Detroit's Coon Man

In April I wrote about a story that I saw in the Detroit News about the Coon Man (Coon Hunting, A Bear Named Obama, Teleprompters, Queen Touching, and Bush Fighting Zombies), and today there was a follow up to it in the Detroit News. Here is what I wrote when the story first came out:

Next, according to the Detroit News, a new industry is starting up in Detroit, and I suspect that it actually is the fast-growing industry in the city (other than working for the government). The new industry is urban hunting and skinning. Yes, like a scene out of I Am Legend, the wilderness is retaking the city of Detroit, and the animal population is moving into areas that were once inhabited by productive men. Years of Democrat control in action!

The story in the Detroit News is the story of a young 69-year old entrepreneur, who has to supplement his Social Security checks by hunting raccoons in the city of Detroit. Apparently this guy kills coons with the help of his rifle and coon dog, butchers the meat, and sells it to local residents, and he also sells the skins- but doesn't pay taxes on these sales (must be a Democrat). The meat is not USDA approved (probably something to do with rabies), but the video about the story (go to the link for the article to watch it and howl with laughter) shows coon meat being served with liver and onions and Faygo red pop- just the way mom made it!

Today the Detroit News has a follow-up story about Detroit's Coon Man, who is busy hunting away finding meals for people for the holidays. This is great reporting, by the way, and the type of stuff that makes you want to buy a newspaper- it isn't slanted, biased, or massaged to produce some sort of political action- it is simply a great story well reported on. But as I read it, I do come to some conclusions.

After Obama and the Democrats in Congress are done with our entire nation, will it be more or less like Detroit? Will wild animals roam streets that were once filled with industrious and happy people? Will crime and corruption run rampant? Will people be forced to buy and sell goods on the black market to supplement official government welfare checks? Once Obama and the Democrats have forced cap-and-tax, nationalized healthcare, more 'stimulus' projects, and massive interest-bearing debt on our nation, will our country look more or less like Detroit?

Detroit, for those of you who do not know, is a Democrat city. They hold all the political positions in the city, and elect not just Democrats, but the most liberal Democrats that there are. So if you want to see what happens when liberal Democrats win office, look to Detroit- it is an example of what happens after years of Democrat control. Detroit not a short 50 years ago was a gleaming city of hope, progress, industry, and innovation, and after 50 years of Democrat control, it is a city where people hunt through deserted streets looking for raccoons to kill to feed hungry families.

Conservative Club Derecognized Over Horowitz

Via Students For Academic Freedom we find out that Central Michigan University has derecognized and revoked the registered student organization privileges of Campus Conservatives for hosting nationally-known conservative author and commentator David Horowitz on Oct. 14, 2008.

Student Life assistant director Tom Idema sent an e-mail message dated Friday to Campus Conservatives president Bryant Greiner indicating the school’s oldest political club and only outlet for conservative students was no longer “recognized as a registered student organization and granted the privileges that are associated with being a RSO.”

No explanation or reason was given for the de-recognizing of the club, but sources indicate that it was because Tom didn't like David Harowitz and decided to abuse the power of the office to get revenge on those who were bringing Mr. Harowitz in to speak. Apparently Tom is an intolerant, hate-filled man who likes to discriminate against others who do not share his views, and is willing to use and abuse the power of his position at a public university to force his hate-filled intolerant views on others.

Tom Idema didn't even have the authority to take this measure, as according to the student handbook, there is a process that one has to go through before revoking the standing of a registered student organization, which includes notification and a hearing that affords a student organization its due process rights, neither of which were done. Tom apparently doesn't care though about due process, individual rights, liberty, freedom, or diversity, instead pushing a liberal agenda and attempting to shut down any group that offers up alternative views.

Without standing as a registered student organization, Campus Conservatives was unable to reserve a room at any CMU facilities, and are being forced to meet as fugitives in public rooms within facilities. But this is the not the first time that publicly-funded CMU has attempted to destroy conservative voices on campus.

CMU has tried repeatedly since February to charge Campus Conservatives for security provided by school police officers at last October’s event with Horowitz. The organization has steadfastly refused to pay for police protection, citing a letter from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education legal defense group to then-CMU president Michael Rao warning that such a charge would be unconstitutional under the decision Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement . CMU has made no attempts to charge any other student organization for police services, singling out only the conservative voices on campus for expressing voices that the university disagrees with.

In October 2001, CMU students were prohibited from displaying the American flag on doors to student dorms because it was “offensive” to Muslim students. Under threat of litigation from FIRE, the unconstitutional prohibition was dropped.

For more information about this story, including how you can help, please contact cmucampusconservatives@gmail.com.

To contact your legislator about this event and encourage them to cease funding a public university that acts in such a manner, find and email your Michigan House member by clicking here.

To contact someone at Central Michigan University to express your outrage, try contacting Student life at studentlife@cmich.edu, or Alumni Relations at alumni@cmich.edu, or the Student Ombuds Office at ombuds@cmich.edu, or contact members of the Board of Trustees by going to this link and then emailing various members.

Commerce Deparment Revises GDP Numbers

Although I don't like to celebrate, I can't help but have questions about how the Commerce Department's estimate of economic growth was so off. Instead of the gross domestic product growing at a 'robust and energetic' rate of 3.5 percent as reported a month ago, it turns out the economy only grew at an anemic and halting rate of 2.8 percent last quarter.

One of the most important jobs of the Commerce Department is to simply calculate one statistic, and this government agency can't even do that accurately. And it was not off by a small amount either- the difference between 3.5 and 2.8 is the difference between 3.5 and 4.7- and those are meaningful differences.

Do not be fooled by that 2.8 GDP growth rate either- that growth rate includes government spending, which was a mind boggling number last quarter. Imagine if you dropped massive amounts of spending on your credit card for several months- would you be any richer and more prosperous because of that? No, you wouldn't- the growth rate would be artificial and in the long-run dangerously bad, because of the interest you would have to pay on that debt. And yet, this is what our government is doing today- engaging in a reckless spending policy that is dangerous and going to destroy our nation.

Assisted Suicide Funding is in the Healthcare Bill

Over at First Thoughts I saw this post that is an interest to anyone who is following the attempts by the Democrats to nationalize 1/6 of the US economy- Senate Version of Obamacare May Require Public Option to Cover Assisted Suicide.

That's right boys and girls, in addition to your tax money going to support abortion (likely in Senate version) and supporting panels that will consul seniors to just die instead of costing the system more (Death Panels Are in the Healthcare Bill ), your tax money is also going to be funding people who kill other people.

Check out section 1323 of the bill creating the public option (p. 183), beginning at page 186:
(F) PROTECTING ACCESS TO END OF LIFE CARE.—A community health insurance option offered under this section shall be prohibited from limiting access to end of life care.

If assisted suicide, or even euthanasia, are legally considered forms of “end of life care” in a particular state–as it is now the case in Oregon, Washington, and Montana–it seems to me that the community health insurance option would be required to provide “access” to assisted suicide under this clause.

This 'healthcare bill' has to be one of the most morbid bills ever- a bill that gives money and support and funding to killing people in many different ways. It is not shocking that people who value human life oppose its passage. What is stunning to me is that people who value human life support its passage. IT GIVES MONEY TO KILL PEOPLE. Abortion, death panels, assisted suicide- they're all in the bill. What kind of a country pays to kill people?

Not Understanding Healthcare Supporters

The healthcare debate frustrates me and confuses me because I simply don't understand why certain groups are supporting the drive for nationalized healthcare. The AARP is urging its dwindling members to back a proposal that will cut from Medicare, provide funds for assisted suicide and death panels, and encourage the system to start rationing healthcare. Why would the AARP support this agenda? Why are you still a member of the AARP?

Why does the UAW support the healthcare plan by the Democrats? If I'm GM or Chrysler or Ford and I have two options of paying for healthcare for my employees or shoving them on the government plan and saving all that money, I'm shoving them on the government plan. The UAW is supporting a plan that would trade the quality coverage it has already bargained for with the government plan.

Although perhaps UAW understands that the fix is in- the government plan will a better plan than whatever the UAW has, because it will be funded on the backs of taxpayers to the cost of trillions of dollars over ten years, and trillions more over the next 10 years, if the United States lasts that long as a nation with that kind of spending and debt.

I don't understand the debate at all- there is no money for this program, it will raise costs, it will cause millions to be dropped from current plans, it will destroy the private insurance industry and lead to a loss in all of those tax dollars that industry provides, and it has many controversial and polarizing provisions in it like money for abortions (cut out of House version but in Senate version), money for assisted suicide, money for death panels, and many other controversial provisions.

The way this bill is being sold is by having people each share their sob story- that's anecdotal evidence that is nice, but should not be determining whether the bill is passed or not. Senator Debbie Stabenow is running a special interest lobbying group on her official Senate webpage (is that legal?) called Health Care People's Lobby (people's lobby... paging Soviet Russia...) where she encourages people to email her their sob stories about dealing with the insurance industry. Almost 10,000 people have emailed her various stories of how they where not able to take more advantage of an insurance system and how they were not able to get someone else to pay for their health-related procedures. This is the kind of 'evidence' that is being pushed as a reason to nationalize healthcare? I just don't understand why people are falling for this garbage argument.

Business is Personal

On an episode of the NBC show The Office, the intern Ryan betrays the boss Micheal, and in his defense, he says "It was just business, it wasn't personal." Micheal replies back "Business is personal."

Business is personal. In the United States, it means that I can make a personal decision to buy a good, and a seller can make a personal decision to sell a good. We both mutually and freely arrive at this point. We both gain something they want, and what each side wants is a personal decision that they are making. No one forces anyone to make this exchange, it is done purely based on personal reasons. It doesn't matter if you are selling paper or buying a hamburger, the exchange is a personal one. Under a capitalistic system, business thrives, and business is personal, thus personal relationship thrive.

Ryan didn't understand that, and that's why he never made any sales. He thought business was some sort of system, full of buzzwords and gimmicks, and that business could be managed and planned into success. He is antisocial and does not like people and does not like to be personal with people, and that's why he doesn't understand business and does not make any sales.

Today on the radio I heard that Stefanie Spielman, wife of NFL and Ohio State star Chris Spielman, has died after a lengthy battle with breast cancer. She was only 42.

The government wants to encourage women to delay getting breast exams until the age of 50. The reason for this is that it costs money to run these exams, and the government wants to save some money on the 'system'. To the government, business is not personal, and the government does not care if women like Stefanie Spielman live or die. She was first diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30- that is 20 years before the government 'recommends' screening. After beating cancer the first time, she had several more kids and did great things for another dozen years before finally losing the long battle.

But if the government had its way, it would not have paid for all of those costly operations, paid for all of those costs tests, not have paid for all of those costs drugs, and given up on her after her third or fourth recurrence of breast cancer. She was a 'cost on the system', and not a person. She was just a number or a statistic, like the Jews were to Hitler, and not really a person.

Business, including health insurance and medical coverage, is personal. It is a personal decision between two consenting adults who decide on a mutually agreeable price point at which to buy insurance and at which to sell insurance. Once the government gets involved, it is no longer a personal decision, but rather an impersonal decision, and will lead to personal tragedies. We must fight to keep our decisions about goods and services we buy in our hands, and not in the hands of impersonal big government.

All business is, and always should remain, personal.

Fraud and Waste in Federal Government

Over the summer I got in many debates with liberals who supported the government's plan to nationalize the healthcare system. One of the most frequent pieces of evidence cited to support their argument was that currently there is a lot of waste and fraud in the system, and that when the federal government runs your insurance plan, that will all be eliminated. Because the government will run such an efficient system with no waste and fraud, these liberals would argue, it will be able to provide quality insurance to high risk individuals who never paid a dime into the system.

When faced with this logic, I would laugh, and question the assumption that the government will have less fraud and waste than private companies, especially the dramatically less rates needed to fund the magic system of to each according to their needs that liberals are promising.

