” Sorry, don’t buy that one either.The newly empowered Democrats seem eager to comply. If the request is granted, it would expand the federal government’s role in private enterprise far beyond what we have seen in the financial sector. Obama’stransition team says they are working on “policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars.” They will do this under existing laws or by passing “additional legislation.”

  Well, a couple things.

  First, it was the Leftist push toward producing “fuel-efficient cars” that helped to kill off the American autoi insudtry in the first place. The way to solve the issue, is to drill, which of course is the one solution the Democrats won’t go for. Doesn’t anyone note with the level of irony required, that the Democrats are trying to be the solution for the problems they themselves caused, all of which is costing us, literally, trillions?

  

  Why are these men smiling?

  Secondly,…. (and granted that the auto industry as a whole is doing less well than it was a few enviro-whack job laws ago)…that’s not the only problem. The other is unions. Notice, please, that the American auto industry is doing pretty well in places like Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, and so on. Why there and not in Detroit?  Simple; The unions are not quite as well established in their over-costly wage and benefit demands. Labor costs in 2000 for the big three was $45/hr on average. for the companies outside the big three, it was half that. These days, the big three are paying n the order of $74 per man hour of labor costs, give or take. That’s a cost increase far above the rate of inflation, whereas the labor costs for other, non-union manufacturing has risen at roughly half that rate.

  To that point Bainbridge apparently agrees:

  “Union contracts that impose astronomical health and pension costs, make innovation harder, reduce production flexibility, and fail to ensure quality. American workers can produce quality cars and do so at numerous foreign owned plants. Most of those plants, however, are not organized. A Democrat-sponsored bailout is certain to preserve the current union contract.”

  Now, add all the unfunded mandates the government is adding as regards CAFE and so on, and you can begin to see why the big three have a problem today. the problem is labor unions. So, since it’s only the big three… the union shops getting the bailouts, what this amounts to is a bailout for not the American auto industry, but the unions. Notice how the news isn’t saying much about that? Well, I guess you need to look outside the mainstream. Well, wait. Maybe not so far outside.

• Did you see Biden getting booed at the Eagles game… Hey, wait a sec.. isn’t Philly a Democrat town?
• I think I mentioned this over the weekend… how the WaPo is now admitting they were biased. Will someone please explain to me how we’re supposed to take them anything like seriously, now?
• So much for global warming, part 279. Won’t stop Obama from appointing Al Gore as something or another.
• I see the US Post office is talking about dropping 40,000 employees. I also see DHL is looking to cut, as well. Around 9000 I hear. So much for Unionising being a way to protect your job from reality.
• Circuit City has declared bankruptcy. So much for the new LCD I was looking at.
• Wish the Marine Corps a happy birthday. I can’t help but think that a lot of the folks who defended us so well are starting to see the buzzards circling.
• Hey, it works for dogs….
• Apparently a Democrat city councilman decided he had the need for political self-expression. I wonder if he’ll get their vote next time. there’s something satisfying, I suppose about noting a Democrat literally peeing on those who voted for him, instead of the way it usually goes down… figuratively.
• And here it is, Gang… The reasoning behind it all… Obama wanted to be President, while McCain just wanted to be ‘nice’. If there’s one thing that annoyed me about McCain, and his non-campaign, it was that.
• Perhaps there’s an out, here. I see Newt would serve as RNC chair, if asked. We could do a lot worse.
• Why a national holiday for The Chosen One, already?  What has he accomplished? Is it simply because he’s black? Go ahead now, tell me how this wasn’t about race again.

So, we hear this morning, from The Age:

OSAMA bin Laden is planning an attack against the United States that will “outdo by far” September 11, an Arab newspaper in London has reported.

And according to a former senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, the terrorist organisation has entered a “positive phase”, reinforcing specific training camps around the world that will lead the next “wave of action” against the West.

The warning, on the front page of an Arabic newspaper published in London, Al-Quds Al-Arabi – and widely reported in the major Italian papers – quotes a person described as being “very close to al-Qaeda” in Yemen.

The paper is edited by Abdel al-Bari Atwan, who is said to be the last journalist to interview Osama bin Laden in 1996. According to the report, bin Laden is himself closely following preparations for an attack against the US and aims to “change the face of world politics and economics”. The operative is quoted as saying that “this will be shown by the fact that we now control a major part of the south of Somalia”.

I’m not sure how much to credit this report, frankly.. but credible or not, the timing of the report is clearly set into the post-election lull.   al-Qaeda  is nothing, if not media savvy.

