Not exactly news: Democrats continue to destroy capitalism, prevent recovery

You're not surprised by this, are you?

The House passed the most ambitious restructuring of federal financial regulations since the New Deal on Friday . . .
The sprawling legislation would give the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy, create a new agency to oversee consumer banking transactions and shine a light into shadow financial markets that have escaped the oversight of regulators.
The vote was a party-line 223-202. No Republicans voted for the bill; 27 Democrats voted against it.

Hey, did you catch that? The government could "break up companies that threaten the economy."

• Question: Which companies are targeted by this?
• Answer: Any big company that gives too much money to Republicans.

Honestly, this misguided legislation is about one thing and one thing only: Expanding government power. A few other tidbits from the Washington Post:

The 1,279-page House bill . . .
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who guided the bill through the House Financial Services Committee . . .

1,279 pages! Let's face it: The Democrats couldn't pass a resolution to honor National Stamp Collecting Week that didn't run at least a thousand pages long with $50 billion in pork-barrel spending buried in the amendments.

And of course Barney Frank is in charge of the bill! Who else can we trust to bring reform and transparency to the financial industry?

And when the bill goes to the Senate, Chris Dodd will be in charge of it. Because this just makes sense, you see?

Please, Mr. Caterpillar, let me hit that hookah. After four or five puffs, maybe the madness will seem sane.

Shocker: Progressive Catholic 'charity' supports anti-Catholic agenda

As a Protestant, I try to avoid meddling in intra-Catholic feuds, but the American Life League issued a press release today that shocked me:

As thousands of Catholic parishes across the country prepare for the annual Catholic Campaign for Human Development collection Nov. 22, shocking new developments have launched a groundswell of protest from Catholics around the country.
A coalition including American Life League, Human Life International and the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry have spent the last two months exposing CCHD's funding of organizations promoting abortion, homosexual marriage, birth control and sex education.
In the last year alone, CCHD has funneled at least $1.3 million to groups opposing Catholic Church teaching.CCHD describes itself as the "domestic anti-poverty, social justice program of the U.S. Catholic bishops."
The coalition’s latest discovery exposes 31 organizations partnered with Center for Community Change. CCC is a politically radical, anti-life, pro-homosexualist organization whose board members include Heather Booth, former consultant for the National Organization for Women and Sara Gould, President and CEO of pro-abortion Ms. Foundation for Women.
Through their "Generation Change" program CCC trains and develops staff as "community organizers" for their partner groups. CCC provides a resource library with books promoting "reproductive freedom and its "Movement Vision Lab" equates access to abortion and "reproductive justice" with seeking criminal justice. This project aims to build a "progressive movement" with a "coherent, compelling, shared vision — one that represents our values and dreams for society" according to the group. . . .

Well, Catholics can read the rest and decide what to do about it, if anything. Matthew Vadum points out that CCHD "only reluctantly cut off ACORN last year and continues to fund the equally radical community organizing group Industrial Areas Foundation that was founded by Saul Alinsky himself." Furthermore, as Vadum wrote earlier this week:

The charitable arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, CCHD has never provided direct relief to the poor. That's not its purpose.
CCHD is an extreme left-wing political organization that was created to feed and foster radical groups, but most Catholics are blissfully unaware of its true mission.

In other words, CCHD is not a charity. Catholics have been deceived into giving hundreds of millions of dollars to a left-wing group that works directly against the teachings of the church. And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops defends this political swindle.

Like I said, I'm a Protestant. It's a free country. Catholic readers can do whatever they want about CCHD.

Or do nothing. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

NY23: 'Mischief' by ACORN?

That's what Doug Hoffman says and, while Jude Seymour and Politico are skeptical, I've got a few insights at he American Spectator:

My own source suggested last week that it is unlikely that Hoffman's margin in those absentee ballots would be enough to erase the 3,026-vote gap. However, the need to ensure an accurate count, and to expose any potential illegalities, is still very important. If anyone has committed criminal wrongdoing in this upstate New York district, they need to be identified and prosecuted.
Furthermore, the narrowing of the gap by more than 2,300 votes between the reported results on Election Night and the actual vote tally shows how misreporting can affect political outcomes. If the reported margin had been narrower -- and especially if the tallies in Oswego and Jefferson had been accurately reported -- Hoffman never would have conceded that night.
Most of all, the discovery of the errors (or "mischief") in the vote-count makes it a near-certainty that Hoffman will challenge Owens in NY23 in 2010.

Read the whole thing. (Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)