This week my logic is reinforced by two points. First, the U.S. Office of Budget and Management this week announced that taxpayers lost at least $98 billion through waste and fraud in fiscal year 2009. That’s up $26 billion from last year. The Medicare and Medicaid programs counted for more than half the total—about $54.2 billion. Most of that went out for erroneous payments and outright fraud. With the massive power of the federal government supporting every move, the government still lost AT LEAST $98 billion, and I bet you that the number is much much higher than that in reality (a lot of what a liberal auditing private companies would call 'waste and fraud' is not counted when it is the government doing it). Oh, and amount of waste and fraud is not going down after the election of 'make government more efficient' and 'get rid of the special interests' Barack Obama to President- it is going up, almost as if Obama is doing the exact opposite of everything he promised to do and yet exactly the stuff I predicted he would do.

The other interesting story this week is that the according to the best and the brightest people in our nation's government, publishing official statistics meant to demonstrate the competence and transparency of the best that government has to offer, over $6.4 billion in stimulus money had been spent in hundreds of nonexistent congressional districts. That's right, the federal government 'created and saved jobs' and spent stimulus money in districts that don't exist (like Puerto Rico's 99th Congressional District). Joe Biden says it isn't a big deal- that the numbers the government published were totally made up and had no basis in reality, so don't get upset about it. But that doesn't comfort me and demonstrate to me that government can run a more efficient, less corrupt, less fraudulent, and less wasteful operation than private industry.

The very foundations of this healthcare bill are called into question every day using logic and common sense, and to be perfectly honest, it doesn't matter. The bill that the Democrats are producing could be proved to do everything that conservatives say it is going to do, and Democrats and Obama would still support it. Because its intent is not to make health care costs go down (in fact, it will make them go up) and it is not to cover more people (most people will lose coverage under their old plans), but the whole point of this healthcare bill is to expand the government power over your life. They want to control your life. They want to control your liberty. And they want to control your property. Government is, as it has always been, the biggest threat to your natural god-given rights, and we can see that today in the Obama administration backed by Democratic Congressman.

Granholm Improves Her Radical Stats

Michigan lame-duck Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm lately has been burnishing her credentials to work in the Obama administration when she is done being Michigan's governor. She already has demonstrated that she can take a successful state and utterly destroy it and drive all of the commerce out of it with high taxes and high regulation, so Obama already had his eye on her, even considering her for the Secretary of Commerce position when he first became President. Now Granholm needs to demonstrate her radical side, so she is opening up her copy of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals and becoming more radical (I assume she has a copy of Alinksky's book- if not, her friends in the NEA or Obama could giver her one- they have plenty of copies).

Rule #2 of being a radical is "Never go outside the expertise of your people." If you are going to organize young people, do it around an issue that they are concerned about and know a lot about, such as a scholarship that they were working towards. So Granholm is now organizing the students of our state, promising that if they pressure politicians and voters to raise taxes again in our state that maybe she'll restore funding for the Promise Grants to college students that she cut.

She addressed about 150 students at a rally in front of the Administration Building at Michigan State University, flanked by university officials and student activists. "I stand with you, but I can't do it by myself," Granholm said.

Rule #1 of a radical is "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." College kids don't have money, but there are a lot of them, and they are living in a bubble of liberal education where they don't pay any bills, so if you can get them motivated and organizing, then that type of community can put pressure to enact radical policies.

Rule #5 is "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." Granholm employs ridicule often, ripping into Republicans for 'breaking the promise' even though she was the one who cut the funding for the Promise Grants. She mocks Republicans, says mean things about them, and then pretends like it is the Republicans who are playing partisan games.

Next on the list for Granholm is to "Keep the pressure on and use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose." (Rule 8). Granholm really does not care that much about the Promise Grant- what she really wants is to raise taxes. Her mthods and tactics are going to change, but she is going to work every angle that she can think of to try to raise taxes on Michigan's residents, above and beyond the already giant tax increases that she has pushed through during her time as Governor. She feels that if she can raise more revenue for the government and then redistribute that revenue to the correct people, she personally can revive the economy. So she takes more and more money for residents, funneling it into her pet projects like Cool Cities or Wind Turbines, and then when residents flee the state or lose jobs, she needs to squeeze the rock harder to wring more tax money out of it. Her goal is to fund government, and she will use whatever tactic she needs to use, even manipulating college kids by organizing them in rallies about the Promise Grants.

Meet Gary Samore!

In today's segment of "Meet your Overlords," we meet alleged former US Communist party member and current WMD Policy Czar Gary Samore. His technical title is "Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism," most people know him as the guy that is working to destroy all the United States weapons of mass destruction unilaterally as a show of good faith.

Unlike other Obama czars (Aneesh Chopra, Technology Czar, I'm looking at you), he is an expert on the science, technology and policy issues related to weapons of mass destruction, having worked on these issues as a policy advisor for various nonproliferation institutes for the last 10 years and before that working in the Department of State and National Security Council. There is no doubting his resume, as he has headed up the attempts to make sure that Iran and North Korea do not aquire nuclear weapons.

Obama may have met Mr. Samore at Harvard, where he was a teaching fellow in the late '70's, or met him in the course of his work for the Department of State or NSC, or met him through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where Mr. Samore was serving as VP recently. This Foundation is a major grant-making private foundation based in Chicago, and has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978, some of which I imagine went to various causes community activist Obama raised money for during his time with ACORN. It appears that this group is a liberal group, so one might imagine that Mr. Samore also shares a liberal world view.

Like most of Obama's czars, we really don't know much about him or what he does, since he is operating beyond the power of law and was never confirmed by the Senate. If you know anything else about him, please email me and I'll update this segment of "Meet your Overlords".

Obama Attempts to Take Over Subway

In a post last month called States Have Demonstrated That ObamaCare will Fail I wrote about how one benefit of having a federal system is that the states can experiment with public policies and find out whether they make society better or worse. Another benefit of the federal system that I teach about in my classes is that federal systems of government spread political power out and prevent one national government from having too much power and being tempted into tyranny. Well, tyranny is knocking at the door in this state, and today via the Washington Post comes this story about how the Obama administration is making yet another power grab and trying to take over powers that formerly belonged to the states.

Federal oversight of subways proposed details the latest attempts by the Obama administration to seize control of the nation's subway and light-rail systems in every state. What bothers Obama is that he is not controlling these systems and that they are being controlled at the local or state level- what they call "haphazard and ineffective" control.

Under the proposal, the U.S. Department of Transportation would do for transit what it does for airlines and Amtrak, which means run a vast inefficient bureaucracy with a poor safety record at the cost of many millions. If you thought public transportation was bad now, wait until the Democrats get their hands on it!

"We were all sitting around here scratching our heads, saying, 'Hey, we've got to do something about this,' " Obama Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in an interview. "And we discovered that there's not much we could do, because the law wouldn't allow us to do it." And so, they went about changing the law, because power is only good if you can wield it. Checks and balances, federalism, separation of powers- relics of an older age when those things mattered. Now the administration is all about the exact opposite of those fundamental values of our society- centralization of power, control over everything, and doing it because they want to do it, whether or not they have the authority or not.

Kitty Higgins, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said "I applaud the secretary and his team for recognizing the gap in oversight in the current law. I hope that Congress will act on it swiftly." Estimates are that millions in federal funding will flow to the NTSB and other safety boards as a result of this federal power grab, further enriching the government officials who live off the sweat of taxpayers brows.

Every day that Democrats are in power, they grab for more and more control over your life, snatching up powers once reserved for states and localities and private businesses, claiming that their legitimate and just reach of power goes into every aspect of your life. Tyranny, thy name is Democrat.

Communism Copiers

On average, I probably use about one ream of paper a week making copies for my classes. I need tests, worksheets, readings, and data packets made, and in a given week, it probably adds up to one ream of 500 sheets of paper. And yet, each week I put at least 10 reams of paper in the copier. When I go to make my copies, the printer is always out of paper, and so I fill it, and while I am filling it, I just fill the whole thing with paper, and that adds up to about 10 reams of paper a week. There are 32 weeks of school, so that means over a given school year I use 32 reams and put 320 reams of paper in. Assuming other teachers use the copier the same amount as me, that means that I am filling up paper for another 9 teachers who free-load off the system and never refill the copier, but instead rely on my labor for their profits. And as I contemplated this everyday experience I once again was reminded of the folly of communism.

To each according to his needs, to each according to his abilities. The more money you make, the more money you are taxed, but as an outright amount and as a percentage of your income. The more you can do for society, the more society demands of you. The more jobs and healthcare that you provide to your employees, the more jobs and healthcare that government demands you give people who are not yet your employees. Whatever your abilities, the government demands that you provide that and more, so that those people who have few abilities or lack the work ethic to employ their abilities can live off the fruits of your labor.

To each according to his needs means that everyone who needs healthcare gets it, whether they paid into the system or not. It means that the government will provide houses, cars, jobs, healthcare, education, and whatever else for you that you might think that you could need. To each according to his needs means that the limitless needs of man need to be filled by the clearly limited abilities of man, with a corrupt and politically-motivated government supervising the whole affair. This is communism in a nutshell, and is exactly what the Democratic Party and Barack Obama are fighting for today.

Next time you use the copy machine, ponder the folly's of the commons- that those goods who are used by everyone and yet lack sole ownership are the very goods that are most abused. To me, it's the copier paper, but to you, it might be the coffee machine in your office or the refrigerator. No one looks after those, or to be more correct, everyone looks after those, and you see the result. Oh, usually someone steps up and does everything, and that is the great thing about man, that there are those people who will do more and rise above the system that drags them down, but it is no cause to celebrate the system that it keeps running in spite of itself. The Democrats in Congress and your President Obama are trying to put in place a system that destroys initiative, ownership, responsibility, profit, and risk-taking. They are putting in place a system very similar to communism where you are going to be taxed (or assessed fees, like in the latest healthcare bill) at greater and greater amounts so that other people can live off your hard work and effort.

Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%

Mr. Nolan Finley of the Detroit News wrote:

But while the economy tops every list of public concerns, job creation is not the hot topic in Washington. In fact, Democratic leaders, obsessed with reworking America, have proved more than willing to sacrifice precious jobs during the worst economic climate in a half-century.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., rammed an energy-rationing bill through her Senate environment and Public Works Committee last week without a single Republican member in the room. The bill would greatly limit America's ability to produce the energy it needs to fuel an economic rebound. In other words, it's a job killer.

Democrats are revealing that putting the country back to work is a lesser priority than passing their social agenda. If that weren't true, they wouldn't even consider any measure that would raise taxes on job creators. Higher taxes, particularly on business, always result in fewer jobs. Both the health care and climate change bills will trigger huge tax hikes for every taxpayer.

When people talk about jobs and employment, usually the number that is used is the unemployment figure. But that figure does not give you a real picture of how many people in this country do not have a productive job. Unemployment does not give you a picture of how many people out there are earning a paycheck providing goods and services. A better picture emerges when you consider the employment-population ratio. This statistic measures how many people 16 and older have a job. And when you look at that number, it is very shocking what is going on in our nation.

Currently, the number is 58.5%, and dropping fast. Only 58.5% of the people in our nation have a job producing goods and services, and it is dropping fast.

Here is the graph for you to look at, as generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing the employment-population ratio from 1988 to 2009. If you follow the link, you can access the data in more detail, including the month-by-month numbers that I break down below. Here is the graph:



Liberal Paul Krugman once analyzed these numbers too, and came away with the conclusion that under Bush the economy boomed less than under Clinton. That's fair enough and a good analysis. By a similar measure, a conclusion that could easily be drawn when looking at the numbers today is that since the nomination and election of Barack Obama, the economy has crashed at a rate seldom seen in the history of our nation.

Using the employment-population ratio, you can see a decrease in the percentage of people employed in this nation from the nomination of Obama in June to his election win in November of 1%- 62.4% to 61.4%. From Obama's election win in November to his taking office in January another 0.9% (61.4-60.5). From Obama becoming our President in January to today (October) we see another decrease in the percentage of people employed in our nation of 2% (60.5-58.5).

One could blame it on Bush- the last 1.9% drop did occur during his administration. Over the first 89 months of Bush's Presidency, the percentage of people employed in our nation dropped by 1.9%. Over his last 9 months, it dropped by another 1.9%. But the 2% drop that has occurred since he has been gone from office is much harder to pin on him, and it is getting worse, not better, since Obama's election.