With all the political push, the last few months, a lot of stuff I’d have normally posted right away went unposted.  We’ll be catching up on this for a while. This morning, I’ll dump Donna’s cell phone from the Columbus day run.

For those of you who don’t recall,  over the Columbus day weekend, we took the camper over to Lake Erie State Park, outside Brockton NY south and west of Buffalo, for a two day stay. It’s a regular visit of ours.

Now, I’ve already posted a series of photographs that came up out of my camera. I was unaware, though, that my wife Donna had taken several of the sunset I showed you earlier, with her own camera. She’s got a pretty good eye, don’t you think?

Mind you, these are from her cell phone, so the resolution isn’t as high as I’d like it. Still, the content is there. Hard not to; in this case, since LESP has the best sunsets in the fall of the year, for a few hundred miles around.
As usual, drill each pick, then drill it again to get full size.

I note Saint Andrew the Incontinent, this morning:

“I do think that comparing Obama’s proposals for voluntary service to the forced labor marches in building the White Sea-Baltic canal by Stalin is absurd. But it is also deeply insulting to the actual victims of Stalinism.”

So, Andrew…your first response is “Obama’s not as bad as all that?”  Seems a rather half-assed attempt to disconnect Obama from socialism, not that I’d expect better from you.  Perhaps it’d be worthwhile noting that back in Stalin’s time there were a lot of folks who thought he, and what he asked people to do, wasn’t all that bad either.  That seems to me a point that apologists for socialism intentionally miss… and fairly regularly, as you have here. You make things sound like a Stalinist propaganda poster. Everything is good so long as we remember socialism is God.

At no point, to my best recollection, did Derbyshire protest when the Bush administration actually did use Communist torture techniques against incarcerated terror suspects.

Oh, please. Mostly, that’s because Bush didn’t. Oh, and should we point out that Stalin’s efforts were against his own citizens? NOW, who’s over-stepping, Sullivan?

But maybe his revulsion at the methods of totalitarians will shortly be revived now that there’s a black man in the White House.

And there it is, gang… the first indication that Sullivan knows his argument is weak as water… the charge that Derb is a racist. The left whips this charge out like Garlic and Crosses as one would protection from Dracula, and seems ample evidence of Sullivan holding a busted flush.  Indeed; this post of Saint Andrew’s is as vacuous as any I’ve ever seen from him… and Obama’s not even in office, yet.

Billy notes the same story, and says:

This is an old lefty ploy, according to which the only people who get to point out the principles that underpin something like Stalinism are the ones who are already members of the club.

It’s not true, and you’d better not fall for it.

Heh.
Yeah, I agree his understanding of it’s principles are distinctly rose-colored. He is able to recite the more agreeable side of it’s principles without much effort, while minimizing the downside, as he does here. Like any confirmed socialist… of which he’s long since become one, it’s become knee-jerk reaction with him.

In fact, Sullivan’s delivery of this crap of his reminds me rather distinctly of Vladimir Posner in all those Ray Bream shows he appeared on, back in the day. (I know; I had the board through most of the ones that went out on that net. I wish, though, the old ABC Talkradio network had archived that stuff, or that I had… it’d have come in handy now.  Given Bream’s handling of the man, it would have brought a bit of reality to the discussion.)

Seems also worth asking… if his defense of the growth of American socialism is this lame now, and this obvious, how bad will he be come next year about this time, or in four years time, for that matter?

From today’s Washington Post:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.

In some instances, Obama would be quickly delivering on promises he made during his two-year campaign, while in others he would be embracing Clinton-era policies upended by President Bush during his eight years in office.

“The kind of regulations they are looking at” are those imposed by Bush for “overtly political” reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a partisan Republican agenda, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration’s Office of Management and Budget. The list of executive orders targeted by Obama’s team could well get longer in the coming days, as Bush’s appointees rush to enact a number of last-minute policies in an effort to extend his legacy.

And of course, we’re to think that Obama isn’t about reversing Bush policy for political reasons and to add to his legacy. Right?

Another example:

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration’s decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. “Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer,” Obama said in January.

California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California’s rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation’s automobile market. Environmentalists cheered the California initiative because it would stoke innovation that would potentially benefit the entire country.

Benefit?  Oh, yeah. Sure. How many more people end up dying for a gallon of gas, because the only answer to the problem posed by governmental interference, is plastic cars that require shoehorns to fit one person into, much less a family and their stuff, and that fold up like a loaf of bread under a couple gallons of milk?

