Previous posts here and here. As I noted yesterday, the election for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice in WI was going to be a clear indicator of the political forces roiling through the electorate. All the lefty spin doctors were out claiming a win by the liberal, union-backed Kloppenburg would scare the pants off the GOP elected leaders.

Well, that won’t happen. In the state that basically birthed the union movement we see a 50-50 result with no clear winner (though Kloppenburg has some key districts still out). After a massive GOTV effort by the left and right, the ramparts of the union stronghold are breached and battered. It is not the snapshot of this election that matters, but the trend it is clearly a part of.

Unions continue their downward path in terms of power and support while the centrist, libertarian ‘tea party’ movement has shown its mobilization strength is on par with the best political operations out there. Note this is not a social conservative force, but a fiscal, limited government movement.

Bottom line: WI government unions will still lose the cash cow that was the government forcibly collecting their dues from members. Now the unions will have to ask their members for donations – a clout killer if their ever was one. If this catches hold nationally, the left will be politically crippled. They will need to ask for support (the horror!).

Bottom line: WI government union workers will still need to pay into their individual pension and health plans (so sad …). This was the first concession unions made to try and save their cash cow. No going back. And this is now spreading across the nation to red and blue states alike.

Bottom line: GOP leaders across the nation know the voters will fight for them. Watch those recall elections next. My bet is the GOP senators who voted their convictions and promises will be supported, the flee-baggers who tried to destroy our hard-fought democratic processes will be shown the door. We can disagree, but we have to work to get along. Running out of state and holding your breathe until you get your way is not impressive, nor brave. It is bald petulance. Having loud and obnoxious sit-ins while threatening people executing our democracy is petulance (at the juvenile delinquent level). Making up lies and exaggerations in simpleton attack ads rises to back-stabbing petulance.

That is the wrap on Canary Tuesday in Wisconsin. The Libertarian Tea Party crowd has seen they can make a difference, and the unions have finally met their equal. No amount of pathetic spin from the left will change this dynamic. The libertarians are serious, respectful and determined. The left has no counter force.

It is April 2011, and the wave that hit November 2010 is still out there, full of energy and focus. The Democrats pretending otherwise are just walking over the political cliff.

A lesson for them this week, before they get any dumb ideas about shutting down the government over $6 billion in useless spending. With Ryan’s $6 trillion dollar budget out there, that pathetic $6 billion (which would be 6 cents to 60 dollars) looks again like petulance. See a trend here Dems?

Update: Ed Morrissey has his usual insightful comments posted up at Hot Air

Tags: Election, Kloppenburg, Posser, Unions, Walker, Wisconsin

1:17 AM Eastern: Calling it a night, need to work tomorrow. Looks like Kloppenburg has hope in Dane (1), Eau Claire (6), Milwaukee (12) and a smattering of others. Prosser has hope in Marathon (32), Jefferson (1), Manitowoc (1) and not much else. Prosser’s lead down to 1.7k. Could go either way, but I doubt we will know for hours – and then the recount and court filings and ….. Good night!

1:02 AM Eastern: Can’t type fast enough to keep up. Some Dane precincts shrunk Prosser’s lead to 2.4k. 21 precincts left for Kloppenburg, about 32 for Prosser. The wire is approaching.

1:00 AM Eastern: Fasten those seat belts folks. Prosser just jumped out to a 4.7k vote lead, still 97% reporting and 50-50% race. Ozaukee and Racine came in and bumped Prosser good, Marathon still has about 32 precincts left to report.

12:56 AM Eastern: Seesaw! Something came in (looks like a Milwaikee district) and bumped Kloppenburg up by 1.6k votes, but there are still enough precincts out to move this either way. still 97% reporting – Update: Learned Racine is still in the race and will soon add 3k more to Prosser.

12:47 AM Eastern: Its up to Marathon and Ozaukee to hold the lead as the final precincts dribble in. 97% reporting and Prosser is clinging to 1.9k vote lead (50-50%).

12:40 AM Eastern: OK, I am reversing myself here – looks like a Prosser squeaker. Dane county is tapped out, yet Prosser now holds a 2k vote lead with 95% reporting. That has it 50-50 race, but I don’t see where Kloppenburg can make up the difference. Prosser still has a junk coming from Waukesha and Marathon – Washington apparently pushed him up and over and is now spent.