Let's take a quick look at what electing a Democratic Congress has done to the numbers. From 1994 to 2000, under a Republican Congress and a Democrat President, the percentage went up 2.2% (from 62.2 to 64.4). Under Republican control of Congress and a Republican President, the percentage of those employed as a percentage of all workers in our nation went down 1.8 % (64.6 in Jan of 2000 to 62.8 in Dec of 2005). Under Democratic control of Congress and a Republican President, the percentage went down 1.8% (62.8 to 61). Under Democratic Congress and Democrat President, the percentage went down 1.5% so far (61 to 58.5).

On the whole, Republican Congress resulted in an increase in 0.4%, Republican President a decrease of 3.6%, Democrat Congress decrease of 3.3%, and Democrat President an increase of 0.7%. These numbers can be updated in the future since we have a Democratic Congress and President currently.

I would suggest that as a voter you begin to pay more attention to who is running Congress and vote for Republicans for Congress, since when Republicans are in charge they have a better record of creating jobs and helping more people be gainfully employed. As far as the Presidency goes, so far it looks like having a Democrat as President is better than a Republican, but as more data emerges on the Obama Presidency over the next 3 years, this may change, especially if current trends hold steady.

NEA Recommends Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals

The National Education Association, or NEA, is the largest teacher's union in the country and one of the top lobbying groups in the nation. Almost every single state teacher's association, including the Michigan Education Association, or MEA, belongs to the NEA. These state associations are among the most powerful lobbying groups in their respective states. And the NEA recommends that every teacher read Saul Alinksy's Rules for Radicals.

On the NEA website, under "Tools and Ideas", along with lesson plans and articles on classroom management, there is a resource called "Association Representative Resources." Follow that link and then click on "Articles & Multimedia." You will see that out of all of the books in the entire world of books, the NEA recommends reading only three, one of which is Saul Alinsky's book Rules for Radicals.

Here is the review of this book from the largest teacher's union in the country:

Saul Alinsky, who was a labor and civil-rights activist from the 1910's until he died in 1972, has written here a guidebook for those who are out to change things. Alinsky was hated and defamed by powerful enemies, proof that his tactics worked. His simple formula for success...
"Agitate + Aggravate + Educate + Organize"

This is the official review of this book written by the NEA. The NEA didn't choose many books to recommend that teachers read- they only choose three. And in its review of Alinsky, the NEA reviewer embraced Alinsky's radical ideas.

The NEA recommends that teachers- that your child's teacher- agitates against the rule of law in this nation, aggravates anyone who opposes the teachers and the NEA's views on issues, educates children on what to believe, and organize in such as way as to defeat any enemies of the NEA. The NEA recommends that your teacher become a radical.

I wish I was making this stuff up, and I wish that my dues were not going to fund an organization that encourages teachers to become radicals. But it is true- read it yourself.

The NEA recommends that teachers read Alinsky's book, follow his advice, and become radical proponents of a leftist agenda. Your children go in to classrooms every day, and your only hope is that teachers ignore the advice and pressure exerted on them by their own union leaders. Your best hope is that the teacher who teaches your children just pays dues to the NEA every year and supports it, but doesn't really listen to what it wants them to do in the classroom. Your best hope is that the NEA member who teaches your child doesn't 'really' belong to the NEA. You better hope that the teacher who is teaching your child today is not reading the books the NEA recommends for them to read.

The NEA and teachers- advocating radicalism in our school system.

UPDATE: Welcome Gateway Pundit readers! Feel free to look around the rest of my blog, and be sure to check out other education-themed posts!

UPDATE II: Welcome readers of Education Watch International and Designated Conservative!

Cults of Personality

Wandering around wikipedia, I came across this entry for "Cult of Personality":

A cult of personality arises when a country's leader creates an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships and Stalinist governments.

Generally, personality cults are most common in regimes with totalitarian systems of government, that seek to radically alter or transform society according to (supposedly) revolutionary new ideas. Often, a single leader becomes associated with this revolutionary transformation, and comes to be treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation, without whom the transformation to a better future cannot occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies of the 20th century, such as those of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Sometimes cults of personality are created and advanced by government-controlled school teachers. They tell their students that a person is the second coming of someone great, or something that they have never seen before, and the students eat it up and start to believe it.

Or sometimes cults of personality are created and advanced by people who create snappy, stubbornly catchy songs about the great leader. A frequent sight in dictatorships is videos of children singing praises to their dear leader, associating him with great leaders of the past, and celebrating their greatness. These children usually chant and sing about some sort of catch-phrase of the dictator, and supervised by a zealous government agent, they sing about the slogan and chant it until they begin to believe in it.

These dictators are able to make great progress in their agenda and change a nation to whatever they want it once the youth believe suck in all the information that is being given to them in song and art about how great the dear leader is and how obedience to the living god is the way to go. The religion of the state becomes the religion of these students, and they do not question the faith that the dear leader is indeed great, that his policies not fail, and that the reason why his policies fail is because of some plot out there by bad people (usual targets include capitalists, Jews, unsophisticated rednecks, and bankers).

If you are interested in actually seeing video's of young innocent children being brainwashed by government officials into buying into a cult of personality to worship a dear leader, they are out there. ABCnews.com, among others, reported on the snappy, stubbornly catchy tune, “Mmm mmm mmm…Barack Hussein Obama,” filmed last school year in New Jersey.

BigHollywood.com has posted 11 new videos of young children singing the praises of Obama. In one video, the 5th and 6th graders call Obama, “a modern Martin Luther.” “He’s known around the world – come on, let’s celebrate.” In another video, 5th graders sing, “You know we gotta get Barack and all of his crew/ In the White House so they can prove that.” “Change that we can believe in” is what they’re referring to. Another video, of kids ranging from pre-school to 3rd grade: “Barack Obama there is none higher/ Other politicians should call me sire … We’re the baddest of the bad/ The cool of the cool/ I’m Barack/ I rock and rule.”

Children chanting (or rapping, to be more accurate) "I'm Barack and I rule" should indeed scare you a little. Laws rule, children, not men, and 'progress' towards a society where men rule without checks and balances and limits is progress backwards. Why aren't these children using precious time studying our founding fathers? Why are they chanting about installing into power a politician and his crew rather than learning about the philosophies of Plato and Locke? Why is the teachers union silent on this issue?

Watch the video's over at BigHollywood.com if you want to see more evidence that United States President Democrat Barack Obama is becoming the center of a cult of personality and bringing our nation step by step closer to a tyranny.

Honor Flight

Today is Veterans Day, a day set aside to honor the veterans of our armed services who have done so much to keep our country safe. These veterans made a choice to put themselves in harms way to defend our nation, our liberties, our lives, and our property, and that makes veterans heroes of the first order.

I would especially like to thank all of the veterans who read my blog- I thank you for your courage and sacrifice and honor in the service of our nation.

If you want to contribute something, there are a lot of things you can do. One charity that I like to raise money for is called Honor Flight. Honor Flight is a non-profit organization formed to raise funds to send all World War II Veterans to see their monument free of charge.

The WW II Memorial didn’t open to the public till 2004, when the youngest of WWII vets were pushing 80. Today, only 3 million of the 16 million who served are still alive- and they are dying at a rate of nearly 1500 per day. Time is running out to give the remaining veterans one last tribute and treat them like the heroes they are, if only for one day.

Many of these veterans are on fixed incomes, and rising healthcare costs have wiped out their life savings, preventing them to seeing their memorial that was built to honor their sacrifices. There are many sponsors to help defray the cost, but it does cost the organization about $300 for every veteran that they send to DC. The veterans get breakfast, fly out to DC, are honored when they get off the plane, visit the memorial and Arlington, have lunch, and then fly home. It is a long and busy day, but I know personally that every veteran who has gone has found it to be a moving and important tribute to them.

Please consider donating some money for Honor Flight- I know times are tough, but time is literally running out for many WWII veterans. $10 from 30 people is enough for one veteran to go.

Happy Veterans Day!

Good Intentions Will Lead Us to Tyranny

In Tyranny: Healthcare Reform Threat to Life, Liberty, and Property I wrote:

Freedom and liberty are precious in this world, and are now under attack, not by evil people who seek your harm, but by people who through good intentions and intellectual reasoning would lead us into tyranny.

This point often goes unremarked on, but it is an important one. The people who are pushing for healthcare reform are decent people. They really feel that by the government controlling larger and larger parts of society, the world will be a better place. My Congressman, who likely will vote for Obamacare, is a good guy- a veteran, well-educated, and a decent person. Democrats and liberals are not bad people- they are just wrong.

Our founding fathers understood that the best way to insure the protection of our life, our liberty, and our property was to create a limited government. If government became unlimited, and could do whatever it felt like it wanted to do, then pressure would now exist for it to act in a tyrannical manner. Not because of evil people- it's not like we have evil dictators here- but because that is the nature of an unlimited government.

For example, a story broken by Business Week reports that earlier this week, a number of politically connected companies such as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs received quantities of the H1N1 vaccine to provide to their employees who belong to high-risk groups. The author of hte blog Bible, Math, Politics and More! saw this story and realized something- that when the government is in charge of distributing healthcare, pressure will exist to do so in a corrupt and tyrannical manner, not because of evil intent, but because this is what happens when government is in charge of distributing goods and services.

There will be times when the demand for a healthcare supply or service will exceed the demand. Some will obtain the supply or service; others, for whatever reason, will not. Those who are "in the know" or have connections will be more likely to receive it; others will not. Furthermore, it is likely that some will not only be "in the know" but will be able to circumvent whatever bureaucratic-nightmare procurement process will be in place.

You may not be near the front of the line. You may not even be told where the line is. You may see others obtain healthcare while you or your loved ones do not. You may not be able to do anything about it.

And you will start to wonder how similar this is to the Soviet Union of the 1970's and 1980's.

This is why you should oppose the Democrat's plans for healthcare, and for that matter, their plans for energy, transportation, taxes, and whatever else they want to do. Do not oppose Democrats and fight against them in elections because they are bad people- do it because they are wrong, and their policies are wrong, and their beliefs and intentions will lead our nation to a tyranny that resembles Soviet Russia more than United States of America.

Obama Too Busy Playing Politics to Visit Fort Hood

After the tragedies in Fort Hood, our President visited wounded soldiers and their families and thanked Fort Hood's military leaders and hospital staff for the "amazing care they are providing." Not our sitting President- he has been busy in Washington playing politics with healthcare. It was former President George W. Bush who visited these soldiers and tried to bring them and their families a small measure of comfort.

President Barack Obama will attend a memorial service for the fallen soldiers on Tuesday. The White House did not clarify what he will be doing for the wounded soldiers, their families, or the people at the base who are working so hard. The White House also did not say how it would thank the hero's out of this tragedy.

In fact, other than an occasional statement, the White House seems more annoyed that this real tragedy happened, because it has forced them to divert their attention away from enacting the tragic healthcare bill on the American people.

Obama doesn't visit, doesn't go on national TV, and doesn't do anything big to honor the fallen after one of the worst shootings on a military base in the history of this country. It falls to former President Bush to meet with these families and soldiers, quietly and in secret so as to not make Obama look bad, while Obama works over politicians and special interest groups in Washington DC before he can make a show of a ceremony on Tuesday.

Watching how Obama treats our nation is making me increasingly angry, and this is just more evidence that we elected a President who cares most about himself and his schemes and not about other people and the tragedies of our nation.

Gary Peters Votes To Fund Abortions

In You Will Support Abortions Under New Healthcare Bill I wrote about two passages in the Democrat's healthcare bill that encouraged your taxpayer money to be spent on aborting babies. But after Demcrats fought hard to prevent a vote on this issue, morality prevailed, and a group of Democrats voted with Republicans to successfully ban federal funds for abortion under the public health insurance option in the bill and prohibit federal subsidies for purchasing health plans covering abortion.

The amendment does not impose a new federal abortion policy since it simply continues what has been the law in the United States since 1977. The vote was a roll call vote of 240-194.

