My list of political predictions for 2009.

-At least two very serious scandals will rock Obama or his top leadership. Could involve someone losing their blackberry and having it  end up in the wrong hands.

-Violence in the Middle East will continue to escalate, and Russia will take sides against Israel. Israel will retaliate against Lebanon or I ran or another neighboring country like we haven't seen since the Six-Day War in 1967. Violence in Gaza will reach an all-time high as Hamas uses it as a pipeline to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the country.

-Two Supreme Court justices will retire, probably Stevens and Ginsberg.The Senate will nominate two stealth liberals to replace them, who will squeak by Senate confirmation because there will be slim records on them. They will both be minorities, or one will be a woman.

-Gas prices will tip $3 again, but not anything like we saw this past year.

-Unemployment will remain stagnant, but will not get worse, due to the Fed tinkering with interest rates.

-Obama will start talking about the kinds of taxes that may "need" to be raised. He will attempt to avoid raising income taxes on the middle  class, in order to keep his election promise ("95% of you will receive  tax cuts"), but he will inevitably raise them on the middle class someway, whether in 2009 or later.

-Caroline Kennedy will get Hillary's Senate seat, due to the failing health of Ted Kennedy. Sadly, the brain cancer he has is more fatal than the public has been led to believe.-Talk will start about removing Pelosi as Speaker, as people become disillusioned with the Democrat Congress.

-Newt Gingrich's name will start popping up more than anyone as a potential GOP contender for president in 2012.

-Nothing will happen with illegal immigration, since American workers are suffering economically and can't find jobs.

-Obama's smoking will start to become an issue, as the anti-smoking crowd calls him on it and starts tracking him.

-Momentum toward alternative sources of energy will increase,particularly for vehicles. Congress will pass a law making it easierfor businesses and consumers to use alternative energy sources. Thebiggest incentive will go to automakers.

-One of the big three automakers, probably Chrysler, will file for bankruptcy or merge with one of the others.

-Newspapers will continue to shrink and go out of business. Only a fewwill survive, maybe one in every city, and that will be because 1) theysuccessfully figure out how to move most of their operations to theweb, which means figuring out ads and social networking to compete withthe current top news & political websites, and 2) they startcharging a realistic cost for any paper version. No longer will $17/mthcover a newspaper delivered to your house.

-MSNBC will either go out of business or drastically change its format so it is no longer left-leaning news and opinion.

-Web 2.0 will become widely known, as everyone on the internetgradually moves into social networking sites. The right will finallyovertake the left in the new social media (and they already are – tcotreport.com) Facebook will become the dominant leader and most people will have heard of it and be on it by the end of 2009. IntellectualConservative.ning.com will be somewhere behind.