12:30 AM Eastern: Prosser takes a small lead (0.6k votes) with a bump from Waukesha. Dane still has some juice left in it though so it is not done yet. But Marathon has some votes for Prosser as well – speaking of ironies. Watch Washington (Prosser) as well.

12:25 AM Eastern: For political junkies it does not get any better than this. It is right down to the wire in WI. 92% of precincts reporting has a tiny 1.5k vote lead and it is 50-50. Some think more Prosser precincts are still out, but I won’t be convinced until the large Dane-liberal precincts tap out. Its a fight between Marathon and Waukesha (Prosser) vs Dane right now.

12:15 AM Eastern: Wowza! 90% reporting and it is 50-50% with Kloppenburg ahead by a tiny 1.7k votes. I have never seen a lead shrink so fast so late. But now it looks like Prosser’s strongholds are tapping out (Fond du Lac produced a surge as expected). Must be busting the models tonight. Recount looks unavoidable (though I don’t know WI rules on this).

12:10 AM Eastern: HOLD THE PRESSES! 88% reporting, back to 50-50% and Kloppenburg’s 35k lead is now down to 5k. Hot Air has a link expecting a Prosser squeaker now. Someone go refill the beer and popcorn!

12:02 AM Eastern: Last update. Looks like a Kloppenburg squeaker win. Prosser did incredibly well, and the unions do not come away with a voter mandate. 84% reporting Kloppenburg has a comfortable 35k lead, but only a 51-49% possible win margin. No mandate, no referendum on Walker. Classic Pyrrhic victory as government unions lose ground across the country and barely win a marginal election in WI. LOL! can’t wait to read the silly hype tomorrow.

11:55 PM Eastern: Seesaw killjoy. 81% reporting Kloppenburg jumps to 51-49% lead and 18k. If this is not her last gasp, and the unreported GOP precincts don’t produce, it could be squeaker loss for Prosser. – Update: the Prosser precincts are reporting in finally, not good. Still enough Kloppenburg areas left to win this. As I said this morning – a tight leftwing win simply means their last bastion of union core support barely survived. The laws will still go into effect.

11:50 PM Eastern: 78% reporting, 50-50% and Kloppenburg holds a narrow 8k lead. But huge GOP bastions in Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee have a lot of results left to report – could tally many tens of thousands to Prosser. Kloppenburg’s areas are just about tapped out.

11:40 PM Eastern: 71% reporting in, still 50-50% and Kloppenburg has 6k lead. I am watching Waukasha, which only shows 25% of precincts in and a Prosser lead of 73-27%. If the margin in the other 75% of precinct is even close, Prosser could jump by up to 90k votes. There are also a lot of decent sized areas not reporting. Anyone’s guess right now.

11:25 PM Eastern: Fast and furious now. 66% reporting, 50-50% Kloppenbug has slim 1.4k lead.

11:23 PM Eastern: Seesaw is making me queasy – but in a good way this cycle. with 64% of the vote in Prosser is back into a 51-49% lead and a 18k vote lead. I still see a lot of potential Prosser gains out there. If Prosser pulls this off, the knees will be cut out from under the unions and left. The bastion of union policy will have turned a corner.

11:17 PM Eastern: Ouch! 61% reporting an Kloppenburg jumps to a 51-49% lead and 11k votes. But I see potentially 50K Prosser votes out there potentially. Nails gone.

11:10 PM Eastern: Incredible. I see a lot of potential precincts not reporting which should/could push Prosser way over the top. The liberal bastions are mostly in and the GOP bastions have a lot of votes to offset them. Right now 58% reporting in and Kloppenburg holds a thin 4k lead at 50-50. But the left’s potential may be spent.

11:00 PM Eastern: Wow, what a seesaw. 51% reporting in we are back to 50-50 as the liberal precincts finally cough up tallies. Prosser still holds a slim 1k lead. Nail biter!

10:55 PM Eastern: As we approach 50% of precincts reporting we would normally see the edge solidify for one or the other candidate. The problem is the massive and very liberal Dane precincts are not reporting (must be finding those needed missing votes0. As of now 46% reporting Prosser has a good 52-48% lead with a 29k lead. The fat lady is warming her pipes.

10:45 PM Eastern: Big jump for Prosser at a good time. He has moved to a 52-48% lead, but more importantly 38% of the precincts are reporting in and he has opened a 18k lead. What is worrisome is the liberal strong hold of Dane has 3/4’s of its precincts out. This is truly exciting.