Voting against this amendment was Michigan's 9th District Congressman, Democrat Gary Peters. He supports using taxpayer money to fund abortions, and felt that some of the $1.2 trillion dollars the federal government will spend under this health care bill should be used to encourage and support women who choose to abort their babies.

Gary Peters, elected out of a district that used to be solidly Republican, has now voted to increase taxes and regulation for energy, increase taxes and regulation for healthcare, and now to fund the expansion of abortions. Gary Peters is no blue-dog- based on his voting record, he is as liberal as they come, and voters in his district need to vote next election to throw him out of office before he works any longer on destroying Michigan jobs.

Can You Spare 13K From Your Budget? Democrats Think So

According to the most recent analysis by the Congressional Budget office, the Democrat's health care bill will eventually cost families of four that make over $78,000 another 13.5K in taxes- an increase in average premiums of $8,800 plus $5,000 more in copays, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

A starting salary for a teacher in Michigan is about 30K. Teach for a couple years, earn a Masters Degree, and you're looking at 40K in salary. If you happen to marry another teacher, you're now in that area where the government thinks you owe them more money. I don't know why- there is no moral grounds to say that two young people building a family and working hard and just happen to do okay owe anybody anything in a free nation.

Health care costs are a problem in our society, and are becoming more of a problem the more government gets involved. Health care coverage is a problem in our society, and is becoming a bigger and bigger problem the more government gets involved.

But to make my family or your family cut another 13K from our budget will result in less money spent by us buying goods and services, less investments by us in businesses, less savings for our future, and the inability to pay for college for our children. It will not lead to a better nation, a more prosperous nation, when the state forces me to give them wages from my hard work so that other people can get free health care. It does not lead to a more moral, responsible, ethical society when the government intimidates me with its agents into giving up my money that I earned so that people out there can get something for nothing.

This is why we should oppose the healthcare bill. To do this, contact Congressman, attend rallies, talk to friends, and vote Republican next election. We can't afford not to. You can't afford not to.

Obama Golf Playing, Debt Making, Bitterly Divisive President

During his administration, George Bush was frequently accused of not working hard, being lazy, and generally having a frat-boy mentality to being President. One piece of evidence to support this argument was the frequency to which Bush played golf. Over and over in the media jokes were made about how lazy a President he was, and how he was often playing golf when important decisions needed to be made. It turns out that when compared to current President, Barack Obama, Bush was a workaholic.

President Obama has played 24 rounds of golf as President since February. It took Bush nearly three years to play that many rounds of golf, and yet Obama has done it in one year.

There is nothing wrong with the President playing an occasional round of golf- there is no magic number to the correct amount of golf the President plays. But for the media, which spent a lot of time building and promoting the argument that Bush spent too much time golfing and not enough time governing, it is hypocritical for them to now say nothing when Obama is playing golf a lot more than Bush ever did. The media should have consistent standards on how it covers politicians.

It is almost as if Obama is doing everything wrong that Bush did, only in an exponentially worse way. Democrats criticized Bush for the debt- Obama is piling up debt at a far far faster clip than did Bush. Democrats criticized Bush for bailing out banks and businesses- Obama gave far more money for bailouts than Bush did. Democrats criticized Bush for playing bitter partisan politics- Obama's Presidency is becoming by far the most bitter and most partisan in the history of our nation. And Democrats criticized Bush for playing golf- and now Obama has played way more golf in a year than Bush played over three.

People who voted for Obama did indeed vote for change, but I'm not sure if they understood that voting for Obama was a vote for a dramatic change for the worse. Vote Democrat for higher debt, divisive politics, and more golf playing politicians!

The Pay Czar Is Unconstitutional

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Michael McConnell asserts that President Obama's pay czar is unconstitutional and that all of his acts and activities are in the violation of the rule of law in our nation. McConnell is a smart guy- professor at Stanford University Law School, director of its Constitutional Law Center, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a former federal judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals- so he kind of knows his stuff.

Obama's "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg recently called up top executives at private companies that work in the United States and told them that he had decided to slash their pay in half. Where does he get the just and legitimate power to do this?

As part of the hastily enacted and seldom-read legislation establishing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to "require each TARP recipient to meet appropriate standards for executive compensation." To carry out this task, last June the Treasury promulgated an emergency "Interim Final Rule," waiving ordinary requirements for a public comment period.

As part of this emergency rule, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner created the office of "Special Master" for compensation, delegated his TARP authority to set compensation standards to this officer, and appointed Mr. Feinberg (a lawyer and mediator) to this position, without obtaining Senate confirmation.

This is the government that will soon be deciding what is 'appropriate' energy use, 'appropriate' spending on healthcare, and 'appropriate' content for radio. Read the language of the kind of bills that Democrats are working to pass as laws in our nation- they are putting in unelected, unconfirmed bureaucrats who will run our lives for us. This is not protecting our freedom and property better- this is tyranny.

Therein lies the problem. The Appointments clause of the Constitution, Article II, section 2, provides that all "Officers of the United States" must be appointed by the president "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate." This means subject to confirmation, except that "the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment" of "inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."

There is no doubt that Mr. Feinberg is an "officer" of the United States. The Supreme Court has defined this term (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976) as "any appointee exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States." Mr. Feinberg signed last week's orders setting pay levels for executives at Bank of America, AIG, Chrysler Financial, Citigroup, GMAC, General Motors and Chrysler. They have the force of law and are surely an exercise of "significant authority" pursuant to an Act of Congress. He is not a mere "employee," acting at the direction of a superior. That means his office is subject to the requirements of the Appointments Clause.

While somewhat more disputable, Mr. Feinberg's is probably an "inferior" officer, defined as one subject to supervision and removal by a member of the cabinet. Although he has substantial discretion and independence, Mr. Feinberg reports to the secretary of the Treasury, who can fire him any time for any reason. This means that Congress could, if it wished, vest the appointment of the pay czar in the secretary, without any need for Senate confirmation.

But Congress has not done so. On the contrary, it vested the authority to implement TARP's compensation provision in the secretary of the Treasury. The secretary may sub-delegate that power to someone else—but that someone must be an "officer" properly appointed "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate."

In other words, the pay czar in unconstitutional.

The power to set compensation at large American businesses is especially subject to potential abuse, favoritism, arbitrariness, or political manipulation. It is no reflection on Kenneth Feinberg, who has a sterling reputation and who appears to have approached these sensitive duties with a spirit of commendable integrity, to say that the checks and balances of the Constitution should be scrupulously observed. They were not. Because he is not a properly appointed officer of the United States, Mr. Feinberg's executive compensation decisions were unconstitutional.

You vote Democrat, you get a government that supports the violation of our constitution and a government that takes away liberty, property, and life. You get a tyrannical government, the kind that our founding fathers faught against.

Tim Pawlenty's Advice

Over the summer I saw Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty speak. I think he gave some good advice about how to communicate and how to win, advice that can be applied to elections and many different issues.

Governor Pawlenty said that the way that Republicans can get Democrats and Independents to vote for the Republican party is to talk about choices, talk about liberty and freedom, and to talk about all the ways that the ideals and policies of the Republican Party benefit the working man in our society. This sort of rhetoric is the same sort of rhetoric that our founding fathers used, and that President Reagan used, and it is the sort of rhetoric that conservative Republican candidates for offices around the country can use successfully.

Another important strategy for Republicans to use is to point out that what Democrats offer is everything for free, but nothing is really free in this world, and that what the Democrats are offering comes with staggering and surprising costs. Expose these costs, expose the costs of these Democrats programs, and don't argue why they are bad policies or what they won't accomplish, but talk about what they will cost in society and give voters an educated choice- your conservative policies and their costs, and the Democrats liberal policies and their costs.

One last piece of advice from Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was to focus on improving the quality of life by focusing on how to provide good paying jobs for people. The most important thing to people is to have a good job that pays well. It is not to save the globe from the threat of global warming, it is not to make sure everyone in society has top-notch health care, and it is not even to fight terror- those are all important things, but the most important thing to people is to have a good job that pays well.

Hopefully Republicans can continue to use these ideas in campaigns to successfully continue winning elections.

Teachers Professional Development Day

Every couple months, teachers in public schools around the nation have a day set aside for 'professional development.' Maybe sometimes these days are used in a professional manner that develops the teacher into a better teacher, but in my years of teaching in various districts I have been forced to give myself a full frontal lobotomy during these days just so that I didn't go crazy from frustration, anger, and boredom.

This might seem like venting and more of a journal entry, but what I am trying to do is let you all see into the education world through the little window of my mind. Perhaps after understand what goes on in education you may vote differently when people run for office on different education platforms.

At our last professional development meeting, all the social studies teachers in the district got together in one big room. An administrator came in the room and gave us a form to fill out, and then left. What that form will be used for, we are not really sure. Why the administrator wants the form filled out, also not explained. Who fills out the form, unspoken.

After sitting for an hour complaining about students, the economy, and other teachers, we get to the issue at hand, which is figuring out whether the classes that we are teaching are meeting the benchmarks that the state asks us to meet.

Teachers are driven by the system, I believe, to design classes that accomplish as little as possible, so the very first thing to do is to shame and harass any teacher that feels that the standards are too low and too easy to accomplish. If there is a teacher in the district who is having students do more, and getting high test scores, and going above and beyond, they are a threat to all the other teachers, and rather than find out what the best practices are and how that teacher is doing so well, the group savagely attacks these teachers and drags them back to the rest of the herd.

Step one is figuring out how to avoid the benchmarks, or misconstrue what they say for something else. Step two is to figure out if anyone ever hinted at possibly meeting the benchmarks, and thus 'taught that benchmark.' And step three is to fill in the document in the most unhelpful manner, making it seem as if schools and education are perfect and the problem is with students and the administration.

Oh, I know, I am really venting and some of this is unfair or unreasonable, but you really should know that because education is a government-run business, it does not respond at all to your child's concerns, it does not use time or money or resources in an economical manner, and the goal is not to leave no child behind and drive to the top, but to drag every child behind and drive towards the bottom. Moving kids through the system is our goal, just as it is in every government program.

Education Policy in Michigan and How It is Created

One of my brothers recently was invited by the Michigan House Republican Strategic Task Force on Education to come and discuss the long range vision of education policy in the state of Michigan. This special task force composed of Republicans has been touring the state looking for both successes and failures in Michigan's education system. It was on the west side of the state and after talking to my brother about how it went, I have the following comments to pass on to you.

What the task force does is get input from parent teacher associations, student council members, administrator, teachers, board members, and students, from public schools, special education, alternative education, charter and private schools. The end goal is to develop ideas on how to improve the quality of the education system here in Michigan.

The result of these task force meetings is predictable and an indication of everything that is wrong with education in our state. Three hours of discussion produced all the wrong policy suggestions for education, suggestions politicians should not consider. The following account is a way for you to see how policy is created in our state and helpful in developing your own opinions about the future of education.

The first step in the discussion was to answer the question "What is the purpose of education?" Do that right now in your head- think about what you want the education system in our state to look like and do. Is it prepare students for college? Prepare them for future jobs? Mold good citizens? Give all students a broad base of knowledge? Or did you, like most people at this forum, say "everything!" The mission of education needs to be focused, clear, and consistent, and it can not be everything to everybody all at the same time. There is only enough time in the day, only enough resources to spend, and our state needs to think long and hard about what they want the goal of education to be.

In my opinion, our school system should move to a two-tier system- K-8 the goal is to provide a broad range of knowledge for all students, and 9-12 students will either go into a college-prep track or a job-preparation track. That's just my opinion though.

The next question the group that came to this task force meeting was asked is "what are we doing well right now in education?" Think about this question. Education is doing a lot of things well- babysitting students 8 hours a day, running great sports programs, educating a lot of top students, running a good special needs program, helping students learn how to think, giving students opportunities, offering many innovative learning styles, and nationally our K-5 program is the best in the world.

The next question the task force had us think about was "what do you want the education system to look like 10 years from now". I think the overall consensus of the task force was that we want education to do more to teach students critical thinking skills, to learn how to be innovative and creative, to teach entrepreneurship and job creation, and to have students focus more on the career paths that they are headed into after school rather than just focus on school.

