Those conservatives who think that when Obama’s screwed up – which he will do, of course –  the GOP will make a big come-back;  America will have learnt its lesson and never again elect a Marxist leader;  the values which made America great will be embraced again by a sorry nation; and  every trace of the harm that four or eight years of Obama-Pelosi-Reid government will have done can be kicked over, should consider what Mark Steyn has to say:

“The contrast” today is not between America and Europe, but between the slightly-more-than-half of America at ease with the prospect of a Europeanized future and the considerably-less-than-half of America for whom our differences with Europe – the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, non-confiscatory taxation, a society that prizes individual opportunity over state protection – were a big part of the American success story.

If you’re a relaxed conservative, this is 1976. Let Obama & Co have their head and screw up, and we’ll be back in two or four years. But in two or four years there’ll be even more Acorn registrations, even more foreign campaign contributions, large numbers of amnestied illegals with de facto if not quite de jure voting rights, a new Unfairness Doctrine that consolidates Democrat dominance of the dinosaur media and banishes much of the rest. If the 2012 election is a rerun of, say, 2004 – an attempt to restore the big fat red-state “L” sweeping down the Rockies and east to the Atlantic that comes down to a few thousand votes in Ohio – Republicans will lose. If it’s a 50/50 nation, the Dems will have the edge when it comes to pushing up to 50.1 – as (at the time of writing) the Al Franken machine (of all unlikely phrases) is doing so cheerfully in Minnesota.

And beyond the operational upper hand is the psychological advantage: The push to socialized health care, the “spreading” of wealth that turns responsible citizens into grateful beneficiaries of government largesse, the remorseless propagandization of a school system all but entirely hostile to the heroic national narrative, a cumulative ratchet effect that “enervates both soul and body” and that the Republican leadership finds easier to accommodate than resist. Conservatives need a bigger picture than GOTV. This is not 1976, but 1932 – at minimum.

Read it all here. 

 Burt Prelutsky writes in an article titled America’s Last Will and Testament:

I keep hearing people say they don’t know Barack Obama. Oddly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever known a presidential candidate nearly so well. I may not have seen his birth certificate or his medical records, but I’ve certainly heard his words, his wife’s words and his pastor’s words, and I feel they’ve told me all I need to know about this demagogue.

I know that he believes in the Marxist principle of sharing the wealth, and I know that doesn’t refer to his own wealth, but to everybody else’s. I know that he shares Mrs. Obama’s lack of pride in America, and that, in his gut, he believes America is a racist nation.

I know he shares Rev. Wright’s hatred of white people. Because he depends on their votes, he keeps that belief under wraps, but it certainly comes through loud and clear in his books.

I know that the people he surrounds himself with, people like Wright, Father Pfleger, Louis Farrakhan, Tony Rezko and Bill Ayres, are vile. And the ones whom he is forced by circumstance to be allied with, people like Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and John Murtha, are not much better. 

 Mona Charen writes:

If Barack Obama is elected president and Democrats control large majorities in the House and Senate, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate will move the country decisively in the direction of dying Europe – low productivity, high joblessness, low birth rates, high taxes, and limp foreign policies. The triumvirate will do this at a time when a vibrant America is more necessary than ever – with Iran seeking nuclear weapons, Pakistan teetering, al-Qaida regrouping, China and Russia telegraphing hostility, and Iraq just barely emerging into the sunshine. This election has become about far more than John McCain versus Barack Obama; it has become about whether the United States will remain the champion of freedom – economic and political – or whether we will join the queue of formerly great nations now struggling to pay for all the social welfare "benefits" their aging and lazy populations demand.

We concur.

IS AMERICA ABOUT TO SELL ITS BIRTHRIGHT – FREEDOM – FOR A POTTED MESSAGE – ‘Hope & Change’?

 An Investor’s Business Daily editorial makes it clear who is responsible for the financial crisis, and why:  

The risk-taking was her [Pelosi’s] idea — and the idea of all the other Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, who over the past 30 years have demonized lenders as racist and passed regulation after regulation pressuring them to make more loans to unqualified borrowers in the name of diversity.

They were the ones who screamed — "REDLINING!" — and sent banks scurrying for cover in low-income neighborhoods, where they have been forced to lower long-held industry standards for judging creditworthiness to make the subprime loans.

If they don’t comply, they are threatened with stiff penalties under the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, a law that forces banks to make home loans to people with poor credit risks.

No fewer than four federal banking regulatory agencies are responsible for enforcing the law. They subject lenders to racial litmus tests and issue regular report cards, the industry’s dreaded "CRA rating."

The more branches that lenders put in poor neighborhoods, and the more loans they make there, the better their rating. Those lenders with low ratings can not only be fined, but also blocked from mergers and other business transactions needed to expand.

The regulation grew to monstrous proportions during the Clinton administration, obsessed as it was with multiculturalism. Amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s dramatically raised the amount of home loans to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers.

The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical "housing rights" groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama.

Banks and other lending institutions should not be the servants of government. They should be in business to make a profit. In the end, the perversion of their purpose harmed the whole economy, and the worst sufferers are precisely those that the misdirection of their function was supposed to help.  

 Nancy Pelosi does not know that natural gas has to be drilled for. 

Power Line reports and comments:

So it’s beyond dispute: Nancy Pelosi really does not understand that natural gas is a fossil fuel. This is truly shocking. Pelosi is one of the principal people responsible for setting the nation’s energy policy. In the House of Representatives, she has blocked exploration and development of natural gas resources as well as other fossil fuels, thereby raising the price of gasoline at the pump and energy costs across the board. And she has wielded this immense power while being ignorant of the most basic facts about energy. She is not qualified to carry on an intelligent conversation about energy, let alone set the nation’s energy policy.

The folks at the Institute for Energy Research have prepared a primer on energy for Mrs. Pelosi’s benefit:

Natural gas is colorless, odorless fossil fuel that is prized for its cleanliness and its many uses – including energy. It is produced in much the same way as oil – by drilling for it – and is often produced in conjunction with oil.

Pelosi’s ignorance is deadly; she says she is a big booster of natural gas, but she literally fails to understand that to get natural gas we have to drill for it, onshore and off. Hence this exchange yesterday:

BROKAW: Sounds like we’re going to have offshore drilling.

PELOSI: No, no, no.

 

Nancy Pelosi’s ignorance is costing every American money, impairing our economy, depriving us of untold hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs, and endangering our national security. One wonders how long voters will be willing to put up with Democratic control of Congress.

 Why did Nancy Pelosi refuse to allow a vote that could have resulted in the bringing of more US oil to the US market and a consequent lowering of the price of gas? 

Michelle Malkin supplies the answer:

As reported on dontgomovement.com, Speaker Pelosi bought between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in [T. Boone] Pickens’ CLNE Corp. in May 2007 on the day of the initial public offering:

"She, and other investors, stand to gain a substantial return on their investment if gasoline prices stay high, and municipal, state and even the Federal governments start using natural gas as their primary fuel source. If gasoline prices fall? Alternative fuels and the cost to convert fleets over to them become less and less attractive."

CLNE also happens to be the sponsor of Proposition 10, a ballot initiative in Pelosi’s home state of California to dole out a combined $10 billion in state and federal funds for renewable energy incentives – namely, natural gas and wind.

Follow the money. Or, to put it in economist’s terms as energy analyst Kenneth Medlock III did in an interview with The Dallas Morning News about the Pickens multibillion dollar wind farm investment: "A lot of what he’s trying to do is add value to a stranded asset he’s obviously got millions of dollars on the line."

And so, potentially, does the Democratic Speaker of the House – all the while wagging her finger at the financial motivation of others.

 Hugh Hewitt writes that the economic mess the country confronts  can be laid at the door of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

He asserts:

A vote for any Democrat is a vote for shortages, rising gas prices, rising unemployment, and falling production. A vote for any democrat is a vote for failing airlines and collapsing financial institutions and for the shuttering of car plants and large manufacturing.

A growing, vibrant economy needs energy. The Democrats are anti-energy.

Read the whole article here.