10:30 PM Eastern: The seesaw tips back to 50-505, Prosser still holds a 2k lead. Lots of liberal precincts may still be out.

10:25 PM Eastern: 24% in and Prosser is holding a small lead 51-49% with around 7k votes. Once we get near 45-50% reporting this race should cement into place.

10:08 PM Eastern: 17% in and its back to 50-50%. A better site to see results by county is here. 1.4k votes separate the two candidates.

10:00 PM Eastern: Presser is slowly expanding a tenuous lead in votes. With 12% reporting he leads 51-49%, but has amassed a 5.4k vote tally lead. Looks like this will be a nail biter. No clue which precincts are reporting (D or R).

9:42 PM Eastern: With a miniscule 6% of the vote in it’s a dead heat with 50-50. The turn out was apparently off the charts, which in my opinion means the people will speak loud and clear. Fingers crossed they also speak sanely.

OK, I have sworn off making predictions in close and dynamic races that confound conventional wisdom due to unique or rare forces at play. Case in point: Today’s election for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. It appears all nominal turn out models can be tossed out, leaving us the reality that we have no clue what the voters in Wisconsin will do today:

Governor Scott Walker’s budget- repair bill is stirring projections of above-average voter turnout across northern Wisconsin for today’s elections.

Superior City Clerk Terri Kalan expects voter turnout to be between 50 percent and 55 percent, much busier than typical spring elections.

“Average turnout is under 30 percent. The mayoral race, of course, is bringing people out. The justice of the Supreme Court [race] is really helping to push that percentage up, and then we have a couple City Council races, also.”

…

Although the State Government Accountability Board expects only a 20 percent turnout for this election, several areas are expecting 50 percent or higher.

Truth is Wisconsin is this week’s canary in the political coal mine. I lost the link, but it turns out there are as many or more Democrat Governors curbing union collective bargaining perks than GOP ones. It just happens the GOP is getting the brunt of the liberal press. But that does not mean the American voters are buying the PR spin. CA and NY as well as OH and WI and many other states are forcing unions to subsidize their perks. No more free rides (or at least a lot fewer).

Everyone agrees the unions are going to finally feel the recession as government spending is now many times the rate of revenues. In March the Feds spent 8 times more than they took in. “Unsustainable” is a bit of an understatement. We clearly do not have the money to provide lots of government workers lots of benefits. We either give a lot of workers lesser benefits or fewer workers lots of benefits. It’s the same simple math everyone is facing in these tight economic times. False cries of outrage from the left is not selling.

So what happens if Presser wins in WI? It will only be icing on a cake baked and being served across the nation. WI is the home of the union movement. That fact unions are even under minor siege in WI is testament to the political wave still crashing across the country. A wave built up over 2 years of out-of-control liberal governance and failure. A wave which swept out Democrats in historic numbers across all levels of government last fall.

The wave has not abated nor lost its energy. If Presser loses, it will be only mean the most unionized of states avoided fiscal sanity. Which in turn means fiscal ruin for Wisconsin. Even a Pyrrhic victory in this unpredictable election will only be a small win on one marginal battle field in a war the left is losing everywhere else.

No doubt, all eyes will be on the Cheeseheads this evening to see where the anti-left wave will peak this year. But they have lost so much ground I fail to see this as a real win, as much as holding their last strong hold.

The GOP finally got smart and let one of its young guns lose as Field General in the all important budget debate. It has become quite clear to America that the economy will never right itself while DC spends massively more than it has AND continues to insert lame public solutions where private industry solutions reign. Rep Ryan’s plan to change course (and I mean ‘change’ we can really believe in) is comprehensive, serious and compassionate.

But before I get to the plan let’s review how the idiotic Democrats are going to misplay this historic point in time. We are going to get an ear full of claims about how the GOP plan is imperfect. Keep this in mind because this is the tired old political ploy to attempt to freeze progress. It never provides a solution, just a fear to take any steps forward. And it won’t work this time around.

Once upon a time our government and leaders looked about to find that 10% of ideas that can really make a difference. We used to debate, assess, monitor and demand success. Then the intellectually lazy left (who have an inordinate amount of ego energy) changed the paradigm. Instead of working to find that 10% and avoid the 90% of wasted time and money associated with the much more voluminous wrong ideas, the left went to their shotgun approach.