Killing off American industry and it’s people…. all in the name of ‘global warming’ of course….

Guess I’ll be hanging onto the SUV for a few years.  A look at auto sales tells me I’m not alone.

Did you see this in the New York Times, this morning?

ANCHORAGE — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska fired back Friday at the unnamed McCain campaign aides who have been maligning her in recent days, saying that their criticism was “cruel and it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks.”

Well, ya know what? She’s right.

Sarah Palin

Look, gang, whatever other arguments might come to the fore about Sarah Palin, there can be no denial that she ended up drawing far more of a crowd than McCain himself did, being in the end more popular than he is.  Mostly that’s apparently because the only people that John McCain and his staff didn’t mind annoying the hell out of, was conservatives. Ironically Sarah Palin is one of those conservatives.

There is also a certain amount of irony here,  involving the use of tacitics, that McCain himself wouldn’t have approved of and made a living out of decrying. I’m not suggesting that McCain’s playing both sides of the ball here…  and the article itself notes that, too…  what I’m saying is that this would seem to be proof of what I’ve been saying all along; one of the reasons that John McCain lost this election was precisely because he refused to play hardball politics and that seems to me to be appointed his own people disagree with him on. They other, of course being a lack of conservatism on his part, the combo of which caused conservatives to stay home.

There’s something else that gets mentioned here, that I find annoying.

The McCain campaign aides complained about the $150,000 that the Republican National Committee had spent on Ms. Palin’s clothes, the way a Canadian comedian was able to embarrass the campaign by calling her and pretending to be the president of France, and the political ambitions she seemed to harbor beyond 2008.

Well, as regards that phone call, it seems to me he that it was one of her handlers from the McCain campaign who announced who it was, and then handed her the phone. The possibility that that whole thing was a setup from inside the McCain camp strikes me as increasingly plausible with every new revelation of the kind of vitriol coming out of McCain staffers toward Palin.

Palin’s responses to this show me she knows full well how that game gets played, even if McCain himself lacks that understanding.

Mind you, I am not suggesting that this nonsense is being generated by the whole of McCain’s staff.  It appears to me, in looking at this retrospectively in combination with stories that are starting to leak out about this entire affair, that we are only talking about a few bad apples in the barrel.  It perception would seem to be confirmed by the number of staff shakeups occurred during the McCain campaign over the last two years.  Clearly, McCain knew he had a problem, and tried to deal with it.  I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but as a yes I would have to say that McCain reacted by benching the wrong players.

A logical question; Why would the govenor be a target?

There’s two reasons for that.

First, the staffers are looking for someone other than themselves to place blame on. Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a a blame game played following a losing election effort.

Second and I think most important of all, is the future of the party.  Sarah Palin represents a serious threat from the right wing of the party.. a part at least some of McCain’s people figured were history. The conservatives, you see, must be discredited for centrist/leftists like McCain and his followers to gain and retain power. (Ignore of course, that McCain lost the election as an indication of holders of that perception being badly mistaken.)

One can only hope that these people are swept away by the rightward shift that is about to hit the party.

As Yogi Berra would say:  When you come to a fork in the road, you take it.   Well President elect BO has come to a fork in the road.

Obama campaigned on a promise to redistribute the wealth.  Obama campaign promises amount to a war on investment.   Well now the markets are melting down, and Obama professes an urgent need to address the problem.

Obama needs people to invest in Wall Street.   Yet sane people won’t put their money in Wall Street if Obama remains committed to taking their money away.   Why put your money at risk, if the Obama administration is committed to taking away any profits you might earn.

Obama campaigned on redistribution, and now his sees the need to restore confidence on Wall Street.   This is the fork for Obama.   He can either travel down the Fairness Highway, redistribution, or he can travel the road to  creating investor confidence and rebuilding our economy.   Obama can one or the other.  He can not do both.

Obama is a committed Marxist and the only product Marxist economies have ever been able to generate in surplus is near universal grind poverty.   See the former Soviet Union.   See Cuba.

During the administration of Bush 43, the democrats liked to say that dissent was patriotic.   Well it is time for brave democrats in both  the media and Congress to stand-up to the One and tell the Messiah he is wrong.    The investor class is not the nation’s enemy.   They are our essential partners.    We can not kill the investor class without killing our own economy.   Democrats stand up to Obama.    The country you save is ours.

Mrs.  Clinton, I mean you.    As Wall Street melts down, so does the New York State economy.   You claim to represent New York.   Do so now.