The last step is the most important step, and the step that resulted in disaster for this task force and that produced information the Michigan House Republican Strategic Task Force on Education should utterly disregard. The question that was posed to us was "how do we build on what we are doing well to make our education system look like we want it to look 10 years from now?"

Here is the information the task force received, and it is a good lesson on why sometimes special interest groups should not be the ones designing the policies in our nation. The task force was told to drop all standardized testing and to just hand the money to districts with no more accountability. The task force was told that one way to increase the education levels in our state was to give more funding to teachers, have them work shorter hours, and give them more training. The task force was told that students should teach classes, as if they were subject matter and teaching experts. The task force produced a lot of garbage ideas, and in every hearing they conducted they pretty much got the same garbage.

This is why the state should not be trusted with running any sort of service industry. The failures in education are the failures of government planning and funding. The failures of education result from this idea that bureaucrats working in distant locations can issue rules and decrees and that will somehow make things better. And the failures of education and this process demonstrate that a system that ignores values and character will produce a valueless result.

The way to fix education is to increase choice, increase personal responsibility, increase local control, and increase the focus on value and character education. Students need to take classes that emphasise creativity and entrepreneurship and they need to buy into the system by making them realize just how much it is costing them to go to school (or at least their parents need to realize what the cost is for education and then demand the results to justify the cost). Standardized testing needs to be increased, but the information that comes from these tests needs to be disseminated throughout the system and analyzed and studied by everyone- teachers, students, and administrators.

Education needs to run more like a business, with the service provided being learning and the learning delivered by skilled professionals. It can not run like a government agency, answering to dozens of constituents and staffed by bureaucrats.

Please take a moment to look up your state Representative and pass on your thoughts to them about education and the types of policies that you would like to see put in place in this state. If you don't speak up, they will have only heard from others, and those others are pushing groups like that Michigan House Republican Strategic Task Force on Education to put in place policies that will only erode the educational quality of our great state.

UPDATE: Here is a story about the event... notice the utter lack of anything productive or useful mentioned in this article.

You Will Support Abortions Under New Healthcare Bill

Last month I wrote in a post called "Tyranny: Healthcare Reform Threat to Life, Liberty, and Property:

The plan adequately address concerns that taxpayer money and government support will not be used to support or encourage abortions. It is not hard to imagine that a government that is concerned with keeping down the costs of healthcare coverage may somehow with some policy push for the abortion of special needs children who will indeed be a great cost on a national healthcare system.

Many of Obama's thugs and supporters yell "you lie" at this charge and some even challenged me to a fist fight in order to force me to retract comments like this one. But the truth is that the Pelosi healthcare bill does allow taxpayer money to flow to abortion clinics, and in a way, this new healthcare bill will provide billions in funding to abortion clinics around the state.

Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, you should be against this heathcare bill because of those provisions. Of course, being pro-life means that you are against abortion, and this bill funds abortions. Being pro-choice means you support people's freedom to choose whether or not to get an abortion, and this bill forces people who are opposed to abortion to fund them, violating their freedom of choice. This healthcare bill that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are supporting and working to pass is not pro-choice or pro-life; it is pro-abortion.

Don't take my word for it- it is in the bill. Page 110 of HR 3962 says:

Nothing in this healthcare bill shall be construed as preventing the health insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage of services described in paragraph (4) (A). (4) (A) Abortion Services.

Repeat- the 900 billion dollars in taxpayer money that is going to be spent on this act is not to be prevented from being spent to abort babies. The government by law is saying that the money can and indeed will be sent to abortion clinics, and you, even though you pay taxes and may be pro-life, will have your liberty taken from you to be made to support attempts to end life.

Furthermore, page 148 section 259 says this:

Nondiscrimination on Abortion and Respect for Rights of Conscience: (A) Nondiscrimination- a Federal agency or program and any state or local government that receives federal assistance under this act (or an amendment under this act), may not... require that any health care plan created or regulated under this act to subject any individual or institutional health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer to abortions.

Repeat- anyone who gets money from this plan (which includes nearly every aspect of the healthcare system) will not be allowed to discriminate against anyone who wants their abortion paid for. Again, more evidence that this Pelosi, Reid, and Obama plan not only supports your tax money going to fund abortions, but prohibits it from not going to support the aborting of babies.

Please let everyone you know that your god-given rights to life, liberty, and property are under attack by a government that wants to impose tyranny on you. Do not support this healthcare plan, whatever rhetoric or fancy phrases or pretty poetry is used, because it openly supports with taxpayer money more abortions in our great nation.

Two Months To Decorate White House for Halloween- Scary Government Efficiency

From the AP:

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama on Saturday doled out presidential M&Ms and dried fruit mixes to more than 2,000 trick-or-treaters, marking their Halloween at a White House event partly aimed at honoring military families.

A big, stuffed, black spider dangled in a web of string from the top of the portico, and pumpkins had sprouted up around the columns. Meanwhile, an odd cast of figures wondered around the North Lawn, including skeletons playing musical instruments, walking trees and "Star Wars" characters. The night's arrangements took a month or two to prepare, the White House said.

It took the White House TWO months to decorate for Halloween. Two months. How long did it take you to decorate your house for Halloween? A day? Perhaps you have a massive mansion and it takes 2 days? Imagine you have the full power and money of the United States government at your disposal, and an extensive and well-trained union grounds crew- would it take 3 days to plan and decorate then? Only government could spend two months planning and working to decorate one single house for a holiday.

Imagine when the government that takes two months of planning to decorate a house for Halloween runs your healthcare needs, your energy needs, and your businesses. That is scary indeed!

Death Panels Are in the Healthcare Bill

Some days, I am just stunned by what is occurring in America, and that is why sometimes you see some delays in my posts. Today though I am once again spurred into action, no longer stunned by the audacity of the Democrats but rather fighting mad. Earlier this month I wrote in a post:

The Democrat’s healthcare plan does not adequately address concerns for life either. The plan is going to create panels who will evaluate whether or not someone or something should be covered, and this may indeed put pressure on a government that wants to contain costs to not do everything in its power to protect the life of seniors in our society.

Many of Obama's supporters yelled "you lie" at this comment- they were right in a way- the new healthcare plan does not 'adequately address concerns for life', it totally disregards any concerns for life. The new Obamacare plan (or Pelosiplan, or Reidcare, or whatever you want to call all of the Democrat's tyrannical proposals) does indeed have Death Panels in it.

Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation", authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." During these consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services.

In other words, if you are on Medicare, every 5 years you will sit down with a government bureaucrat who will tell you how much you are costing the healthcare system and tell you about all of the benefits of you just killing yourself and stop being a burden on society. And if you get sick, or ill, or injured, the state will immediately set up a bureaucratic panel to decide whether you are worth keeping alive. Oh, you won't be forced to sit in front of this unelected death panel, who will decide whether you are to live or die, but you will be encouraged to do so by every doctor that you see, and bribed to do so with financial incentives. This will sway many.

It is in the bill. The Democrats are proposing Death Panels! Read the stinking bill yourself- it is there. This isn't propaganda. This isn't "Fox". This is the actual language of the bill. Death panels for old people. How in the world could any person on Medicare even slightly support this bill? How in the world could any person on Medicare support the AARP, which supports this bill? How in the world could anyone on Medicare vote Democrat, who support this bill?

They are going to put in place bureaucrats who may decide you are not worth keeping alive. And I am sure that if you have gotten a lot of medical attention lately you'll be deemed too expensive. And I am sure that if you have voted Republican in your life, you will be deemed too expensive. And I am sure that if you are a 'bad guy'- ie, anyone the Democrats don't like, you will be too expensive to keep alive, and will die, crying out for the medical care that you deserve and can pay for, but denied it by a tyrannical state that is bent on blocking your god-given right to life.

UPDATE: No matter how much you liberals clap your hands over your ears and yell "nananananana", reality does exist. Over at Daily Kos, they write "death panels still don't exist- they're still the idiotic creation of whack-a-doodle Republicans and Fox News". Read the stinking bill. I cited the section above. You can argue about the exact interpretation of that provision, but there is no way to say that talk about death panels is unfair or idiotic.

The truth of the matter is that the main reason why the government is taking over the healthcare industry is to keep down costs. People at the end of their lives cost a lot of money to keep going. Ergo, there is pressure on the government to not do all they can do to keep expensive old people alive.

There is a provision in the bill about end of life counseling. It is not unfair, unreasonable, or idiotic to suggest that that consoling may be a way for doctors to counsel patients to die, saving the system the cost of keeping them alive. In other words, death panels.

You can argue about the meaning of the provision, you can argue about the logic, but to reject engage in liberal behavior and clap your hands over your ears and say it is made-up or idiotic or unfair is simply to be a fool pawn leading our nation to tyranny.

Joking about Detroit

Detroit is no longer one of the most dangerous cities in the nation, so it is time to retire jokes like these...

The Detroit Red Wings hear about a young hockey player in Russia who is supposed to be outstanding, so they send one of their scouts to check him out. They end up drafting him and paying a big bonus.

He is suited-up in his first game of the season but the coach has not played him yet, but with 10 minutes left in the game the Wings are down 4 to 0 so the coach says,"what can I lose" and sends him in. He scores 5 goals and the Wings win 5 to 4.

After the game he gets on the phone to his Mother and says, " Mom I just want to share my game with you. I scored 5 goals and we won and the coach loves me, the fans love me and Detroit loves me!"

His Mom says, " Nice for you that you are having such fun playing your games, but let me tell you about my day. Your father was shot out in the street; your sister and me were ambushed and robbed, and your young brother has joined a gang of looters!"

Her son says, "Mom, I'm really sorry!" and his Mother says, "You should be sorry, it's all your fault! You are the one who moved us to Detroit in the first place!"

Detroit Free Press Circulation Drops Even Though I Warned Editor That Its Bias Would Cause This

Two years ago I exchanged emails with the managing editor of the Detroit Free Press. The topic of our discussion was the Free Press coverage of the Middle East conflict, specifically the situation where Hezbollah shot rockets into Israel and Israel responded, but as our email exchange went on, the topic widened to a larger discussion about the Detroit Free Press' bias with its reporting.

My overall point was that the Free Press was promoting only a liberal agenda in its pages, and was slanted heavily to the left, and that that would hurt the Free Press and it would have to cut service and lower its quality, and I didn't want that. Several times in our email exchange I expressed support for the Free Press and dismay that its current policies were going to lead it in the wrong direction. And I was right.

According to editorandpublisher via drudge comes this article (Top 25 Daily Newspapers in New FAS-FA) that points out over the past year that the Detroit Free Press has lost 10% of its customers. It has cut its daily delivery service, cut its comic section, cuts its sports section, and has dropped in paper and color quality. This is in no small part because of its liberal bias, and I predicted it 2 years ago.

When I confronted the editor of the Detroit Free Press with allegations of bias, he responded by rejecting my concerns and dismissing them, claiming that circulation was going up and his paper was becoming more successful. Liberal views do not usually match reality though, and the reality was that his liberal bias was in fact hurting his paper, as I alleged.

Our email exchange was telling. After I alleged bias in the Free Press news coverage, his first reply to me was to shift the blame on to the 'wire services.' He claimed that all his paper was doing was reporting the news, as it was told to them by the AP, and thus his paper had no bias. I told him that it was still his paper, and that if the AP was biased and all he did was repeat their bias, his paper would indeed be biased. I understood he was shifting blame and dodging the issue, and when I confronted him again, his reply was interesting.

He told me:

Neither side likes some of what it hears. We like what the wire services provide to us. Unlike the Internet sites, when our wire services do not make mistakes. There is no more reliable sources for information than the major wire services. You surely are free to believe anything you want to- from some kooky web site if you want- but here at the Free Press, we will stick with the wire services, regardless if you think they are biased.

He went on to justify his decision:

Circulation, by the way, is soaring, and so I don't think we need to change anything about how we run our newspaper.