Now, instead of finding a real solution, the left pours billions after billions of dollars down immature and untested concepts in the hopes 10% of it may bear fruit. This is not a theory of life, but a fact. One of the feature wannabe characteristics of the left is to be the next Thomas Edison. But Thomas Edison exemplifies the rule that most ideas are dead ends and it takes time to find the right path before we spend a nation’s treasure pursuing results.

Edison had to try out numerous potential solutions for the light bulb before finding the solution that would change humanity forever. But if he was a modern Democrat he would have run off half-cocked spending trillions of tax payer funds DEPLOYING his failed ideas one after another, leaving a wake of havoc and suffering. This is what we saw with the lame Stimulus Bill put out by the Dems, and is the model we see in Obamacare – a bunch of half baked ideas thrown together to see what works. Classic liberal thinking (or lack thereof). This is what we see in our broken education system and the useless windmill farms that have blighted the landscape. All half baked ideas which have been proven to be wrong paths only after wasting billions.

So we will be handed the most foul of false choices in the coming weeks and months. Possible (but highly improbable) imperfections in the GOP plan as argument to retain the completely dysfunctional and broken existing policies. Policies that got us into the economic rut we are in the first place. Libs will attempt to claim their broken approaches that killed the world’s premier economic engine of all time is better than some hyped and exaggerate risks.

It won’t work. I for one look forward to being one of those who will be on the forefront of a new Medicare/Medicaid system that leaves me in charge of deciding my health care – not some Obama-appointee with a serious lack of real understanding and compassion:

Though Rep. Ryan based the Medicare portion of his budget on a previous plan created in collaboration with a Democrat, Alice Rivlin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and long-time budget expert, the current plan isn’t likely to get much Democratic support. …

The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills. …

Mr. Ryan’s proposal would apply to those currently under the age of 55, and for those Americans would convert Medicare into a “premium support” system. Participants from that group would choose from an array of private insurance plans when they reach 65 and become eligible, and the government would pay about the first $15,000 in premiums. Those who are poorer or less healthy would receive bigger payments than others.

Perfect. No more stupid one-size-fits-all crap. No more subsidizing the rich. No more deciding what is effective for each patient as if the biological bell curve for health and disease was some nice thin peak which covers everyone. The other hidden misstep in Obamacare is that biological diversity in the human species is incredibly broad, especially when it comes to diseases and treatments. Good health is almost always a balance of chemical and environmental factors each individual possesses in a unique mix. It is the genetic diversity required of a vibrant species. That is why once-size-fits-all usually turns out to be one-size-fits-few.

To pretend we fit a narrow mold of bio-chemical parameters, strengths and weaknesses is really just effort by lesser minds to grasp complex issues. We see this time and time again from liberal ‘science’. They boil complex systems down to one index to discern some forces and responses, but then are surprised when they have to migrate back into the complex and non-linear systems of reality and their theories crash and burn (note: this has happened in global climate where they tried to hide the contrary data that broke their theories, and in economics where their simpleton government trickle down approach crashed and burned, to mention just two examples).

There will be no support for the left and their cries of imperfection in the GOP proposals. There will be no alternatives offered by them but to continue on our disastrous course over their cliff. There will be nothing but the usual cries of the Chicken Little party. And there will be fear in the government employee unions as the true force of this recession finally hits them. None of this will carry the day.

Paul Ryan’s road map is a good one. He does not require those too far into the Federal gilded cage to take risks. He only requires those with plenty of time to adjust to do just that. It is better than the alternative, which is pretend nothing is happening and we all hit the cliff without warning or preparation. I would rather have to time to adjust than crash and burn. It is a simple and powerful logical conclusion.

Ryan’s plan cuts government down to levels we have flourished under before. We have let too many dumb shotgun ideas see the light of day and endless public funding. No more. Without hard proof of results (past or future) everything the government does should be on the chopping block until each validates it reason to exist. Guilty until proven of value.

We will once again be looking only for that 10% of ideas that have a prayer to produce significant results. No more throwing billions at the wall to see what sticks. We The People can do that on our own just fine without the government overhead and arrogance-based incompetence that ensure failure after failure. Government is going on a serious diet – no more excuses.

Tags: Democrats, Federal Budget, Liberals, Obamacare, Paul Ryan

Air power cannot win wars, but it can rack up body bags full of innocent civilians:

At least 40 civilians have been killed in air strikes by Western forces on Tripoli, the top Vatican official in the Libyan capital told a Catholic news agency on Thursday, quoting witnesses.