Bit rambled:

Sis also notes the meme going around about how RFK JR is being offered EPA. And watch closely, this fight involving Dingle, Pelosi and Waxman. It’s taking on envro-whack-job overtones, too. I’m telling you gang, we’re headed for unmitigated disaster with these people.

I kind of, sort of suspect that Moe Lane, Red State is actually rooting for Bobby Jr to get the EPA nomination:

Look, this way it’s no fun. Somebody’s going to notice that we noticed this; and they’re going to go to the transition team and point out that we’re actually aware that Robert F Kennedy Jr. is barking mad insane, and that there’s no way that anybody who is that outside the mainstream is ever going to make it through the nomination process without said barking madness exposed for all the world to see. So instead of a withdrawal of the nomination, we merely get a rumor that didn’t pan out. That’s just not the same. That’s not the same at all.

Well, true, at least this way we get to establish that there’s a Bright Line between People Who Think Like Robert F Kennedy, Jr and Normal, Sane People – but it’s the principle of the thing that matters here.

I mean making sport of mental midgets is unpopular work, but somebody has to do it.   RFK, Jr is two all beef patties short of a Big Mac.

If BO procedes with nominating RFK, Jr, it will be solid evidence that BO intends to govern based on idealogy and not competency.

As further evidence of BO’s idealogy over competency mindset, Van Helsing, Stop the ACLU, offers this tidbit:

Thanks to a state government long run by moonbats, the economy of Michigan is on life support. The vicious cycle of liberal policies suppressing the economy, making more people dependent on the government so that they will elect fools and villains to inflict more liberal policies, has produced a permanent recession that worsens with every passing year.

So naturally the Obama team has signed up these fools and villains to provide advice on how to impose the same condition on the rest of the country:

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and former U.S. Rep. David Bonior will serve on a panel of financial luminaries and corporate experts advising President-elect Barack Obama on the nation’s hard-bitten economy, ensuring Michigan, its troubled auto industry and labor has a seat at the table.

Even FDR didn’t hire on the Hoover administration.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the sphere.. Bitsblog’s Nightly Ramble

Friday!!!  TGIF! 

Last warm day of the year up here, most likely. We got to 65 or so today… that makes it nearly 5 days in a row. Not really all that odd, but as the number of warm days dwindles, you tend to cherish ever one of them, to the point where you relish pressing the weather envelope a bit. We went camping one year a few Novembers ago. Was in the 70’s all weekend. Was raining the morning we were to go home, as we broke camp. I have pictures of the rig parked at a truckstop in Erie, with snow falling on it at a good clip. Much have made a jarring sight on the open road that day.

OK, enough… Lots to talk about today, as always, so let’s get to it.

Oh.. before I forget…have some pizza, it’s fresh. 