I guess in retrospect I was right and he was wrong. By running his newspaper the same way, with a firm liberal bias and a reliance on liberal wire services like the AP and Reuters, the Editor of the Detroit Free Press choose to take his newspaper in the wrong direction and drive away customers. I guess I'm just confused why.

Less Government is the Solution, More Government is the Problem

Over and over when debating Obamacare supporters I hear the claim that the number one reason why government needs to take on a massive new expensive role in healthcare is because it has become too expensive. These Obamacare supporters think adding more government to the equation will make healthcare less expensive. They are so wrong.

The reason why healthcare is expensive is because of government. Adding government to healthcare in the past has resulted time and time again with a higher cost for healthcare. Government is the problem, not the solution. And this is not just rhetoric- the evidence and data supports the conclusion that adding more government involvement and interference in the private industry of our nation's healthcare has made it much much more expensive.

Presidential-candidate Harry Browne wrote about this back in 2002. He wrote:

It may be hard to believe, but back in the 1950s health insurance cost just a few dollars a month for most people -- and it was available to virtually everyone, including people with pre-existing conditions. The percentage of people covered grew steadily from the 1940s. And by the early 1970s, almost all Americans were covered by some form of insurance. Then the politicians went to work to load up policies with mandatory coverage of all sorts of conditions that may be of no use to you. More and more people decided that insurance had become too expensive and decided to risk being uninsured. By the 1990s coverage had dropped to under 70% of Americans.

In addition, many employers decided health coverage was too expensive. In 1980 fully 97% of the companies with 100 or more employees provided medical coverage. By 1995, only 77% were doing so. The growing number of uninsured people gives politicians more ammunition for more programs to force more costs onto insurance companies, and to push the price of insurance still higher.

Once again, the politicians are seizing the opportunity to save us from their own handiwork.

Over and over it is demonstrated that when government becomes more involved in an industry, that industry becomes less efficient, less responsive to market forces, and services suffer while prices go up. That is why our founding fathers designed a system where government would not have the authority to even think about doing what it does today- they knew that having government run health insurance companies, auto companies, banks, home loan companies, alternative energy companies, and all the other companies that the government now runs would only result in a poorer society.

Government is the reason why healthcare is expensive- the solution is in every way possible less government. Not a lot more government, not a little big more government, not even the same amount of government- the solution to healthcare costs is less government. LESS GOVERNMENT.

Granholm Orders Teachers Into Action and They Leap

As the Detroit News states, the fight over Michigan's school funding escalated Friday as Gov. Jennifer Granholm ordered educators to help persuade state lawmakers to raise taxes to avoid the surprising and drastic cuts to education that she recently made.

Within hours teachers and school employees around the state began to receive demands from MEA union bosses and school district superintendents calling for taxes to be raised. The line was parroted rapidly around the state- very soon after Granholm issued this order to educators, the Democrat's talking points were churning out over the email systems around this state.

One email sent to every employee in the district said this "the Governor had no choice but to reduce funding to schools"- which is a debatable point and one that both sides could argue, but school districts parrot out to their employees as a fact beyond repute.

Another email sent to every employee in another district said this "All of the insiders know that the Michigan law forces the Governor to make cuts to education"- always a good liberal talking point, the fact that 'everyone knows' especially those with 'insider knowledge' that we need to raise taxes, while all of the rest of us in the real world without hidden revealed knowledge about the secrets to the world go about working and paying taxes. As if poor Granholm had no other options- she couldn't cut her pet projects like lattes for movies stars or windfarms for connected friends or even the extensive staff for her husband.

From a district out of Wayne County comes this email from a superintendent "We must unite and demand more revenue sources for the state- contact your lawmakers and demand that they fulfill their obligations to Michigan's schools and raise taxes." Yup, that's right boys and girls, your taxpayer money is going to public employees who use that money to contact other public employees who then will demand more taxpayer money to provide more funds for more public employees to demand more of your money.

Granholm gives talking points out and the army of public employees move. The fight indeed escalates. Which side are you on?

UPDATE: In reply to all the nasty emails asking me which side I am on, I again quote Reagan- a rising tide floats all boats. Cutting taxes encourages prosperity, which leads to higher revenues to government, which leads to more funds for teachers, which leads to higher pay and better job security. So I ask you teachers out there- which side are you on?

Republican Engler cut taxes and put in place conservative policies- your pay went up and jobs were secure. Democrat Granholm raised taxes and put in place liberal policies- your pay went down and jobs became less secure. Results matter more than ideologies- teachers need to reject these marching orders and start looking out for themselves and vote Republican.

Revolution is Brewing

The sense of desperation and frustration and impending doom is hanging in the air. The election of Obama did indeed bring radical change to our nation, a change that it may never recover from. It isn't just the crushing and mind-numbing debt load, the nationalization of key industries like the auto industry and the banking industry, the attempt to implement drastic energy control and tax laws, the utter and total disregard for the Constitution, and the daily drama and crisis. It is the attempt to do more and more, including taking over the healthcare industry.

At each step, freedom loving patriots attended tea parties, rallies, marches and town hall meetings in order to peacefully express our unwillingness to be exploited by the power-grabbers in the federal government. Letter-writing and phone calls were made. On radio and television, the case is made to combat each enlargement of the state in our lives.

And at every step, we were derided and ignored. Our thoughts and beliefs were not listened to and plans were not adjusted accordingly- instead, under the most divisive and partisan President in our history, leading the most divisive and partisan and bitter party in the history of party politics, our country has sprinted to tyranny and change.

And many out there are getting close to the breaking point. The 2010 elections can't come fast enough, even though we all know that when the time comes, election fraud will be rampant and the reality that we are living in a nation of men who rule based on corruption and vote-buying will be sadly revealed to us. We hope beyond hope, and all the while grow more and more scared and depressed.

I was reading an interesting blog today called Thought You'd Never Ask, and the author wrote:

Now perhaps it is time for dissenters to move into the second phase of the tea parties--where the tea actually gets dumped into the drink. Perhaps it is time to make ourselves not be so easily dismissed. Perhaps it is time to become more of a force to be dealt with.

Some are saying they will end withholding on their federal income taxes--creating an immediate drop in tax revenues that, if enough citizens participate in, cannot be ignored. Some are saying it is time to emulate the left's street-theater tactics: becoming a law enforcement (and hence a time- and money-consuming) problem by obstructing roads, being chained to railings, clogging the jails and the courts in Washington D.C., and what not. I am certainly not expert on such things, having never cared to study the methods of civil disruption as Bill Ayers and his ilk have. I have always considered such things to be beneath my notice as a good citizen. But perhaps the time has come to study the principles and tactics of civil disobedience and even adopt them as the last resort of self defense and achieving true justice.

Perhaps some people should break into Acorn buildings. Or spray-paint "Government Theft" on anything the federal government pays for that is clearly an unConstitutional or boondoggling use of taxpayer funds. I know there are a lot of people out there more clever than I am who can do something productive.

After all, it seems that most dissent against the government is about to be outlawed anyway. That is the leftist plan: make so many laws and vague, obscure, poorly-written regulations against regular citizens that they cannot live as law-abiding citizens anymore, even if they wanted to. And so it becomes a civil war to preserve our rights and our country that even little old suburban "soccer moms" like me have to eventually enlist in.

I keep hoping to wake up from this appalling nightmare, but it seems the ghouls in Washington are real. Our fellow Americans, sent to Washington to represent and protect our best interests, really do want to rob, impoverish, and enslave us and bankrupt our country.

The revolution is brewing, ladies and gentlemen.

Holy Smokes!

So what happens when you mix a little government in with our healthcare system? Maybe a little bit of sparks? But when you mix a lot of government in, watch out! (the analogy sucks, but the video is short and funny- holy smokes!)

Make Mine Freedom

Via The World According to Me I stumbled across this video called Make Mine Freedom. "Make Mine Freedom" is the name of a 1948 cartoon produced by Harding College to illustrate some of the good aspects of our American way of life and the perils it faces. It features one "Doctor Utopia" and his miraculous formula "Ism", which promises all things to all people, but ends up bringing nothing but slavery. There are some really good lines in there once it gets going, and the surprising thing is that a 1948 cartoon actually starred our very own President as Doctor Utopia!

Madness in Healthcare

Absolute madness. According to the Detroit News, Democrats in the United States House of Representatives are close to passing a health care package. At the cost of $871 billion dollars, it would create a government-run insurance company that would provide taxpayer-subsidized health insurance to millions of Americans (not those already on Medicaid), raise taxes on those families at the top income bracket, impose an array of new regulations on private insurers, and strip the industry of its long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws.

No, no, no, no, no, no!

First no- the cost. The federal government is broke and does not have the money for this plan. That means they will borrow money from China, pay China interest on that money every day, never pay off the principle balance, and mortgage more of our children's future.

Second no- government-run companies? Seriously? I thought we learned over and over again that creating government run companies does not work- they are inefficient, corrupt, and provide poor services.

Third no- providing more health insurance coverage for those too rich for Medicaid? Really? Why didn't they just expand Medicaid, or some other government program, to cover more people? Then at least we could have had a sensible debate about the merits of the proposal. Instead we have to now create more new bureaucracies.

Fourth no- raising taxes? Raising taxes on the top income bracket is usually a very politically controversial issue- how are the Democrats hiding this in a healthcare proposal? What isn't in this bill? Raising taxes on those who are successful and prosperous is not going to make our nation a better place. Taking their wealth just because they make more wealth is not moral. There is no justification for it in this proposal, other than 'because we can take it and they have it'- and that line of logic is tyranny.

Fifth no- impose new regulations on companies? That is not going to make health insurance cheaper. I don't understand this at all- health insurance companies are struggling to keep costs down and the federal government is going to come along and kick them in the shins and impose new costly regulations on them? That is going to drive up the costs of health care coverage for you. You personally are now going to have to pay more money for the current service that you are receiving. That is not a way to help out.

Last no- strip the industry of its long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws? So the thinking of Democrats in Congress, including my Congressman, is that by having people sue insurance companies more often for alleged lack of coverage or service will drive costs of healthcare down? Bizzaro world strikes again! Up is down, right is left, good is bad! Instead of putting in place tort reform and limiting trivial lawsuits, the Democrats doubled-down and said 'more lawsuits'! Wow.

This is pure and utter madness. Oppose with money, votes, phone calls, and visits. Start prepping for the revolution. Madness and tyranny are on the march.

The New Counter Culture: Liberty

James Hudnall , in a recent article over at Big Hollywood, wrote that in the 1960s a generation of young people dissatisfied with the status quo decided they wanted to change society for that they felt was the better. They resented the culture of the time and began a movement that they referred to as “counter-culture.”

But today, the 'establishment' is not the restrictive, conservative white-picket fence war hero's of the '50's- rather, today the 'establishment' are the hippies- those war-dodging self-righteous selfish types who spend their days lecturing others about being more friendly to the environment or to make peace not war or other meaningless garbage. Look around, the entertainers on TV, the comics in the clubs- the culture of the day is left, even though the nation is right. Heck, even “The Man” is a lefty tyrant!

So what then is the new counter culture? It is those people who love liberty and freedom- the new counter-culture are those people who have been raised on the soaring rhetoric of the Bible and the Declaration of Independence- the new rebels are the old rebels once again, those who fight against tyranny and oppression again.

The real change in our society, the real difference makers, are the youths who are out there at Tea Party's across the nation. Those who are going to shake the world and make a difference are not Harvard-educated community organizers committed to spending money they don't have on social re-engineering schemes, but those entrepreneurs who are standing up at town halls and yelling 'freedom'.

The new counter culture, ladies and gentlemen, is liberty.

Teachers Should Vote Republican

The Michigan Education Association endorsed Jennifer Granholm, and backed her campaigns with energy, money, and support. And in return? Falling salaries, threatened healthcare, and a pension that is under attack. And even though teachers are vocally against Republicans, they are forced to watch their endorsed politician cut funds for education that Republicans worked hard to solve.