At least 40. Using an illegal UN resolution to get us into an unconstitutional war to supposedly protect Libyans from mass murder Emperor Obama’s path to the dark side is now complete. He is willing to accept the deaths of innocents to salve his ego and prove he is butch enough to wield US military power.

We really have no option than to start impeachment – the gathering of evidence. Removal from office may not be required yet. But the investigations must begin.

We are going to have a vote this week in the Senate on whether we should throw billions of dollars and millions of jobs down the toilet because of some Green-Eyed liberal fantasy about CO2 causing global warming. It is important for the American people to understand that pulling the EPA’s authority to control all energy and businesses through a mythological effort to save the planet is actually going to save the planet – from power hungry fools.

The entire argument for regulating CO2 is based on a series of falsehoods, which when exposed make the argument for WHY the EPA needs to be reigned in.

First we have data which disproves the now defunct theory of Anthropogenic (Human Driven) Global Warming – AGW. If one looks over the past half century one would expect to find that, as a result of the clearly measured increase in atmospheric CO2, the Global Temperature is warming. The CO2 levels have increased (yet are nowhere near historic highs). But folks would be shocked to discover there has been NO response in temperature AS THE THEORY DEMANDS if the theory were actually true:

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. …

Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much. …

The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.

This is the core idea of every official climate model: for each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three – so two thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors), only one third is due to extra carbon dioxide.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

…

The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot-spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10km up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, 80s, and 90s, the weather balloons found no hot-spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.

… You see, in science empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.

So, how did they hide this real data? Well, there are a series of now infamous graphs and studies which actaully ‘hid’ the long term temperature data which supported the weather balloon results. Worse yet, the bad data was summarily tossed out of calculations and replaced by manipulated thermometer data – pretending these were all one consistent set of data. Which they were not. Here is one of the newly discovered smoking guns:

This smoking gun was discovered by the dogged statistical expert Steve McIntyre. [click to enlarge]. What the graph shows (in plain English) is how the purple data set was deleted from the equations (and graph) and replaced with the thick black data at the end of the series – which gave this chart and all its later version the Hockey Stick shape. Without that black blade sticking up in the air, there is no global climate emergency.

See, all the ‘temperature’ data that is shoved around under the noses of pliant politicians and journalists (most of which struggled through grade school math and science) is actually not temperature data. It is a guesstimate of local temperatures based on what are called proxies. These can be measurements of atmospheric chemical and elements in ice cores (which tend to disprove the idea CO2 drives global temperatures). But in these graphs they are mostly related to organisms, through which any local temperature ‘signal’ is noisy – which means it has a lot of error bars on it.

In fact, the deleted and hidden purple data indicates how noisy these proxies really are (in this case tree rings at high elevations and latitudes). Notice how the purple line ‘diverges’ from the other data between 1400 and 1700. That shows that the tree ring data is barely (if at all) able to reflect local temperatures. It only matches for a brief time before wandering its own way then and in recent times. This was the latest smoking gun uncovered on the AGW pile of misinformation.

When this data was hidden, it hid the fact we cannot compare modern temperature records to any historic recreation using these attempts with any accuracy. In fact, the more recent part of the purple line, which dives down while the so called modern temperature record rises to unseen heights is unambiguous evidence of just this. If proxies where a good measure of temp, they would follow modern temperature which are actual (if not spare) measurements. Clearly they don’t.

So why would someone hide this important key fact? Why would someone delete good data and replace it with an illusion? Probably all that money and those careers built upon being the top Chicken Littles on the planet.

Another bit of data rarely shown is the estimates of error from the UK’s Climactic Research Unit (CRU) itself – home of the AGW theory and cover up. Here is a graph of the 1961 calculated (not estimated) error in the temperature records that make up the 1961 Global Temperature index:

It comes from this CRU document. This analysis indicates that the temperatures for each grid (square) that make up the record for 1961 are only accurate to 1-3° C. If 1961 is only accurate to this level, all the other years are as well. Which means you cannot use this data to claim a sub-degree change over time. That is well into the noise of the data. This is what CRU does not advertise, because it blows away the Hockey Stick chart and replaces it with a tube of large unknowns with an error band of +/- 3° C or more.