 
• A nod to Rodney, who awarded Uncle Bit yet another honorable mention at OTB’s Caption contest.
• So it now turns out that the vote this time around was the same number of voters as ’04. If we take for granted that a lot of new voters were brought into this election, then the answer to the question is that those who voted for Bush last time, stayed home, this time… as I suggested they would in my prediction of last October. So much for the much rumbled about ‘Bradley effect’.  I wonder if it ever existed except in the minds of those looking for an excuse for bradley’s loss. However that is, it’s as I said last October, the difference is the Republican base which was intentionally disengaged by McCain and who are the ones who stayed home, apparently deciding Obama couldn’t be a whole bunch worse than McCain. I think they’re wrong, and they are about to find out just how wrong… but there it is; That’s what won the election for Obama.  There’s a lesson there for ‘2012, assuming we live so long.
• So, the Not-So Reverend Jerry Wright thinks he was used by the press?  Funny, I don’t seem to recall him being dragged kicking and screaming into that room at the National Press Club (here’s a transcript)  All they did, Jerry, was give you someplace to stick your own foot in your own mouth. Tell you something else, too; This activity surrounding him just now is an attempt at redemption. Bit of irony there, given his ostensive profession.
• I made mention yesterday of the push by Senate Democrats to oust Joe Lieberman from their caucus, and to take away his chairmanship.  I didn’t say as much yesterday, but in thinking on this now, I recognize I should have… I can’t think of a better signal, bar shouting, that the Senate is about lurching left, something Lieberman wasn’t about to do, particularly as regards policy toward Israel.  I wonder if the folks in the Knesset are watching this.
• Did you notice this quote from Michael Irvin? Sorry, but this I think shows us the kind of mentality we’re up against. I’ve said for a long time now that support for Obama was not based in fact, but rather pure emotion… and thereby mere fact could not defeat him. This quote would seem to lend itself to that point. Look, I understand Irvin has never been the sharpest axe if the shed. But he unwittingly verbalizes here, the motivations of the majority of Obama supporters.  Perhaps just as important, I wonder if he doesn’t represent the body of greymatter behind him, as well.
• Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t understand that what the government is being asked to bail out in Detroit wouldn’t NEED bailing out, save for the outrageous pay and benefit arrangements demanded by the UAW and other unions?
• So Science, it seems, has recently discovered that a rock can soak up CO2.Ummmm Guys? Ever heard of coal? What do you suppose it sucked up? Why would CO2 be any different?  Of course now, watch… how to get at this rock to solve global warming? Mining. Usually, the same methods used to mine coal… including strip mining.  Just let that roll around for a while. You’ll get it.
• Glenn Greenwald is most likely the most dishonest person on the web… and given some of the nutjobs we have on the web these days that’s saying something.  Sullivan runs a close second, of course. In light of that when I see Greenwald wanting DOMA repealed, I regard it, on an instinctive level as most likely the best argument anyone’sever offered for keeping it in place.  And guess what? 30 states agree… with DOMA. .. not Greenwald.
• Stocks UP  on post election response and somewhat worse than expected job numbers? I’ve said it for a long time, there’s no logic to it that mere mortals can fathom. You just know Obama’s people are hitting the prayer mats every night Bush’s efforts at getting things going again pay off, and Soros and his money are working toward that end, too… because the improvements will likely kick in, if they do, about the the end of January.. giving Obama the opportunity to credit himself for the numbers. Of course if they dont the people will be likely just as willing to credit him with the numbers, if you catch my drift.
• If you’re planning to vacation at the Sands, you may want to rethink.
• Did you know Rahm Emmanuel was running Freddie Mac during the scandal? So where was this report when he was running Obama’s campaign? Sister Toldjah notes this and wonders if we’l see Barney Frank nominated to a post at Treasury.  I fully expect the answer will be ‘yes’, if it’s decided that the Democrats have their veto-proof majority without him.  There’s not much I’d put past Obama, Sis.
• Sis also notes the meme going around about how RFK JR is being offered EPA. And watch closely, this fight involving Dingle, Pelosi and Waxman. It’s taking on envro-whack-job overtones, too. I’m telling you gang, we’re headed for unmitigated disaster with these people.
• Yes, I saw this bit with Barney the dog  and I’ll tell you this…. The tape is an object lesson in how not to approach a strange dog, particularly with a large number of strangers around.  What an idiot.
• I wacthed this murder trial with Skylar Deleon, and it seems fairly cut and dried. The reccomendation of the jury… death… should be carried out without delay. Alas, it won’t be. Obama will be out of office before he’s frog marched to the gurney. I confess that until just now, though I didn’t know what the ‘former child actor’ stuff was all about, until I looked it up.  Not very impressive, really, though I don’t know why that would make a difference. But I notice all the news agencies are treating it like it was. I’m just a little uncomfortable on that point. Seems to me about a half step away from casting him in the role of the victim in all of this.  That kind of thinking leads to some rather shaky thought processes. In considering that, I also want you to consider something else, here. Jennifer Deleon, Skylar Deleon, Kennedy, Alonso Machain, 22, Pico Rivera, and Myron Gardner Sr., are accused of participating in the murder of the Hawks… the purpose of the murder?  To take their $440,000 boat and life savings. They’re rich. We’re not, we’ll take it from them, being the plan.  So casting these murderers as vicims, justifiys the theft, and muder?  Explain to me, please, how this mentality is any different from the election of a redistributionist. Is stealing someone’s lifesavings …supopsedly to help the ‘victims’ of society…. any less a theft when one uses the power of government to do it, as Obama proposes to do?
• Yeah, I’m not happy about this, either, Billy.  Seems to me the question arises, though just what it is, objectively, he’s tired OF, to say no more.
• John Hawkins, who we will always reccomend you read, looks at the differemces between the post election on 00 and 04 and today. Revealing, I think.
• Here’s a vid about government schools.

I’m struck by a column by Tim Ellsworth:

JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)–An unusual obituary ran in a California newspaper in August.

It was an obit for 79-year-old JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)–An unusual obituary ran in a California newspaper in August.

It was an obit for 79-year-old Delores Aguilar in the Times-Herald of Vallejo, Calif. Her daughter Virginia Brown was the writer.

“Delores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life,” Brown wrote about her mother. “I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.”

…

, John Bogert of another local paper, the Daily Breeze, got hold of this and went round to determine if the obit was legitimate or a hoax. He found it was real of course, and Inteviewed Brown about why she wrote what she did.

“I wanted to do the right thing, the honest thing,” Brown told Bogert. “When she died a co-worker gave me a copy of an obituary she wrote for her father as a kind of writing guide. What struck me was how my mother was none of the things I was reading. She was never there for us, she was never good and she left no legacy.”

I find this striking because the kind of writing in question seems a singularly shallow thing, and I wonder if another writer would have handled it differently, would have passed on the chance to give her mother… her mother, for pity’s ske… a final shot for some percirved slight.

Being able to attribute victim status to ones’ self is something of a national sport anymore, particularly in coastal, liberal states like California. Perhaps then, this is just an example of where we’re going?

If that’s true,  I submit to you the multi-layered thought that Obama and his election is a mere symptom.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the ‘sphere.. BitsBlog’s Nightly Ramble

• Is this the shape of what’s to come, with Obama?
  

  Indianapolis – Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd.The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.

  “I want my money today! It’s my money. I want it right now!” yelled one former campaign worker.

  (Chuckle) Now… about those tax cuts…. are the same questions going to be asked?

• I’ve jumped on people recently for attributing one thing or another to the movement of the stock market, so take this with a grain of salt…  these connections are usually less than direct. Thing is,  the first time the markets had a chance to react to the election, they did, by dropping 500 points.  Normally, I’d not even mentioned it, but that constitutes the biggest post election sell-off in history. It’s thereby noteworthy, I think. Down today, too. I’d say the message of disapproval is fairly clear. Hinderaker notes this and says:
  

  It’s a bit late for investors to notice that pretty much everything Barack Obama wants to do will hurt the economy

  Yeah, true, but as I say their reactions have not always been timely. Still, Scott speculates as I have, that the downturn in the economy is the result of people getting out of the way of the oncoming Obama administration.

• I commented earlier today about Obama and his promises of change going by the boards with the appointment of Partisan-hack Clinton administration retreads like Rahm Emmanuel. Now we see those promises of ‘change’ going completely out the window with the lobby types getting jobs in Obama’s Administration. McQ has the details. Gee, that didn’t take long for those promises to get broken, did it?
•  Should anyone be shocked that Putin is trying to come back as President? Kinda reminds one of Bloomberg, doesn’t it?
• It’s a bit early for this, but I can understand why they’d want to get a jump on things.
• Of COURSE holding the Democrats to task is enough, Jon, to the extent that they are the pushers of big government. And granted, many Republicans fall into that area, as well… I’ve already commented on that.  But I tell you, this provides us a nice opportunity… the path out of this mess includes pointing out where the Democrat party’s over-relience on government doesn’t serve America’s interests well… which is about everywhere.
• Yes, I’ve seen the attacks on Palin. What’s going on there is Palin and other real conservatives which are the future of the party… not the Rockefeller Republicans, andfor all the reasons I mentioned this morning.  And yes, I know full well what I’m saying. There is in fact a fight coming within the party, one long overdue.
• Morons on parade.  A two-by four across the back of the head would have been as effective, and fully justified. Un-PC, and only half serious, but screw it. I get so sick of idiots like that.
• Hume:
  

  Sources tell FOX News that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning to meet as soon as this week with Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. They will discuss Lieberman’s chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats, but many of them are still stinging over Lieberman’s endorsement speech for Senator McCain at the Republican Convention. Since then, momentum has been building to strip Lieberman of his post and sources say that likely will happen.

  Not that I want the man anywhere near the leadership of the party, for the saem reason Ive never been happy with McCain, but expect to see Lieberman with the Republican party before this is done. Mind, that doesn’t make the man a conservative.

• You’re just now figuring this out?
• And the press bias be any more freakin’ obvious? I mean, aiside from that chill in his leg…
•  Boortz notes the passing yesterday of Michael Crichton  and notes iwth it he was someone who liked to yank the chains of the church of man-made global warming. I didn’t know that. Speaking of which… Remember when we wee all warned in dire tones about record hurricane activity? All because of “Global Warmng” of course. Turns out, this is the quietest season in 30 years. At some point, we should consider not listening to these AGW idiots anymore.
• Billy: Do you mean to tell me they couldn’t find a mess of  Obama stickers in Ithaca, a state school town?  Something doesn’t add up there, man….(LOL) Anyway, welcome home. (Weird… as I type this, “Take No Prisoners” comes up in the MP3 on ‘Random’ Didn’t even know it was IN there. )

You have to wonder about the economic literacy of our nation when I can hear more economic sense in Greek dinner than I do coming from majority party.

The party of Mes. Pelosi is talking about yet another “economic stimulus package.”   Mrs Pelosi would:  extend unemploment insurrnacd, provide additional food stamp assistance, give state help in pay for Madicaid and fund mrre fuel efficient vehicles.

What Mrs. Pelosi calls economic stimulus is merely welfare.   Taking a dollar from Peter to pay Paula does not create wealth.  It merely transfers it.   The key to economic recover is the creatson of more wealth.  Economic transfers do not, and can not create wealth.

Michelle has a example of the problem video:

Call Peggy what you will, Michelle calls her a moocher, Peggy is not part of the solution.  She is part of the problem.   Everybody looking to the One with their hand out, is part of the problem.   BO has created the impression that the state will simply provide money to pay people’s mortage, heating, fuel and food.   In other words, Obama created the impression that he is going to deliver a welfare state.

Earth to Peggy, there isn’t enough wealth for BO to redistribute to provide the kind assistance to all of BO’s many Peggy’s.    Peggy you were sold a bill of good.  The entire nation was.

You’re going to hear quite a bit from the left over ‘the death of conservatism’ over the next few weeks. But they’ve got it wrong. I say, what we’ve got is the death of compromised conservatism as espoused by George W Bush, his father, GHW Bush, and by more recently, John McCain.

This morning, we see a post from Helen Valois at Renew America, who calls this ‘conservative conservatism’. I can quibble with the name she chooses, but not her meaning…

What is conservative conservatism? It is a commitment to playing a good defense (or rather — except for the one, brief, shining moment of Governor Palin’s acceptance speech — a pretty flawed defense) when your opponents have gone decisively on the offensive. It is that which John McCain quintessentially represents — the recalcitrant determination to believe that reaching across the aisle will be met with good will from the other side; that the mainstream media can be counted on, in the last analysis, to give us a fair shake; and that, if something waddles like a Marxist and quacks like a Marxist, it therefore isn’t a Marxist.

Why did the crowd of McCain/Palin supporters resoundingly boo during McCain’s concession speech, when the heroic war hero said he had the “honor” of congratulating Barack Obama on becoming the new leader of a country “we both love”? Because they recognize, as he evidently and tragically does not, that we are no longer living in the bygone era when Democrats and Republicans may have respectfully disagreed with one another about policy issues, but still basically held certain truths to be self-evident. We want leaders who will deal with the present-day reality of what the Democratic Party has become, not play political “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” where the survival of our democratic republic is concerned. John McCain once admonished Barack Obama that, if the junior senator from Illinois wanted to run against George Bush, he should have done so four years ago. McCain himself is running a little culturally late, if taking on JFK was his ultimate goal.

This whole “conservative conservative” approach, which may be summed up as the “big tent Republican” effort to live off of Reagan’s cultural patrimony without respecting it or contributing to its growth and survival, is now officially defunct. If there’s anything to rejoice about in today’s disturbing headlines, that’s it. We no longer have the luxury of watering down conservative principle to the point of disappearance, in this party. 

The bolding is my own, and goes directly to the points I’ve made repeatedly in the last day or two, most recently in my response to the WSJ article on the way GWB’s been treated. I’ll repeat part of it because it’s critical that Democrats of today need to be clearly understood:

 Reach out to them, they’ll break your arm… as Bush Sr found out. Remember that one? He broke his ‘no new takex pldge’ because the Democrats asked him to… which they then used to beat him about the head and shoulders in 1992. Of course that Clinton, upon winning, largly on the fact that Bush Sr tried to reach out and compromise with the Democrats on taxes… then turned around and broke his tax pledge before the echo from his oath of office had died, mattered to the Democrats not at all.

 His kid, W,  never learned that lesson either as we’ve said here many times.
…

…which is one major reason why even moderate voters rejected McCain… that was a lesson he apparently never learned, either. This needs to be remembered by the next leadership of the party; there is no negotiation with Democrats. None. Both Bush 41 and Bush 43, and to a lesser degree, McCain, have taught us that lesson, one would hope.

Let me be clear; I agree that the way W’s been treated has been shameful. No question. But the fact of the matter is, he, and his father before him, and McCain have all brought this on themselves. The American voter understands this, and understands what they do not on the matter, all of which culminates at the election of Obama.