This is why every teacher should vote Republican in 2010 and 2012- a rising tide floats all boats and the only thing that truly matters in life is results. Granholm may talk a good game, and may honestly want to help out teachers with her policies, but the reality is that by voting for Granholm and supporting Democrats like her in Michigan's government, teachers have hurt themselves in every way possible.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, whom teachers all across the state passionately support, slashed funding from education today. Teachers need to wake up and vote the right way next election- vote Republican.

States Have Demonstrated That ObamaCare will Fail

In my lecture on the pros and cons of federalism, I talk about how one of the greatest benefits of having a federal system is that states can experiment with policies and if they are bad policies only that particular state will suffer and not the whole nation. If states raise speed limits to 70, is there an increase in traffic deaths (no). If states legalize gambling, will it raise crime rates (no). Etc. Because of federalism, states can try out different ideas and policies on major issues facing our nation today- gay marriage, legalized pot, assisted suicide, etc- and if those policies work, other states can copy them, and if they don't, other states will not have suffered by our whole nation trying those policies. This is one of the major benefits of federalism. And we are ignoring it in the healthcare debate.

Peter Suderman, writing for the Wall Street Journal, points this out in his very good article "The Lesson of State Health-Care Reforms" where he argues that all of the major provisions of ObamaCare already have been tried in the states, and in each case, they've led to increased costs and reduced access to care.

Like participants in a national science fair, state governments have tested variants on most of the major components of the health-care reform plans currently being considered in Congress. The results have been dramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health-care costs, and reduced access to care. In other words: The reforms have failed.

In his article, he talks about New York's guaranteed coverage regardless of prior condition policy and community ratings that don't take into account health policy, and judges them as an absolute failure. He looks at Massachusetts and find that states plan a failure. Maine offered a plan similar to the one that the Democrats are proposing the US do- it was a total failure. As was Tennessee's TennCare plan, which worked so poorly that it soon faced bankruptcy.

The point is that Obama and the Democrats are going to do things to our nation that have failed, failed badly, and failed consistently in every state where they were attempted. And they will fail again when the whole nation implements them. And then the Democrats will run around blaming everyone else for their failed policies and put in place more failed policies that will only hurt the nation more. That's Michigan's experience, and I suggest that you look to states like ours to see what happens when you put an inexperienced leader in charge who talks about change and hope but in reality only taxes and regulates until there are no more jobs left.

John Stossel Evaluates Cash for Clunkers

If you talk to Americans, most of them loved the Cash for Clunkers program, and support similar programs. But a further evaluation of this program proves that in the end, it achieved little good at great cost. John Stossel evaluated the program in a recent column on Real Clear Politics:

"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

If you only look at the immediate effects, Cash for Clunkers appears pretty good. People traded in gas-guzzlers for more fuel-efficient new cars. The program cut carbon emissions slightly and gave the auto industry a boost.

"Manufacturing plants have added shifts and recalled workers. Moribund showrooms were brought back to life, and consumers bought fuel-efficient cars that will save them money and improve the environment," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood bragged. American consumers and workers were the clear winners thanks to the Cash for Clunkers program."

But wait. Shouldn't that be some consumers and some workers? And only in the short run?

Let's start at the beginning. The government paid car owners to trade in their old cars, which will be destroyed. But the government is running a deficit. So it doesn't have $3 billion to hand out. It must borrow the money, which reduces the amount of money for other investments. Moreover, the government must raise taxes in the future to pay back the principal and interest -- or the Federal Reserve will monetize the debt through inflation. Either way, we pay.

That isn't all. Those car buyers were either going to trade in their used cars soon or they weren't. If they were, Cash for Clunkers simply moved up the schedule. The stimulation of the auto industry occurred earlier. Big deal. But if buyers planned to keep their cars longer, the program imposed costs that are less visible. Without the government incentive to buy cars, consumers would have bought other things -- computers, washing machines, televisions. The manufacturers and sellers of those products didn't get to make those sales. Why should the auto industry get privileges at the expense of others?

Then there are the mechanics who would have serviced those used cars. They've lost business. Some will be laid off. Nor should we forget low-income people who depend on the used-car market for their transportation. The cheap cars they would have bought were destroyed.

What about the alleged environmental benefits? Assuming that cutting carbon emissions is worthwhile, was Cash for Clunkers helpful? It's hard to see why. People who traded in inefficient cars for efficient ones will likely drive more and therefore use more gasoline. Even if carbon emissions are cut by a lot, economist Christopher Knittel says the program will cost more than $365 per ton of carbon saved.

Finally, there is something revolting about the government subsidizing the destruction of useful things. It reminds me of the New Deal policy of killing piglets and pouring milk down sewers to keep food prices from falling.

Leave it to politicians to think we can prosper by obliterating wealth.

Hat tip to Toxic Taxation for pointing out this article.

Warren Schools Blows Money on Wind Turbines While Teachers and Programs Are Cut

Yesterday Michigan lawmakers passed a school aid budget that slashes per pupil spending by $165, or about 2.3% from last year. That amounts to $2.6 million dollars for a school district like Warren Consolidated Schools. It is going to be devastating- that is a lot of money that school districts are going to be losing.

And yet, have school districts really been good stewards of the money they have already received from the state to teach students? Warren Consolidated Schools last year spent thousands of dollars that they are now desperate to have building a wind turbine for their magnet school in order to better indoctrinate students about green energy.

That's right ladies and gentlemen- even as a teacher it is hard to have sympathy for school districts that are facing horrible cuts to staff and programs when school districts around the state are blowing their money on projects like the Warren Consolidated Schools wind turbine.

And this turbine is not being built to provide cheaper cleaner power to the schools- at the cost of millions it will not even be able to power one single school in the district. Nope, this wasted spending is supposed to help the district with its plans to develop a curriculum on renewable energy for all grade levels starting next school year- and to make room for this curriculum, they have to cut from something- perhaps less science and math.

That's the full picture of what is going on in this nation now- the government kills all other industry in Michigan with high taxes, sends that money to school districts to build wind turbines, shoves environmental mythology down students minds, cuts teachers and programs, cries about having no money, and then tries to raise taxes even more.

Additional information may be obtained by contacting Mr. David Walsh, Administrative Consultant of Special Programs for Warren Consolidated Schools, at 586-698-4124.

Obama's Debt Is Going to Destroy Our Nation

As of Sept. 30, 2009, the national debt was almost $12 trillion and interest on that debt was $383 billion for the year, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated total government revenues at about $2 trillion, of which $904 billion is from individual income taxes.

That means that 42% of the tax money that you send to Washington is simply being used to cover the interest on the debt. The other 58% of the tax money that you work so hard to send to Washington is being used to provide more and more and more government services and to issue more and more government promises that are going to lead to to more and more debt. The principle on the balance is not being paid back, and there is no intention for it to ever be paid back.

In the first year of Obama's administration, the debt grew at a record pace. The Congressional Budget Office on Oct. 7 estimated the 2009 budget deficit to be almost $1.4 trillion- that is a stunning amount of debt to add, especially when our nation did not have to deal with a hurricane or terrorist attack or war- the only disaster that hit our nation in 2009 was Barack Obama being elected President.

I know my math is probably too simplistic- someone with an economics degree needs to correct it- but if $12 trillion in debt= 383 billion in interest, that is $32 billion in interest per trillion. Obama intends to add to the national debt over the next 10 years another 9.7 trillion (his own spending plans called for another 11.1, and he's already dropped 1.4, so that equals 9.7). That will mean another $310 in interest. If the economy does not recover and tax receipts do not surge (in fact, they shrank this year), then that means that the government will pay $694 in interest alone, while only collecting $904 from taxes.

If we continue Obama's policies for another 16 years, our nation will be in debt $29 trillion dollars and owe $907 per year in interest. We will owe more in interest than we bring in in taxes. If we continue Obama's economic policies another 20 years, the interest we owe on our debt will be greater than all revenues combined. America will be destroyed.

The numbers are sobering, even if my math is wrong. Obama's policies are going to economically destroy our nation in a fire of debt and interest. Anyone who supports his policies or his Democratic allies's are destroying the hopes and future of your children and grandchildren, who will have to live in a country that is bankrupt beyond any hope of ever emerging.

Obama's policies are going to send our entire nation to a debtors prison from which we may never again emerge.

How Politics Destroyed Battlestar Galactica

Friday night was once BSG night before it went off the air. But BSG went bad long before that. Jonah Goldberg understands politics and entertainment, and sometimes he writes articles that truly echo my thoughts. For years I tried to convince my brother to watch Battlestar Galactica because it was the best show on TV. But as the show went on, I changed my pitch to my brother and only tried to get him to watch the first couple seasons. By the end of the show's run, I no longer was trying to convince him to watch the show- liberal leftism combined with incoherent moral relativism had ruined the once great Battlestar Galactica.

In the beginning, I really felt the show tried to grapple with the post-9/11 world, but by the end, it had fallen back into a pre-9/11 world of moral ambiguity and emptiness. Where once strong characters and great human beings- who were full of all of the stuff that makes men great but also full of all of the failures of man- stirred the soul with striking action and stirring dialogue, the show degenerated into 'complex' characters who were boring and unlifelike, so much that they would die and come back again for no reason and the machines ended up being more human that the perfect morally relativistic humans they were trying to kill or love or save or something.

If you are a fan of the show, I suggest you take a look at Goldberg's column- he does a much better job at analyzing what went wrong with the great show Battlestar Galactica in his column and really articulates exactly what went wrong.

Oh, and if you haven't checked out Firefly yet, I suggest you do- that show ended before they could wreck it.

Partisanship Finds an Outlet: Oakland County Government Resolution Against Obamacare Brings Supporters and Opponents Out

Today the Oakland County Board of Commissioners debated a resolution that would state that the County is opposed to the healthcare reform bills currently supported by the Democrats in Congress. As is my habit, I was at the meeting, and was surprised to find the meeting packed- apparently the Democrats organized a large turnout, and the Republicans responded with their own late email asking people to come in. You could tell who the the Democrats were- they all wore the same sticker (Health Care Reform Now or something).

Before the Resolution was voted on, the floor was opened up for public comment, and 30-40 people came in front of auditorium and spoke for 3 minutes each. There were maybe 100 people in the audience, so a good percentage of the people there got to comment on the issue. In the name of journalism, I'm going to record some of the comments below, but for those of you who do not regularly attend meetings and who don't follow the political scene that closely, this might be a good chance for you to hear what sorts of comments are made by both sides.

One generality that I want to point to is that almost every speaker who supports Obamacare and spoke out against the resolution began their speech with comments about how America sucks, how our healthcare system is one of the worse ones in the world, and that the reason it is so bad is because evil insurance companies are involved in a grand conspiracy to cheat people out of their wealth. Almost every single supporter of Obamacare repeated this mantra in their speech, as if by saying these things would make them true.

Another comment I enjoyed from a supporter of Obamacare was (and I quote) "Republicans need to stop taking marching orders from fat loud-mouthed drug addicts." Apparently being 'fat' is something to attack someone personally about, and so are struggles with drug addictions. This kind of sensitivity and compassion is what you can soon expect from liberal government bureaucrats who are going to be making your healthcare decisions.

Another supporter of Obamacare said "Obama won the Presidential election overwhelmingly and he campaigned for exactly the type of plan that he is pushing for now so no one in this room has the right to oppose any of his policies." For fun, count how many wrong assumptions are in that statement. Also, I have seen this guy around- a couple years ago he was loudly speaking out against President Bush and the War on Terror in Iraq. Hypocrisy, liberal is thy name.

One women plaintively expressed the following comment "How can people even think about being against free healthcare for everyone- I don't even understand how you could oppose that." This is the depth of logic and reasoning that marks the left in our nation, a group that voters let take over on multiple levels of government.

Another gentlemen expressed the following sentiment "Insurance companies are full of evil people and the government needs to go after them with the full force of the state and drive them all out of business." I'm still quoting actual comments from people who support Obamacare.

After one guy stood up and gave a speech against Obamacare, there was shouting and cries of "you lie". People sat quietly through speeches in support of Obamacare (with only an occasional quiet laugh or chuckle at the foolish statements these people uttered) but almost every single person who spoke against Obamacare was yelled at, swore at, and shouted down. Free speech for liberals is only for those who say what they want. At one point the police even came in the chamber to keep order because a liberal wanted to physically fight everyone who disagreed with him- a bully just like his hero Obama.