Which brings us to the lie. It was not enough to just trim data in a graph to fit their defunct theory, it was cooked math as well. And to this day the liars still pretend no one caught them in the act. When the world’s real scientists, engineers and mathematicians focused their attention on the AGW alarmists arguments, they discovered dodgy math, unfounded and hyped claims, deleted data that disproves their theories, a biased and manipulated peer review process and a lot of propaganda thrown on top.

Which is why the EPA’s efforts to regulate the air you breath out is such a farce and must be stopped. We may witness this week an act in Congress that actually stops a disastrous power grab from coming to fruition. At least let’s hope so.

We should declare victory and leave the Libyan mess to the French. We stopped the massacre of Benghazi from occuring – Mission Accomplished! (at least according to Emperor Obama’s speech to his subjects this week). Per the UN resolutions and all the false PR, we are done. And a good thing too, because Col Qaddafi is not going to be deposed any time soon:

Bin Jawad has a mostly apolitical Bedouin population. “It’s a quiet town,” says Salah, an engineer who lives in the town, which is barely a mile long from east to west. “Most of the people work in the oil companies nearby.”

But for the second time in less than a month, it’s also the town where the ambitions of Libya’s rebels run smack against the merciless reality of war. At the beginning of the week, the rebels — emboldened by allied air strikes and a war that seemed to be shifting suddenly in their favor — had pushed west into Bin Jawad.

…

By Tuesday afternoon, it was the rebels’ turn to flee again — in a tangled, panicked traffic jam of gun trucks and civilian cars — as Gaddafi’s forces pounded them once again with a barrage of missile fire and sniper shots. It was a familiar scene, and Bin Jawad may yet become a most familiar front line.

The Emperor’s rag tag group of supposed freedom fighters is no match for Qaddafi’s forces. It seems President Obama is playing out some childish fantasy in his head, where kids in pick up trucks using make shift weapons take on the all powerful military.

Sadly, in reality that means massive death and destruction on both sides and no Disney ending. Unlike our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we were willing to put our blood on the line for our causes, Emperor Obama and his war cabinet are trying to win this one on the cheap. They don’t want to get too close, close enough to make the final difference. It is a well known fact outside the liberal haze of delusion that no war can be won with stand-off weapons alone. In Iraq and Afghanistan we fought side-by-side with our allies. We did not send them into meat grinders and then hold conferences in Europe to plot the next debacle.

We have created a worse mess in Libya than was there before. We now have an Eastern Libya that will be a magnet for Islamist and Jihadists who will be trained and armed by the Great Satan itself. A moronic result any sane person knew would likely transpire.

So are we cutting our losses since we fulfilled the UN and Emperor’s mandate to stop the massacre of Benghazi? Hell no, these lunatics are contemplating boots on the ground!

Should rebels in Libya be successful in driving Col. Moammar Gadhafi from power, they may need a foreign presence on the ground to keep the country stable, according to U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, Stavridis, the top NATO military commander, told lawmakers that NATO could wind up deploying ground troops, given its history in past conflicts such as Bosnia and Kosovo.

So far, the chance of this happening is slim without ground forces to unseat Qaddafi. But we are on the slippery slope. This unconstitutional war, founded on an illegal UN mandate that violates its own charter, is quickly spinning out of control. It is well past time to stop the madness before even more damage is done.

Update: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air notes the Rebel retreat, and I have created a topic covering all my posts on this unfolding disaster

Tags: Benghazi, Emperor Obama, Qaddafi, UN

One of the reasons a lot of us supported President Bush in Iraq was he took the time and political capitol to garner UN and Congressional resolutions in support of the Iraqi front in the War on Terror. By doing so, he demonstrated beyond a doubt the moral righteousness of his actions, because he won the support of the people’s representatives and the international community. His rush to war took 9 grueling months.

Emperor Obama’s speech tonight illustrated exactly why we have checks and balances to contain the egos of our Presidents and force them to only act with the support of the nation. Obama’s speech was incoherent and intellectually insulting. In the crude fig-leaf language of protecting Libyan citizens, we are bombing the crap out of those Libyan tribes and citizens aligned with Qadaffi. It is such a brutal and ugly farce it rips at the concepts of honor and truth.

We are not protecting a besieged city from massacre right now (that was accomplished days ago). We are about to unleash our military might on Qadaffi strongholds, risking enemy civilians lives to help OUR side win this civil war.

We are not working in a unified international alliance, but being told by our one-time allies the Arab League to end the killing of Qadaffi’s forces now and prepare for a political resolution that will leave the evil Qadaffi in power. We cannot remove Qadaffi without inflicting massive casualties on civilians now.

Obama talked about how America cannot sit by why people suffer. What about the North Korean people? What about the Iranian freedom fighters mowed down during peaceful protests. What number of human deaths and atrocities make it a Responsibility 2 Protect?

The Emperor tried to explain why HE believed we needed to attack a sovereign nation and beginning killing people. He never made the case, and in fact could not make the case. There is no VITAL American interest in Libya. In terms of stopping a massacre, we are done. Pull all our forces out (including those attached to NATO) and let’s have a congressional vote on continuing Obama’s madness in the name of American people.

Obama has over reached and violated our Constitution. He needs to be reigned in. And as for all those neocons standing by him – you too just lost the support of Main Stream America.

Addendum: Most embarrassing moment – Emperor Obama’s attempt to butch up and claim there should be no doubt he would wield US military power. Not only was it an embarrassing effort to cover up his own insecurity, there is little doubt he is reckless enough to use it – and little doubt he will misuse our power on a fool’s obsession. He convinced us he is ‘winging’ it and just trying to look impressive, without trying.

Clearly, Obama’s idea of ‘military action’ only means boots on the ground. Bombardment from the air and off shore using cruise missiles somehow is not ‘war’.

Update: The AP is not so easily snowed by Obama’s linguistic flourish and misinformation:

In transferring command and control to NATO, the U.S. is turning the reins over to an organization dominated by the U.S., both militarily and politically. In essence, the U.S. runs the show that is taking over running the show.

And the rapid advance of rebels in recent days strongly suggests they are not merely benefiting from military aid in a defensive crouch, but rather using the multinational force in some fashion – coordinated or not – to advance an offensive.

Here is a look at some of Obama’s assertions in his address to the nation Monday, and how they compare with the facts:

The Liar-in-Chief?

Tags: Address To Nation, Libya, NATO, Obama

Everywhere you look today, a day of supposed rest and peaceful reflection, the liberals, progressives and other forms of immature and unprofessional failures have been making headlines with their inherent incompetence shining through.

First off, many of those living off the public dole are upset that the public does not have any dole left to hand out:

Over 200 people were arrested as extremists brought violent chaos to central London yesterday after hijacking the much-heralded trade union protest against public spending cuts.

As Powerline notes, the reasoning behind the destruction and violence is moronic, since the life you lead is the life you yourself worked so hard (IRONY ALERT) to achieve:

Their rationale was as dumb as you would expect:

Sally Mason, one of the protesters who occupied the store, said: ‘Fortnum & Mason is a symbol of wealth and greed. It is where the Royal Family and the super-rich do their weekly shop and a picnic hamper costs £25,000.

‘This sits in stark contrast to everyone else who is struggling to make ends meet, fill in their tax returns and benefit forms and facing huge student debts, unemployment and the closure or dismantling of local services such as the NHS, libraries and leisure centres.’

Filling in handout forms is such hard work. As Powerline notes, there are sad echoes of Wisconsin here. Or is Wisconsin just one canary in the pending coal mine disaster?

Failures always blame others for their failures. When you vote to support budget-busting spendthrifts who cannot even run lemonade stand, and then they blow all the collective money on foolish and wasteful policies, you only have yourself to blame for the results. Don’t go blaming all of us who avoided the Kool-Aid, kept our heads clear and built self-sustaining lives. Especially after decades of warnings that liberal policies would lead to just these results!

And then there is the liberal ignorance on international policy and terrorism. It seems the reason Emperor Obama never presented his mad Libyan war plans to Congress is because he was aware of some of its more damning features:

It has come to light in just the last few days that commanders of the “rebels” (you know, those secular freedom fighters who are supposedly better for us than Qaddafi) include one Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi. And, I’ll be darned, it turns out that Hasadi is a jihadist who fought the United States in Afghanistan, and was detained for years until our forces turned him over to Libya. That was during the Bush years, when, through democracy-project alchemy, Qaddafi was transformed into a valuable U.S. ally against terrorism. Our new friend Qaddafi promptly . . . released him in 2008, in a deal designed to appease his Islamist opposition — a common practice in the Middle East, where, because Islam dominates life, even dictators must alternately court and repress jihadists in order to hang on.

More here. Another reason why Catch and Release is a bad idea. Catch, Sentence and Lock Away for Life is a much better solution. Trust me on this point however, Obama was warned that the rebels were being led by Jihadists we had once detained in GITMO. He was well aware he was playing with deadly fire (but others would pay the price if he was wrong). This goes back to his naive and stupid belief Jihadists are good at heart, and not the latest evil to scour the world. He knew, and I hope Congressional hearings expose the fact he was fore warned.

Finally, we have a liberal UK news outlet waking up to the real source of famine in the world – liberal energy policies:

Thanks to dysfunctional regulation of genetic engineering and misguided biofuels policy, the world’s poorest are going hungry.

Food prices worldwide were up by a whopping 25% in 2010, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, and February marked the eighth consecutive month of rising global food prices. Within the past two months, food riots helped to trigger the ousting of ruling regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. (It is noteworthy that food prices increased 17% last year in Egypt, and the price of wheat, a critical staple there, soared by more than 50%.) For poor countries that are net importers of food, even small increases in food prices can be catastrophic, and recent bumps have been anything but small.

Imagine that. The chaos roiling the Middle East is due to spectacular failures of liberal policies. Not really surprising giving how well all their other policies pan out. A fact we will sadly remember for decades to come as we pay off their mountains of debt, which produced mountains of nothingness in return. If nothing else, we have finally learned that good intentions backed by lots of money can still produce disasters if the intentions are not themselves backed up with experience, skill and real leadership. A fool with cash is still a fool.

Anyway, there is more to the tale of how liberals starved a planet:

And fourth, against this backdrop of lessened supply and heightened demand, private investment in R&D on innovative practices and technologies has been discouraged by arbitrary and unscientific national and international regulatory barriers – against, in particular, new varieties of plants produced with modern genetic engineering (aka recombinant DNA technology or genetic modification, or GM). Genetic engineering offers plant breeders the tools to make crops do spectacular new things. In more than two dozen countries, farmers are using genetically engineered crop varieties to produce higher yields, with lower inputs and reduced impact on the environment.

It is amazing how the proponents of evolution fight the use of evolution to create better food sources. I saw the lamest commercial the other day, where it claimed it sold seeds for vegetable plants that were not genetically manipulated. Which of course is a bald faced lie. Every domesticated food source (plant and animal) has been genetically manipulated. The difference between when the American Indians genetically manipulated maze into corn, and the modern efforts to create disease resistant corn, is the time cycle to achieve the resultant genetic changes. All ‘domesticated’ organisms are here because of human manipulation of their genome. We used the evolutionary principle that traits will thrive if selected for in each generation.

I mean, how thick do you have to be to not realize this? Anyway, combine the irrational fear of evolution on crops with the insane coupling of food and energy sources through ethanol, and you have the famine and riots envisioned by the Global Warming Alarmists.

The United States is approaching the diversion of 40% of the corn harvest for fuel and the EU has a goal of 10% biofuel use by 2020.

Which brings me to a possible epiphane:

It now looks like Global Warming is just a clever but incompetently woven cover story for all these other liberal policies backfiring! The best way to blame the pending chaos of liberal policies on those who they oppose and hate is to concoct some lame story about how it is all the fault of industry! Too bad that idea fell to shoddy science and math.

Tags: Food Riots, Libya, Middle East, Obama, UK RIots

So it turns out we are fighting ALONG SIDE our mortal enemies al Qaeda in Libya:

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

Who the hell are running things in the White House? Is Obama’s War going to run all the way to the anniversary of 9-11?

It is about time Congress put a halt to Commander Moron’s War and de-fund all US activities in Libya. Leave this mess to the UN and Arab League and pull our people back. There are clearly no good sides in this civil war.

Congressional hearings could not start soon enough. Why is Congress still on “spring break” with this disaster roiling? Why aren’t they back here taking measure of Obama’s War and its mess?

Update: Great, now we are ARMING al Qaeda:

Western diplomatic sources have confirmed to Sky News that the US is considering the legality of arming the Libyan rebels.

More at The Jawa Report. I really hate to get to this point, but Obama’s War (sorry, Obama’s Kinetic Military Action) definitely seems to be ripe for the Impeachment process in the house. If arming our sworn enemies is not a high crime I don’t know what is.

Tags: al-Qaeda, Libya, Obama's War