Interestingly, with that defeat of McCain, we’re hearing the mantra chant that conservatism is dead. In response to this, I dare to suggest to you that conservatism itself has not been killed off.  Conservatism was never really on the ballot for the most part. Where conservatism did show up on the ballot… for example, Prop 8 out in California, and in similar measures in Arizona and in Florida, it won bigtime. Some 30 states now have such laws on the books as a result of putting conservative values up for a vote. We hear a lot of noise about how that’s a disconnect… how voters for Obama can also in large pluaralities, pass such amendments into their state constitutions. But you see, that makes the asumption that there’s a baseline perception of McCain, the other preasidential choice, as a conservative among the electorate.

(As an aside, this is whay I’ve been saying “buyer’s remorse” is about to set itself in, come January, and possibly before; when Obama starts in with his agenda, the vast majority of Americans are going to find out just how counter Obama runs to American values)

So, it’s not conservatism per se’ that’s bene killed off.

It’s bastard cousin, ‘compassionate conservatism’, however, has been identified as directly counter productive. Even a lot of Republicans have as a result of this weak-kneed conservatism, looked at the choices offered, and decided to vote for the conservative equivalent of Cthulhu for President, on the idea that a vote for a lesser evil, McCain, simply furthered the torture. An understandable, if strikingly, and desperately suicidal move.

Clearly, what needs to happen is that conservatives either need to start speaking up and moving the Republican party back to the right, as left us by Ronald Reagan, or find another party.  To the end of the former, conservative blogs need to start re-stating conservative principles, both as general and foundational statements of fact, and in reaction to events of the day.  We need to place pressure on the Republican party to pick up the principles it has all but abandoned when the Gipper left the field.

Principles such as ‘Government isn’t the solution, government is the PROBLEM’.

Obviously, the number of people this blog can reach is limited., but we will do what we can. You’re going to be seeing some interesting, and I think exciting efforts toward that end at this blog and a number of others over the next weeks and months.   We’ll speak more about this as time goes on.

Bottom line, though, at least for now, is that  our reaction to the Republican party should be to force them to move back to the right, foring them to commit to have actual conservatives in positions of leadership, and running for office, removing those who do not fit that mold… and then forcing them… loudly… to follow through.

Addendum:  (David L)

Hell no conservatism isn’t dead.    The republicans fielded their weakest, lamest, poorest of an excuse for a candidate in my lifetime. born when HST was President.   The only candidate arguably  as lame as John McCain was Bob Dole and Dole wasn’t a traitor the party he purported to represent.

We get stuck with a RINO selected by democrats, get outspent what two or three to one. endure campaign finance fraud, massive voter fraud, a media solidly in the tank for BO, we lost by seven million votes.  

I quibble a bit with his Bitness, the bloom doesn’t come off of BO’s rose on Inauguration Day.   The bloom fades as soon as the voters realize they bought a massive bill of goods.   BO bloom starts fading the moment he has to start making and announcing decisions.

After a number of years of being Barack Obama’s enforcer, and years before that working at the Clinton White House, Rahm Emanuel has been named WH Chief of staff, and we find that John Podesta has been running things for Obama for several months. This from the Dallas Morning News this morning.

The one thing, however, missing in all the articles on the topic is how this loading up of the usual Democrat suspects, represents ‘change’. Its’ a point the paper notes:

Mr. Emanuel’s taste for bare-knuckle politics is a stark contrast to the next president’s image as a conciliator, but an ability to bang heads can help maintain internal discipline.

In 2006, Mr. Emanuel led the Democrats’ House campaign effort that ousted Republicans from power after a dozen years. Colleagues elevated him to the fourth-ranking leadership slot. His penchant for profanity is legendary, as his ability to multitask, a skill he put to good use as a political and policy adviser in the Clinton White House

“He is as smart as a fox and tough as nails, and is one of the savviest political minds that I have ever known,” said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco. “I have no doubt that he is smart enough to adjust to the culture of an Obama operation.”

“Rahm Emanuel stands for everything that Obama was saying is wrong with Washington, but he’s very competent,” said Mr. Edwards, the former congressman.

Meet the new boss…. same as the old boss.

Great news!  Books For Soldiers made their $70,000 Fund Raising goal and will NOT have to close!

BFS provides an awesome service to our deployed military members, and I hope we can continue to support this vital ministry for years to come!

Thank you to all of you that donated to and promoted this urgent need over the past few months!

2009 fundraising is now in progress… please keep Books For Soldiers in mind as you consider year-end and ongoing charitable giving.

Cross-posted from The Conservative Reader.