Logical fallacies were present in almost every liberal proponent of Obamacare- one girl said "There is nothing right now stopping the free market solving the healthcare problem- the free market had its chance and failed and now the government needs to step in." There is no free market in healthcare- there is a direct correlation between increasing government involvement in healthcare and the rising cost. Healthcare is very far from 'free market' and thus it is a problem- the more government you inject into an issue the worse it gets, and that's not an argument in favor of more government, that is an argument against government in the first place.

After someone stood up and gave a great speech about America being founded on the ideas of freedom and liberty, several speakers stood up to reject those ideas and said that "America was founded on equality and altruism, not freedom and liberty"- these people who support Obamacare obviously have little knowledge of the history of our nation. Or perhaps they are mixing up the French Revolution with ours and support the ideas that led to terror and dictatorship in France as opposed to the ideas that led to greatness and law in our nation.

Some people wondered why the Oakland County Board of Commissioners took up a resolution such as this anyway- after all, what contribution can a county board make to this debate. The problem with this very important debate on healthcare is that it is not being debated in the open- it is being done behind closed doors by elites who wish to hide their actions from the light of day. And people on both sides, for and against Obamacare, want to speak on the issue, want to exercise their rights, want to petition their government, want to gather and assemble and battle it out in the forum of ideas, and this is being denied to them by the Democrats who seek to rule us. That is why the Oakland County Board discussed this issue- to give people a forum and a voice and an outlet to their thoughts, feelings, and frustrations.

The Resolution by the Oakland County Board of Commissioners stating its opposition to the Democrats healthcare plans passed by a majority vote.

Tyranny: Healthcare Reform Threat to Life, Liberty, and Property

Our healthcare system has many market characteristics in it, and this has allowed people the freedom necessary to build a system that although not perfect, has provided quality coverage to almost all Americans at a good price. And yet now Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the Democrats in Congress want to change all of this and overhaul the system with this healthcare reform bill, and I am hear today to say that everyone should be against this plan.

There are problems in the system, and this plan does nothing to address those problems. It does not address the problem of portability. This Democrat plan does not address the issue of tort reform. It does not increase competition across state lines. Indeed, this healthcare plan that the Democrats are proposing does not do anything to advance the liberty and freedom and choices of the people of this great nation.

The Democrats healthcare plan is going to need my tax money to be put in place, and thus it does not increase the protection of my property from government, and recent reports and reviews by several groups in government and business have concluded that this healthcare plan will indeed end up costing most American’s more money in the end, further eroding my property.

The Democrat’s healthcare plan does not adequately address concerns for life either. The plan is going to create panels who will evaluate whether or not someone or something should be covered, and this may indeed put pressure on a government that wants to contain costs to not do everything in its power to protect the life of seniors in our society.

Nor does the plan adequately address concerns that taxpayer money and government support will not be used to support or encourage abortions. It is not hard to imagine that a government that is concerned with keeping down the costs of healthcare coverage may somehow with some policy push for the abortion of special needs children who will indeed be a great cost on a national healthcare system.

My objections to the Democrats healthcare plan are based on an understanding of what the proper role of government in our society should be, as written about by those great men who founded our nation. They wrote that the purpose of government is to protect my life, my liberty, and my property, and not to create vast bureaucracies of unelected officials who will control my life, my liberty, and my property.

Do not become blinded by anecdotal stories. Do not be fooled by rhetoric. Do not be misled by your own ambitions or desires. This proposal to gain more control over our health care by the Democrats is not about specifics, clauses, or numbers, although those are important to the debate. No, this issue is instead a fundamental question about freedom, life, and property in our nation.

I encourage everyone to support efforts to speak out against the Democrat’s healthcare proposal. Contact by email or phone your Congressmen, Senators, Governor, state officials, even county officials. Sing the song of freedom and liberty. Freedom and liberty are precious in this world, and are now under attack, not by evil people who seek your harm, but by people who through good intentions and intellectual reasoning would lead us into tyranny.

Hiroshima vs Detroit, 64 Years After WWII

This has been making the rounds lately, on email and in conversation, and I thought that you should all take a look at it. What the following site has done is compare dozens of pictures of Hiroshima and Detroit using two time periods- right after WWII and current days. It is stunning- Hiroshima went from being nuked to being a vibrant city full of life and growth. Detroit went from being a vibrant city full of life and growth to looking like a city that had been nuked. What the heck happened?

Check out these stunning pictures at the following site:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2349112/posts

Obama Orders Development and Prosperity Stopped in an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Manner

The world may be giving Obama prizes for hope and togetherness and stuff, but here is the states we have to live with his domestic polices, which recently includes Obama's decision to block the development of energy production and the jobs and prosperity that this development would have provided.

There are still businesses out there that wish to grow and invest in our nation and its bounty, but Obama and his policies are increasingly blocking that hope and changing the course of our nation from one of prosperity to one of poverty. As unemployment grows and our nation sends cash to energy-rich nations, Obama orders that 60 oil and natural gas wells that were in development be shut down.

After businesses expanded great effort and money to win contracts to drill for oil and make America more energy self-sufficient, provide jobs and money for our nation, and restore hope in our future as a great power, Obama and the Democrats swooped in after the contracts were awarded and arbitrarily shut these drills down, claiming the process was flawed. These actions are the arbitrary actions of a tyrannical government, not the law-abiding and rule-of-law actions of a government that is fair and honest towards all.

77 government-owned parcels, covering some 100,000 acres in eastern and southern Utah, were leased by the government last year by private companies that went through the correct processes and channels of government to win these leases. Then, after Obama took office, he broke those agreements and ordered development by those companies to immediately be shut down on the pretense that the agreements were 'rushed'.

Never before in the history of our nation has a President separated the history of our country into a pre- and after- era- and then determined that whatever happened before him- whether it was legal and proper or not- is no longer valid and everything that happens after him is now valid. Our country is bigger than one man, our laws are higher than one man, and our policies stretch from President to President without regard to who holds the office- until Democrat President Barack Obama took office and began to exercise his authority in an arbitrarily and tyrannical manner.

Perhaps the leases were given in a rushed manner- but no more so than the stimulus bill or the healthcare bill is being rushed through Congress. Being 'rushed' does not make the agreements any less valid and lawful, unless there were laws broken or improper actions taken, and the Obama Interior Department has not even suggested that. The whole basis for the US government breaking agreements and promises made was that 'Bush rushed'- and that line of logic is not an argument that should hold up in a court of law.

Our nation is slipping into tyranny and arbitrary actions by an increasingly unlawful and unbalanced government, all under the support and guidance of the Democratic Party of the United States, and you need to exert every action at every election to do what you can do to stop it and return our nation to the greatness to which it was once the envy of the world.

Will Peace Prize Affect Obama's Decision Making Process?

Our President won a Nobel Peace Prize today. There are a lot of great articles and posts already on this project, and I don't want to re-invent the wheel here, so if you are looking for some good takes on Obama winning the Nobel Prize, check out this article, this article, or this article.

What I wonder about though is how Obama winning the Peace Prize may affect his decision making process on Afghanistan or Iran. Right now, our President has two very important foreign policy issues to deal with, and both of which may require him to make a hard decision. This Peace Prize was given to him partly for his willingness to sit down and talk with dictators and willingness to consult with international opinion rather than going it alone, and now that he has it, he may be reluctant to anger or upset the international community with tough hard decisions.

For example, within the next year Iran will have nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver those warheads to Israel. What will Obama do about this? Will he conduct diplomacy and work with the international community to strike agreements which Iran will never follow? This is the type of work that will win him international awards like the Peace Prize, but also the type of work that will do little to make the world safer for freedom and democracy. Don't misunderstand- diplomacy and agreements are great, provided that they lead somewhere- experience though has shown that appeasement and agreements that mean nothing do not make the world a better place.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are resurgent and the terrorists are focusing all of their energy on defeating us there. They tried in Iraq, and our response was to thumb our nose at international appeasement and go it alone, and win, and make Iraq a better place in spite of the world looking down at us. Now the terrorists are trying it in Afghanistan- concentrating forces and money there, trying to drive us out of that country so they can have a nation from which to attack all decent nations in the world. What will Obama do? Will he do what it takes to win, restoring order and peace in Afghanistan and making the world a better place, even if that means the world community no longer awards him?

Or will Obama feel pressure now that he has won the Peace Prize to not make enemies, even of evil people, and to not make war, even on countries that make war on us, and to give in to the demands of dictators, even if it makes the world a less safe place? Will Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize affect his decision making process? I certainly hope not.

The 2009 Democratic Party Constitution

In my wanderings around the internet, I finally found the Democratic Party's real platform. According to it, the Democratic party is the party of the people and supports increased voting rights for all, specifically workers groups and the poor who have not had a proper voice in government. The real platform for the Democrat Party includes such important social and economic rights like the rights to work, rest and leisure, health protection, care in old age and sickness, housing, education, and cultural benefits.

Today, the Democratic Party is committed to these goals. They are pushing for government run health care, they are pushing for increased government programs for elderly, they are fighting for union labor, and even have begun to push more government involvement and funding in the arts.

Furthermore, this constitution that the Democratic Party is pushing attempts to put in place more commissions and bureaucratic agencies that will run our nation and make choices for us.

The surprising thing is, the real platform of the Democratic Party is the 1936 Soviet Constitution.

Democrats Plan for Healthcare

The greatest threat to the Democrat's plan to nationalize health care is the American people and their elected Representatives and Senators. And that is why the Democrats are currently working day and night on crafting a plan to short circuit the democratic process in our nation and instead impose their elitist agenda on what Democrats view as their subjects. Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and every Democrat at every level of government who supports them is demonstrating with their actions what they think of you, your family, and your friends- they think you are an idiot and they are going to do everything they can do to keep your voice out of this process.

According to CNS News, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Democrat, Md.) is considering having the House vote on the Senate health-care bill without ever seeing it and without ever making any changes in it, which would allow the bill to go directly to Democrat President Barack Obama. The goal of the Democrats is to pass a bill that will radically alter America without having to pass through a House-Senate conference committee and the resulting second round of votes in the House and Senate and the longer period of public scrutiny of what the text of the proposed law actually says.

The Democrats are not designing great legislation. They are not working day and night to create good public laws. They are not working to make the process bipartisan. The process is intended to be one of the least transparent in the history of legislation making. The goal is to twist rules and use little-used procedures to do things in the dark of night that will not stand up to the light of day. And this is what a vote for Democrats in next year's election encourages- elitism and contempt for your voice.

Such a process of events would greatly shorten the time the public has to study and debate the final text of the health care bill, which is a desirable aim of the Democratic party- to create laws the radically alter our nation in as fast as time possible with as little input as possible in a manner that is as undemocratic as possible. Furthermore, the current plan of the Democrats is for Senate Majority Leader Reid, who is in real threat of not being re-elected, to personally write the bill and all of its provisions with no input from anyone else, and then have that bill be voted on without being seen or amended by the House.

This is scary stuff. If your Senator has not yet been contacted yet, I advise you to do so and tell them that this is not the way that America works. And next election, I expect you to donate your time and money and energy to doing all you can to defeat any Democrat at any level who supports this sort of plan.

Thanks to motorcitytimes.com for the hat tip.

Big Government Health Care PSA

One of the most defining features of the debate over the government takeover of the health insurance industry is the lack of coherent logic by those who want the US government to nationalize large segments of the economy. The advocates claim they want this because there isn't enough choice and the cost is too high, yet they ignore the fact that having one big government provide insurance is less of a choice and that the federal government usually does things at a substantially higher cost than private industry. The advocates arguments are full of holes and logical fallacies that would be sad and funny if they weren't so dangerous.

And now celebrities have gotten in the act, supporting the Celebrity-in-Chief and his plan to pretend and act his way through important decisions. Will Ferrell and others have created a video in support of the nationalization of our economy, view it here. And in in response there have been several video's produced that are quite amusing. My favorite is here: