Voters Must Hold Democrats Accountable for Sotomayor's Lies During Confirmation

During her confirmation hearings, Justice Sotomayor testified that the 2nd Amendment was an individual right for every citizen of the United States to bear arms. In her Senate testimony, sworn under oath, she said "I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller" and, "I understand how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans." Justice Sotomayor repeatedly averred that Heller is "settled law."

Sotomayor was nominated by a Democrat (President Barack Obama), the confirmation hearings were conducted by Democrats, and every single Democrat in the Senate voted for her to be confirmed. Now they need to be held accountable for her bald-faced lying under oath.

In the recent McDonald v. Chicago court case, which was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the issue of gun rights, the Court held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. This decision confirmed how important the right to bear arms is to Americans, and it followed up the recent Heller decision and made sure that Heller was settled law.

One would assume that Justice Sotomayor joined in the majority, since her sworn testimony agrees with all of these ideas- but she didn't, since she told the Democrats whatever they wanted to hear and they confirmed her without digging further. The Breyer-Sotomayor-Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissent urged that Heller be overruled and declared, "In sum, the Framers did not write the Second Amendment in order to protect a private right of armed self defense." She disagrees with the other Justices who think that the Second Amendment says that people's right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed, and felt that it was legal and proper and right for states to ban handguns and mandate that guns be re-registered annually with payment of the fees, among other requirements.

It's fine that Justices Breyer and Ginsburg dissented- they never promised anyone that they considered Heller to be "settled law." They never lied about their beliefs and views and played up "how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans." On the other hand, Sonia Sotomayor promised to do one thing and then did the opposite- she said one thing, and then did the exact opposite.

Federal judges have lifetime appointments, and so there is no real way to hold them accountable directly. But that does not mean that Judges can feel free to lie under oath in confirmation hearings and not worry about repercussions. That does not mean that those who appoint, question, and confirm judges that lie can not be held accountable- they can, and they should. Obama, the Democrats who questioned Sotomayor, and the Senators who voted to confirm her need to be held accountable by voters the next time they are up for election for their failures to appoint people who tell the truth, for their failures to question people such that their falsehoods are exposed, and for their judgement to vote to confirm a judge who lies so easily and so quickly.

One can only hope that the process won't be repeated during the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings.

Shallow Water Drilling Effectively Banned

We all know that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress have fought to make sure there is no new nuclear power (see my post Yucca Mountain for information on how Obama has defied Congress and shut down the Yucca Mountain project). Obama and the Democrats have also worked to make it more difficult for more energy production through coal. After the Deepwater Horizon accident, Obama and the Democrats put in place an ”arbitrary and capricious” ban on all oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in waters over 500 feet in depth, a ban that was intended to do “irreparable harm” to businesses.

But perhaps you didn't know that for some reason, since June, the Department of Interior has refused to issue any permits for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf in waters less than 500 feet of depth- effectively banning through administrative decree any drilling in shallow waters.

Via Sweetness&Light, this story is from CNN’s Money.Com:

Stealth ban on Gulf drilling, By Steve Hargreaves, Senior writer
June 25, 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The offshore drilling ban imposed after the BP disaster is only supposed to hit operations in deep water — 500 feet or more. But drillers in shallow water say they haven’t been issued permits since the April 20 explosion. The delay has already forced hundreds of layoffs, and many more could be on the way.

"I’m almost out of business over here," said Paul Butler, president of Spartan Offshore, a small drilling company in Metairie, La.

"The Department of Interior isn’t issuing permits," said Jim Noe, a Hercules executive. "By mid July all of our rigs will be on the beach, and the workers without a job."

That could be a lot of jobs. Jobs are on the line: Deep water drilling, which is currently banned while an investigation into the Deepwater Horizon accident is underway, is estimated to employ at least 35,000 people on both the rigs and in jobs that support them.

Nearly that many jobs (at least 35,000) could also be at stake (lost) over (a ban on) shallow water drilling. While shallow water rigs are smaller and employ only about half as many people, there are almost twice as many of them in the Gulf, according to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association…

Safety first: An Interior Department spokeswoman said there is no freeze on shallow water drilling. However, she said, new safety procedures were put in place following the Deepwater Horizon spill.

"Companies have to comply before we can issue them permits," the spokeswoman said. "No one has fully complied."

Spartan’s Butler said there was a long delay between when Interior stopped issuing permits and when the new safety guidelines came out. Indeed, the first Interior Department notification to oil companies about the new requirements was dated June 8, nearly two months after the disaster.

Butler said he has been scrambling to get his paperwork in order and hopes that permits will be issued soon…

So, in summary, the ever-expanding federal government, which is increasingly in charge of more and more aspects of our life after voters put Democrats into Congress and the Presidency, decided that it was going to put in place new safety requirements on shallow-water drilling rigs, took two months to publish these requirements, and has been refusing to issue any permits for drilling since it decided to change the requirements, causing the loss of thousands of jobs already and the potential loss of thousands more, all with the intent to drive up the cost of energy so that you and your businesses use less, so that the globe will not warm up in spite of its relatively recent emergence from a Little Ice Age. In summary, idiots that idiot voters elected are putting in place idiotic policies because of idiotic beliefs.

Two Year Anniversary Post

This weekend marked the two year anniversary of this blog, so I thought that it would be fun to look back a bit. As I wrote in my inaugural post My Goal, this blog is primarily an outlet for my thoughts on education, teaching, local politics, and national politics. My background in government, business, and education has given me a unique perspective from which to comment on these subjects and I have continued to do a lot of different things in these areas, and so my hope was that these experiences would further the political discourse in this country and maybe even educate some of my readers. What motivated me to put together this blog and what continues to motivate me to spend the hours each week on it is the desire to make the world a better place.

My blog has been described as "like Glen Beck, minus the Mormonism" by one of my readers. Another reader wrote to me and said "What I like about The Conservative Teacher is the focus on national and regional politics, the reporting -- often in real-time -- on the dynamics of the liberal fascism of today's public schools, and the entertaining mix of popular culture. I read The Conservative Teacher every day, and you should too." Some people have said that my blog "gives them hope that there is actually still conservative teachers in education," and others have written that "each post is fun and entertaining and informative."

It is surprising how many regular readers that I have and how many people my blog has reached. Oh, I know I'm not a huge blog, but based on the numbers, I am the biggest conservative teacher blogger in Michigan. Each year has more and more people are checking out my blog, linking to it, adding it to their list of favorites, and emailing friends and family links. This year alone alone twelve thousand new readers have found their way to my blog! And they are not all from the US- I have readers from the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, India, Germany, and Italy, and have even had readers from Egypt, Iran, Russia, Turkey, China, Pakistan, and North Korea.

Being a blogger means that I am part of a community and could not have spread my message and observations without the help of other bloggers out there. In particular, I would like to thank Pundit and Pundette, TheBlogProf, Vox Day, Net Right Nation, Right Michigan, and For A Better Day- thanks for letting your viewers know about my blog.

Based on reader responses and feedback, here are some of their favorite posts on politics, the environment, teaching, and popular culture- be sure to check them out!
Democratic Aide implicated in Scheme to Bilk Millions out of taxpayers through Michigan Film Credits, Obama Nicknames, Coon Hunting, A Bear Named Obama, Teleprompters, Queen Touching, and Bush Fighting Zombies, or David Petraeus says a special Cherokee word to soldier in coma, soldier wakes up!.

Long Live President Jar Jar Binks!

In Obama or Bush as Emperor? I compared discussed how the Democratic National Convention, as organized by Barack Obama, was characterized by several writers as exciting because it tapped into our inner aggression, passion, and anger, and then I compared this to the Republican National Convention, as organized by John McCain, which was characterized by several writes as less exciting because it was comparatively calmer, quieter, and at peace with itself. Of course, the point I was making is that the Democrats are tapping into the dark side of the Force, and the Republicans the light side of the Force.

So let's reflect on what has been going down lately. Is Obama calm, quiet, and at peace with himself and tapping into the power of the light side of the Force, or is Obama full of anger, passion, and aggression and trying to tap into the dark side of the Force? Or is Obama just a petulant child with no midichlorians to speak of?

After watching all of Obama's useless thuggery in fighting the Gulf Oil spill, I'm choosing option 3. As Darth Vader said: "He's as clumsy as he is stupid." At one point, I really thought our nation was in trouble with Obama- I thought he could be Palpatine, the Emperor of the Sith, but now I realize that Palpatine actually had a plan to take over, he wasn't clumsy in building his dictatorship, and he was popular. Barack Obama isn't Palpatine- a closer Jedi analogy is Jar Jar Binks, although that's just sad to think about- American elected Jar Jar Binks as President? Seriously, these aren't the answers that you are looking for!

No more will you learn today, me so sorry!

Michigan No Longer Champion of Unemployment

Via Detroit News:

New state-by-state figures released by the federal government Friday showed Nevada led the nation in unemployment last month, assuming the title Michigan had held since April, 2006. The U.S. Department of Labor said Nevada's jobless rate jumped from 13.7 percent in April to 14 percent in May. In Michigan, meanwhile, the rate fell from 14 percent in April to 13.6 percent last month.

That's great news, right? Michigan is no longer the worst in the nation! Unemployment rates actually dropped in 37 states. We're turning the corner, right? Obama and the Democrats in Congress can take credit for saving our economy, right?

"What's happening this time around is we're seeing the economy continue to struggle -- it's not picking up as much as it should," Bill Anderson, chief economist with Nevada's employment agency, said.

That's right- every year as college graduates seek jobs and construction and landscaping takes advantage of the weather, the unemployment rate falls, but this year, it fell less than normal. Thanks to Obama and the Democrats in Congress, economic activity was destroyed. But that's not all the bad news.

The widespread declines (in unemployment rates) were mainly because people gave up looking for work and were no longer counted. Nationwide, 431,000 jobs were added, which was the biggest gain in a decade. However, the surge came from mainly from 411,000 temporary census jobs.

At least Michigan is no longer worst in the nation for unemployment.

Obama Takes Break from Golfing and Parties to Attend Baseball Game

Barack Obama has been hard at work lately- er, I mean hardly at work. In the last 18 months, Obama has played 33 rounds of golf, which incidentally is 9 more than Bush played his entire Presidency, and if you remember correctly the liberals and the left made a big deal of how much golf Bush played. By any measure, that's a lot of golf, even for a regular guy like me- that's almost a round of golf every two weeks (roughly 1 round of golf for every 2.3 weeks as President). He might as well join a league and at least go for league champion, and then at least he'll win a trophy of something. But I digress.

He took a break from golfing recently to deal with the Gulf Oil spill by golfing for four hours, which was longer than he visited the Gulf region. I guess that looks bad or something.

For a look at how much Obama cares about running our nation and dealing with the issue in the Gulf (see my post Obama Can Help with Gulf Oil Spill), check out this post from PolitiPage titled Obama during oil spill — golf, parties, photo-ops… and more golf! (photos), and you can see a timeline of how Obama has spent his time recently golfing, at parties, mountain biking, and vacationing. Towards the end of the timeline, you can see that it just isn't worth the effort of finding pictures as evidence any more to point out that Obama is spending his time as President living the good life and wasting taxpayers dollars at parties and functions and jetting around the country to go to basketball and baseball games.

Oh, yesterday Obama went to a baseball game. Obama saw Washington pitcher Stephen Strasburg set a record, but his White Sox won the game. Hard at work? Hardly working is more like it.

Obama Tales Theme Song

Here is a poem I wrote in honor of our Dear Leader:

Emanuel wished on an Obama scale,
And that’s what started Obama Tales.
Around the room the dollars flew,
But Emanuel and George knew what to do.
They climbed on the backs of their Obama friends,
Now the adventures never end!

Obama Tales, Obama Tales
It’s almost time for Obama Tales.
Come along and take my hand,
Let’s all go to Obama Land.

There’s Joe he’s the biggest,
Not so brave of heart.
There’s Hillary,
So shy, but so very smart.
There’s Eric and Elena and their tales of fun,
Cause you know two heads are better than one.

Obama Tales, Obama Tales
It’s almost time for Obama Tales.
Come along and take my hand,
Let’s all go to Obama Land.

Okay, so maybe this is better set to music. Click here to see what I was thinking for the tune.

Democratic Aide implicated in Scheme to Bilk Millions out of taxpayers through Michigan Film Credits

For a long time, I've had my doubts about the Democrat's much-touted subsidies and tax credits for filmmaking in Michigan. Most of my doubts center around the fact that these subsidies are being given away with very little oversight and are being given away to those with political connections (for example, Michael Moore sits on the board that recommends who gets these tax credits- and recently gave them to himself). This lack of transparency and political favoritism has not received the attention it should, because hidden behind the wall of secrecy that is the Democratic-run Film Office, there are a lot of corrupt deals being made that are screwing taxpayers over. Now it is confirmed though.

Breaking News: The chief-of-staff for a Grand Rapids Democratic State Congressman has been implicated in a million-dollar fraud scheme whereby he would buy a $4 million dollar building for $50 million and then apply $12.5 million dollars in subsidies through the state of Michigan's disgraced Film Office.

Noah Seifullah, who has been forced to resign from Congressman Robert Dean's staff, was in the process of finalizing the details of the Hangar42 studio scheme when the news broke. The Michigan Film Office had already given preliminary approval to the request for over $10 million in film-credits when the news broke.

This Hanger 42 scheme represents just the tip of the iceberg into the corruption that is rampant in the Michigan Film Office, so much so that Janet Lockwood, who is the director of the Michigan Film Office, is being forced to resign amid the growing criticism. Her office has stonewalled efforts to find out more information about the Hanger 42 deal, and many others, and she has attempted to provide citizens as little information as possible about the decision making process involved in the give-away of millions of taxpayers money.

The Mackinac Center was the first to publicly raise questions about the Hangar 42 deal with an essay and investigative video posted on its website May 20. They reported that the studio was on the market for as little as $9.8 million as late as February, but apparently sold for as much as $40 million not soon after that in order that the buyer could claim a much larger film-credit. As of today, the Michigan Film Office, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the seller and the buyers are all unwilling to answer questions about this scheme, and the Democratic Governor who is so proud of her Film Office (and even bragged about the Hanger 42 deal as evidence of the success of the film-credits in her recent State-of-the-State speech) nor the Democratic-controlled Michigan Legislature have pressed for answers or explanations.

The Grand Rapids Free Press deserves a lot of credit for putting this story together and piecing together the details here. They found the speech where Noah Seifullah outlined a 'hypothetical' situation whereby massive amounts of fraud could bilk the Michigan taxpayers out of millions. They then connected the 'hypothetical' situation described by Siefullah to the real world Hanger 42 project. Give the Grand Rapids Press credit for doing the real work on this story, fighting through government obstruction and attempts by Democrats at every turn to keep the corruption and fraud that is running rampant in their Film Office secret.

This scandal raises important questions. The Michigan Film Office is Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm's pet project, one that she brags about often, and yet this scandal raises questions and concerns about how thoroughly corrupt it is. She continually plows taxpayer money into this project, and yet her top example of success for this program (Hanger 42) has proven to be a corrupt sham. Next, at what point in this sham did someone cry foul- who knew what when at the Michigan Film Office about Hanger 42? Perhaps the Attorney General should start asking some questions. Is this the kind of public-private corporate welfare project that Democrats promote, rife with corruption of public officials? Last, is the corruption limited to just the local (state) Representative? Or is this something that many officials in the Democratic party are caught up in?

Stay tuned for further updates, and please feel free to link to this story- perhaps if this story gets big enough the Michigan Film Office and the millions that it is giving out to politically-connected individuals under great secrecy can be brought to light and analyzed and cleaned up.

UPDATE: Here is a video of the story:


UPDATE II: Looks like the Attorney General is getting into this situation- according to this story, Mike Cox (the AG for Michigan, and GOP candidate for Governor) is looking into the Hanger 42 scheme.

NOTE to NEW READERS: New readers, please feel free to also check out some of my recent good posts like Obama is a Caudillo, The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program, Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%, Earth Day: Is it just one big Communist Plot?, Gifted Programs in Schools Training Future Liberals, or Obama On Inner and Outer Circles of Leadership. Also feel free to link to aconservativeteacher.blogspot.com on your blog, and bookmark conservativeteacher.blogspot.com so you can become a regular reader of the battles of a conservative teacher's attempt to advance the principles of liberty and freedom.

"Screw You" is what Gary Peters, Barack Obama, and the Democrats in Congress Intend to Say to Voters by Passing Climate Bill

Via RealClearPolitics, Mike Allen broke this disgusting story yesterday:

Phil Schiliro, the White House congressional liaison, has told the Senate to aim to take up an energy bill the week of July 12, after the July 4 break (and after the scheduled final passage of Wall Street reform). Kagan confirmation will follow, ahead of the summer break, scheduled to begin Aug. 9. The plan is to conference the new Senate bill with the already-passed House bill IN A LAME-DUCK SESSION AFTER THE ELECTION, so House members don't ave to take another tough vote ahead of midterms.

A White House aide has the official word: "President Obama reiterated his call for comprehensive energy and climate legislation to break our dependence on oil and fossil fuels. In the coming weeks he will be reaching out to Senators on both sides of the aisle to chart a path forward. A number of proposals have been put forward from Members on both sides of the aisle. We're open to good ideas from all sources, and will be working with Senators on a comprehensive proposal. The tragedy in the Gulf underscores the need to move quickly, and the President is committed to finding the votes for comprehensive energy legislation this year."

Gary Peters, Democrats in Congress, and Democratic President Barack Obama know that the people don't want this cap-and-tax bill passed. They know without a certainty of a doubt that the voters DO NOT want the bill. The will of the people has been clearly expressed to them, and the Democrats totally understand that there is no way that voters want anything to do with this bill. And yet they intend on passing it anyway.

If you tell someone not to do something, you demonstrate through actions (like an election) that you don't want someone to do something, and then they look at you and do it anyways, what are they telling you? Gary Peters, Democratic Congressman from Michigan's 9th District, is telling his constituents "screw you." Barack Obama, Democratic President, is telling the people of the United States "screw you." They know that people don't want the bill passed, and yet are going to pass it anyway, in defiance of the public will, in disregard to the public will, and in disrespect to the public will.

This isn't Bush surging troops in Iraq when the 'public was against it'- polling data was pretty inconclusive on the War in Iraq, and if it was unpopular, it was marginally so (although vocally so in a certain segment of the population). And Bush was proud of the surge- he thought it would work and that voters would reward his party in the coming elections from its success (it did work but voters are idiots and punished him for winning an 'unwinnable' war). The cap and tax bill is different- voters are solidly against it , and have been for a long time, and in a consistent manner, and getting more and more against, and Democrats know it won't work, are not proud of it, and don't want to run on its success because they know it is going to be a failure. And yet they'll pass it anyway.

"Screw you America" is the new slogan of the Democrats. I'm not going to take this any more- everyone in my Congressman's district needs to know that this is how the Democrats think. Throw the bums out.

Gold in Afghanistan: As I Suspected!

The news that there are massive deposits in mineral wealth in Afghanistan and that it could be turned into one of the world's richest mining centers does not surprise me at all. One of my favorite video games to play is the Europa Barbarorum mod of Rome: Total War, and my favorite faction to play is Baktria.

The key to playing Baktria, which is the name of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom that sprawled over the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world covering the regions Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BCE, is to build a gold mine. The major cities of Backtria all have the potential to build rich gold mines, and in the description section of these buildings you can see the research that people put into the game as a whole. You see, in Bactria and Sogdiana, which is today Afghanistan, there are considerable gold deposits, that were mined even in antiquity.

In ancient times, there were productive gold mines in Bactria, that produced much of the wealth that created an empire that was able to battle the Seleucids, Persians, and invaders from the East, and eventually crossed the Hindu Kush and conquered parts of India. It must have taken extensive wealth to build an empire in this area, and what made ancient empires rich was usually mineral wealth, so I always suspected at the size and extent and wealth that was generated by the gold mines in this region.

Herodotus wrote about the occurrence of gold near the Bactria and how it was mined by ants. The Persian Emperor Darius wrote about how 'gold was brought from Bactria.' Pliny may have mentioned it as well. The biggest problem is that archeology just hasn't been done in this area of the world, so although there are scattered references to the past mineral riches in Afghanistan, there is nothing solid. It was because of that vagueness that I've been bumming around on the internet recently, trying to track down more information on the gold that I suspected lay hidden in the hills and mountains of Afghanistan.

And now, it turns out, I was right! Just wanted to point that out to anyone who cared.

Rick Barber for Alabama Congress

This is yet another great campaign advertisement that the Tea Party has inspired! Via Weasel Zippers, as reported on by the Politico:

Alabama Republican congressional candidate Rick Barber is encouraging his fellow tea party activists to “gather your armies” against President Barack Obama — with a campaign ad that twice shows a hand fidgeting next to a Revolutionary War-era pistol. In the new ad, Barber is seen sitting around the table with actors playing George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Sam Adams. Barber recently secured a spot in a July 13 runoff against Martha Roby, the winner of which will take on incumbent Rep. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.). Roby nearly secured the 50 percent needed to win the primary and is the favorite headed into the runoff.

Even if the guy doesn't win the nomination, give him credit for the great ad. Enjoy!

Obama is a Caudillo

Caudillo is a Spanish word that describes a leader who attempts to lead his state in an authoritarian way. Sometimes it is translated as strongman, and it refers primarily to charismatic populist leaders 'of the people' who keeps power by relying on personality cults, securing support from key power blocs in society, and controlling the structure of the government through the distribution of government jobs. A few examples of powerful Caudillos include Juan Manuel de Rosas of Argentina, Antonio López de Santa Anna of Mexico, José Rafael Carrera of Guatemala, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, or even the Spanish ruler Francisco Franco, who used from 1936 the title "Caudillo de España" (echoing other titles for charismatic strongmen who rule a nation like "Führer" and "Il Duce").

Democratic President of the United States of America Barack Obama is attempting to be a caudillo.

Ben Stein in his article Our Caudillo President wrote (this is only part of the article):

We live in a Constitutional Republic. The President's job under the Constitution is to enforce the laws made by the elected Congress. His job is not to create new laws and enforce them all by himself. His job is as magistrate under the Constitution, not as Caudillo. He is not the law. He is supposed to enforce what Congress decides.

The BP behavior is reminiscent of how, immediately after assuming office, Mr. Obama, with no Congressional authority or administrative allowance, simply made a phone call to fire the head of GM. When I called the White House press office to ask under what law or regulation Mr. Obama was acting, I was told he did not need a law. If the government put a lot of money into GM, it could call the shots at GM, I was told. But under what authority, I asked. "None needed," was the final answer.

Without any new legislation, President Obama has used returned TARP money as a political slush fund to prop up favorite industries. This is the same problem: serious executive action without legislative authority.

The same goes for Mr. Obama's demand that BP pay the lost wages of oil and gas workers suspended from work because of the moratorium on Gulf of Mexico underseas drilling. There simply was no legislation allowing this kind of specific demand. Mr. Obama's demand was in the nature of a threat, more than a Constitutional act.

These are the acts of a big city boss or a third world dictator.

Ben Stein has picked up on Obama's style of leadership, which was on full display recently- Obama sits up all high and mighty and judges us, threatening people and companies he doesn't like, wags his finger at you, and then just does things, regardless of whether they are legal. And the Congress that is supposed to be providing oversight for him, supposed to be supervising his slush funds and unconstitutional grabs for power, is doing nothing to stop him or rein him in. Obama might be called a new type of Democrat, different from 'moderates' or 'blue dogs', but the moderates and blue dogs are doing nothing to restrain or restrict him, so what use are they.

The only solution that presents itself to prevent our nation from continuing down this strongman path to dictatorship and tyranny is to vote every single person out of office who is a Democrat, and to elect Republicans to replace them. Then, at least we have a shot of keeping this the nation of the free and the home of the brave.

Democratic Congressman Attacks Student

Have you seen this yet? Watch the video- it's only a minute long- but it is shocking in its naked aggression. In it, Democrat Congressman Bod Etheridge (D-NC2), who was coming back from a fundraiser headlined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was asked by some students on the street whether he supported the "Obama Agenda." The Congressman immediately grabs hold of one of the students and starts to assault him. I'll give the kid credit- if the Congressman would have touched me like that, I'd be in jail (I assume that in modern USA if I am assaulted by a Congressman and fight back I go to prison). The whole thing is caught on film.

Big Government broke the news, but I first saw this on powerlineblog, but saw over at rightwingnews that Etheridge has a credible Republican challenger named Renee Ellmers (yet another conservative GOP woman running for office this year). You can donate to Renee Ellmers' campaign here. Additionally, you can follow Renee Ellmers on Facebook and Twitter.


UPDATE: On an unrelated note, here is what happens when a Taliban sniper pisses off US troops- they drop a 500 lb airburst bomb on them:

Obama Can Help with Gulf Oil Spill

I'm getting sick and tired of the increasingly amount of articles written by liberal bloggists and journalists who argue that Barack Obama can't do anything at all to help the situation with the Gulf Oil Crisis. There is article after article, blog post after blog post, all arguing the same thing- this was a natural disaster, the responsibility for the containment and cleanup is entirely on BP, Obama had nothing to do with it, Obama has nothing to do with it, and Obama and the Democrats in Congress who are running our nation right now are not to be blamed for it. They are wrong though- Democrat President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress running our nation can and should be blamed for their failures during the Gulf Oil Crisis.

First, as I wrote in Obama: Didn't Waive the Jones Act, Made Gulf Spill Worse that:

Don't kid yourself- there is a lot that the government can do to help the situation in the Gulf- like getting the heck out of the way of people who want to help. Obama could have waived the Jones Act and allowed foreign ships to assist in transporting goods (like oil-skimming booms) in order to help clean up the mess. But he didn't. Obama refused to waive the Jones Act.

Second, as I wrote in Mitt Romney on Leadeship that:

Romney is right- what we need right now is someone who will use what power and authority and resources that the federal government has to help, and other than that stay out of the way. Attacking BP isn't going to help anything, and there will be plenty of time for that later if that is what is called for. And sitting down with lawyers, labor union leaders, watermellons, and anti-war activists isn't going to help him come up with any new ideas to solve this issue. It's Day 52- what sort of leadership has he demonstrated from his position as most powerful leader in the world?

Third, New York Times columnist CAMPBELL ROBERTSON wrote in Efforts to Repel Gulf Oil Spill Are Described as Chaotic:

From the beginning, the effort has been bedeviled by a lack of preparation, organization, urgency and clear lines of authority among federal, state and local officials, as well as BP. As a result, officials and experts say, the damage to the coastline and wildlife has been worse than it might have been if the response had been faster and orchestrated more effectively.

“The information is not flowing,” Senator Nelson said. “The decisions are not timely. The resources are not produced. And as a result, you have a big mess, with no command and control.”

Obama should not be held responsible for the Deepwater Horizon Rig blowing up, but after it did, he should have been on the situation, providing leadership. This was federal waters, the federal government has extensive resources available, and the one thing that the President of the United States can do better than anyone else is act as a crisis manager. Once the rig blew up, Obama doesn't have to go out there with a straw to suck up the oil, but he does have to put in place a team who can organize federal, state, and local officials and put in place clear lines of command and clear lines of communication. That's his job. The President's job is to step in when there is a disaster and lead. He doesn't have to do anything- man a rig, visit the Gulf Coast, clean pelicans- but he does have to LEAD, or at least delegate that leadership to someone else who can then lead (like a crisis manager or something).

Fourth, lawmakers passed the federal Oil Pollution Act in 1990 to ensure that plans were in place for oil spills, so the response effort would be quick, with clear responsibilities for everyone involved. This means that Congress and the President are responsible for making sure that these plans were in place and ready to go. Oh, I know Obama has only been President for a couple years now (it seems like a lot longer), but the Democrats have been running Congress for years longer than that- at what point do we hold them responsible for not making sure that that laws in our nation are being followed? If the government can't take responsibility for something like this, passed almost 20 years ago, on what leap of faith can you expect them to take responsibility to do anything right as their responsibilities expand under Democratic leadership?

Obama CAN help to contain and clean up and prevent future Gulf Oil disasters- but he isn't doing that. He isn't helping to contain the spill- in fact, it appears that he is not repealing regulations that hinder fighting the spill and he is hindering efforts by states to build reefs and other means of protection. He isn't helping to clean up the spill- he has created a vacuum of leadership at the top of our nation, a vacuum that is sucking the oil right out of the ground and spewing it everywhere in a potent symbol of his inadequacy for the Presidency. And he isn't helping to prevent future Gulf Oil disasters, unless you consider his attempts to drive the US back into the Stone Age by killing energy production a way to help prevent future spills like this one. Obama can help the Gulf Oil Spill... but he isn't. The same things could be said for the Democrats who are running Congress as well.

Voters need to hold these people responsible and throw them out of office. Unlike a lot of conservatives, I'm not calling for big government and all powerful government to solve the situation, but I am calling for a government that shows leadership during a crisis and works to get out of the way of people trying to help. That's something that is possible, but not happening, under President Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

Liberal Teachers Openly Mock Students Who Enlisted

Via First Things, I was disgusted to read about two crazed anti-American teachers held anti-war signs during a high school assembly honoring 6 students who signed up to join the military. FOX Nation links to video here.WBZTV reported:

Two teachers at Dennis Yarmouth Regional High School have touched off a firestorm after holding up an “End War” sign at a school assembly where six students who’ve enlisted in the military were being honored. Many in the community say the teachers crossed a line and treated their own students with disrespect. The students received a standing ovation, but at that point the two teachers sat down refusing to clap. Teacher Marybeth Verani defends her protest saying, “I’m showing students in a democracy how to exercise dissent.” Some students responded by leafleting her classroom with signs saying “Support Our Troops.”

Students say Marybeth Verani talks frequently about her political views, and choosing this public forum now has principal Ken Jenks taking a closer look. "I think there's a sincere interest in fostering that dialogue, but I think the classroom is a better environment," said Jenks. Whether there will be disciplinary action he's not prepared to say, but is "weighing his options." Marybeth Verani says her protest was not a personal attack on the students and their choice to join the military. "It was just to show another point of view," she said, and she welcomed the signs outside her classroom as a way to open dialogue.

This teacher is a sad example of the type of liberal teachers that I've run into many times in education. She says that it is okay to put signs outside her classroom- but note that she said 'outside', and not inside, because she would not welcome someone else holding up a sign in her room. And yet she has no problem at all holding signs up in rooms not her own (in this case at the ceremony honoring those young students pledging to do their best to defend our lives, liberties, and properties from enemies within and without). This is exactly the type of hypocrisy to which marks liberals. The thing is, this teacher is a liar- she was not trying to start up a conversation on an issue, but to attempt to force their views on others (through the pitiful method of raising a sign). I've written about this before- see my post There is No Debate with the Left- My Confrontation with Mr. Liberal History Teacher.

For some reason, liberal teachers like to focus on signs- they are a way for a liberal teacher to tell you something that they feel or believe, but yet not receive any sort of feedback. I had a confrontation once with another teacher about a sign in my room- see my post Tear Down that Poster- It has Christianity on It.

This liberal teacher frequently talks about her political views in the classroom- note though that students did not say that the teacher frequently brings up both sides of issues and has students think critically about them, but rather that the teacher spends time in her class every day impressing her views on a captive audience rather than teaching them whatever subject it is that she teaches. I've seen this before- see my post Watching a Liberal Teacher Indoctrinate Youth. This liberal teacher is a bad teacher.

This liberal teacher made a judgement that the appropriate forum to start up a dialogue about the nature of war was at a school assembly, and that the best way to begin this 'discussion' was to hold up signs. This leads me to question other judgement calls that these teachers make daily in their classrooms. It is logical to assume that if they have such poor judgement in this case, there are likely many other cases where they have exercised bad judgement.

These teachers should be fired for their poor judgement, poor teaching, hypocrisy, and insulting disrespectful behavior.

We Know Whose To Kick

Obama: Didn't Waive the Jones Act, Made Gulf Spill Worse

In reply to the emails from snarky liberals who ask 'just what do I expect Obama to do about the Gulf oil spill', the reply is 'get the hell out of the way.' See, that's pretty much my response to every question about 'just how can government improve the situation'- to which I reply 'government can get out of the way of our god-given ingenuity, industry, and desire to do goodwill.' Let loose the power of free markets and civil society and restrict government to limited and defined roles, and the world will be a better place. In this particular case, just 'what can Obama do'? Here is one of dozens of examples that are specific and have few drawbacks but Obama isn't doing.

Obama can temporarily waive the Jones Act.

The Jones Act, which is Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, is a United States Federal statute that regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. It requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents. The purpose of the law was to support the U.S. merchant marine industry, specifically the union bosses who build ships in the US (although the extensive unionization largely destroyed the US shipbuilding industry) and the union bosses who crew ships registered to the US (although the extensive unionization forced most ships to register elsewhere). Many opposed the law because of its anti-free market approach, specifically agricultural interests who argued that it drastically raises the costs of shipping agricultural products.

This act effectively forbids foreign nations from assisting the US in times of need by banning ships flagged, crewed, constructed, or owned by other nations from transporting cargo from one US port to another US port. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff temporarily waived the U.S. Shipping Act for foreign vessels carrying oil and Natural gas from September 1 to 19, 2005, in order to help in the recovery efforts- ie, government got out of the way in order to improve the situation.

As of today, the Obama administration has not waived the Jones Act. When White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked about it, he had a flippant answer that is characteristic of the Obama White House- “If there is the need for any type of waiver, that would obviously be granted. But, we've not had that problem thus far.” Oh, if only that were true.

According to information obtained by Fox News, some of the best clean up ships which are owned by Belgian, Dutch and the Norwegian firms are NOT being used. Coast Guard Lt. Commander, Chris O’Neil, says that is because they do not meet “the operational requirements of the Unified Area Command.” One of those operational requirements is that vessels comply with the Jones Act. Other reports state that Dutch and Belgian companies (countries that are “longtime NATO allies) have technology and resources that, coupled with American assistance could, cut the projected oil spill clean-up time from nine months down to three months.

Now we learn that three days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help:

It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands. The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,'” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.

Part of the reason that the Obama administration may have turned down the offer of help from the Dutch government is that it would have required the waiver of the Jones Act, and Obama, under pressure from the labor unions, was not even willing to think about doing that, even if doing so would have saved our nation billions in cleanup costs and saved the jobs of thousands of Gulf residents and saved thousands of animal lives.

Don't kid yourself- there is a lot that the government can do to help the situation in the Gulf- like getting the heck out of the way of people who want to help. Obama could have waived the Jones Act and allowed foreign ships to assist in transporting goods (like oil-skimming booms) in order to help clean up the mess. But he didn't. Obama refused to waive the Jones Act. Likely he didn't even know about it (the reaction by the White House to the Gulf spill is increasingly being described as confused, muddled, unintelligent, uninformed, and amateurish), but that doesn't matter- as President of the United States of America, it is up to him to figure out how to get the federal government out of the way of people who want to help us in times of need. He didn't. Hold him accountable.

UPDATE: New readers, please feel free to also check out some of my recent good posts like Obama is a Caudillo, The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program, Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%, Earth Day: Is it just one big Communist Plot?, Gifted Programs in Schools Training Future Liberals, or Obama On Inner and Outer Circles of Leadership. Also feel free to link to aconservativeteacher.blogspot.com on your blog, and bookmark conservativeteacher.blogspot.com so you can become a regular reader of the battles of a conservative teacher's attempt to advance the principles of liberty and freedom.

Mitt Romney on Leadership in the Gulf

There is a reason why I have suggested several times that our nation should elect Mitt Romney for President in 2012. It is not because I 'hate Obama,' it is not because 'I am racist,' it is not because I am a 'GOP plug,' and it is not because I am 'a paid political consultant'- nope, the reason why Mitt Romney should be President of the United States of America is because he is the best man for the job.

In Get Comfortable with Mitt in 2012 I wrote "solid, reliable, able conservative executives who do good things and do them well. Let's start getting more comfortable with Mitt in 2012." In New Faces in 2012? Nah, Make it Mitt Instead I wrote " Republicans don't need a 'conservative Obama'- we already have seen what happens when you put an inexperienced idealistic rube in office, and it isn't pretty. We don't need a 'new fresh face' or even someone 'from outside the establishment.' What the Republicans need to do is put a responsible, solid, experienced, and learned President in the White House- not someone who is going to set the world on fire and be a revolutionary, but one who will start the task of 8 years of solid, steady, digging."

Romney has kept up his profile over the last several years (The Man Who Should Be President Gives Advice), and today he has written another nice article for USA Today about a very important skill that President Obama lacks- leadership:

....The president is meeting with his oil spill experts, he crudely tells us, so that he knows "whose ass to kick." We have become accustomed to his management style — target a scapegoat, assign blame and go on the attack. To win health care legislation, he vilified insurance executives; to escape bankruptcy law for General Motors, he demonized senior lenders; to take the focus from the excesses of government, he castigated business meetings in Las Vegas; and to deflect responsibility for the deepening and lengthening downturn, he blames Wall Street and George W. Bush. But what may make good politics does not make good leadership. And when a crisis is upon us, America wants a leader, not a politician.....
....In a crisis, the leader must gather the experts — federal, state, local, public and private — not to discover who is to blame but to secure their active and continuous involvement until the crisis is resolved. There is extraordinary power inherent in an assembly of brilliant people guided by an able leader. In virtually every historic national crisis, our most effective leaders gathered the best minds they could find — consider the Founders in Philadelphia, Lincoln with his "Team of Rivals," Roosevelt with scientists and generals seeking to end World War II, Kennedy with the "Best and Brightest" confronting the Cuban missile crisis.....
....What happens when men and women of various backgrounds, fields of expertise, and unfettered intellectual freedom come together to tackle a problem often exceeds any reasonable expectation....
....Finding fault is easier than finding answers. And worse, it paralyzes many of the very people who may be needed to solve a crisis....

Romney is right- what we need right now is someone who will use what power and authority and resources that the federal government has to help, and other than that stay out of the way. Attacking BP isn't going to help anything, and there will be plenty of time for that later if that is what is called for. And sitting down with lawyers, labor union leaders, watermellons, and anti-war activists isn't going to help him come up with any new ideas to solve this issue. It's Day 52- what sort of leadership has he demonstrated from his position as most powerful leader in the world?

You need to ask yourself- would you want your business run by Mitt Romney or Barack Obama? If the left is stubborn enough to resubmit Obama to the American people in 2012 and have the nation evaluate Obama on his record and achievements and leadership during his time in office, I think the choice is clear- Mitt Romney needs to kick Obama's arse.

Solomon Kane

Solomon Kane is a fictional character created by the pulp-era writer Robert E. Howard. A late 16th / early 17th century Puritan, Solomon Kane is a sombre-looking man who wanders the world with no apparent goal other than to vanquish evil in all its forms. His adventures, published mostly in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, often take him from Europe to the jungles of Africa and back.

In the world of Solomon Kane there is Evil. People do evil things (thieves steal and murderers kill), there are evil empires (decadent and peopled by barbarous people), and there are evil spirits present (ghosts and such). Solomon Kane has but one purpose in life, and that is to fight evil, going wherever God's will draws him. A hunger drives him forward, an urge to right all wrongs, to protect those weaker, and to avenge all crimes against right and justice. Wayward and restless, he roams from place to place consistent in one respect only- that he will be true to his ideals of justice and right. Such is Solomon Kane.

Although Solomon Kane is not my favorite Howard character (my favorite is El Borak), I enjoy the stories, and find myself, as I always do when I read Howard, transported back to some sort of primordial time, some sort of time-before-time, perhaps a time period in my childhood when dreams and reality where closer together, or maybe Howard just awakens some sort of ancient stirring in my soul. All I know is that it is very fun reading, and if you haven't picked up a Solomon Kane book yet, you should.

Thus I was very excited to stumble on this trailer, for the Solomon Kane movie. It came out in Europe back in February of 2010, but has not yet made it to the States yet, and there is no DVD available yet for it, but hopefully there will be soon, because it looks like a sweet movie.

The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program

Democrat President Barack Obama's economic programs can be best called "The Inside Deal." There is a long history of 'deals' in our nation, where the government expands unconstitutionally into areas where it is not supposed to be and crowds out human freedom and industry. These deals all have cool names- Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society- and as Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have jammed through considerable changes in our nation over the last year, it is appropriate that we give a name to Obama's economic policies. I hearby submit to the world that we call Obama's economic programs "The Inside Deal."

The Inside Deal is Democratic President Barack Obama's domestic economic program and is characterized by extensive government spending for politically connected groups within American society. It is aimed to reward those groups that supported Obama's campaign for the Presidency in 2010, such as labor unions, public employee unions, teachers unions, environmentalists, anti-war protesters, Wall Street, and big businesses. Some of the programs that were passed by the Democratic Congress at the time to reward these groups include the stimulus bill, the healthcare bill, and massive annual budgets.

Increasingly during the height of the Inside Deal, there is a link between who receives taxpayer money from the federal government and their political connections. Called by some crony capitalism, it is increasingly unpopular, and in the face of continuing recession in spite of (or because of) the massive deficits that marked the Inside Deal, this program was largely overturned by Republican Congressional majorities and Presidents from 2010-2020 (hopefully).

Hopefully someone will soon create a wikipedia article on this, describing Obama's Inside Deal in more depth.

The first 'deal' that was made between government and America where citizens traded their rights and liberties for the promise of 'progress' was the Square Deal. The Square Deal was Republican President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking the plutocracy and trusts through rhetoric and expansions of federal power while at the same time protecting business from the extreme demands of the rising communists.

Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had The New Deal. This was a series of economic programs passed by Congress from 1933 to his reelection in 1936. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform. That is, relief for the unemployed and poor; recovery of the economy to normal levels; and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. To see a list of some of the programs that comprise FDR's New Deal, see my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong.

The next 'deal' was offered by Democrat President Harry Truman, who presented a 21 point program of domestic legislation outlining a series of proposed actions in the fields of economic development and social welfare, including the call for universal health care. But in the face of peace and rising prosperity, the country decided that it didn't want to accept this deal, and the boom times of the 1950's and 1960's followed.

But Democrat Lyndon Johnson was inspired by the Fair Deal, and when he became President, he tried once again to make a deal between government and society whereby people would trade their individual rights and freedoms and liberties for some sense of 'fairness' in society. He called his 'deal' the Great Society. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The federal government has since spent trillions of dollars on these issues, and education, healthcare, urban areas, and transportation systems are now much worse today then they would have been if the federal government would not have stuck its nose into those areas and let human ingenuity and freedom and industry work unchained and untaxed.

Obama's Inside Deal represents then just the latest in a long line of usurpation's that have the goal of reducing our rights to life, liberty, and protection of property. Like our forefathers before, it is up to us to fight and overturn these injustices, least we be reduced to a state of tyranny.

2010 Sets Record for Republican Women Filing to Run for Office

According to the Washington Post, 270 women have filed for candidacies in House and Senate races for the 2010 election— and over 100 of them are Republicans:

Nearly two years after Sarah Palin became the Republican Party’s first female vice presidential nominee, record numbers of Republican women are running for House seats, driving the overall count of women running for both the House and the Senate to a new high.

The surge in female candidates has taken place largely under the radar. The previous high came in 1992, the Year of the Woman, when the percentage of women in Congress reached double digits for the first time. That year, 222 women filed to run for the House and 29 for the Senate.

So far this year, 239 women are candidates for the House and 31 for the Senate, according to data from the Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. Among them, a record 107 Republican women have filed to run for a House seat, according to the National Republican Congressional Committee — surpassing a previous GOP high of 91 in 1994 and a sharp increase from the 65 who ran in 2008.

Hotair.com calls 2010 "The Year of the Republican Woman" for fueling this surge, and points out that part of what is fueling this surge is the strong conservative focus for the GOP in the 2010 elections:

Republican women have two significant role models for this new surge in activism. Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann have toured the country, headlining Tea Party events and becoming spokespeople for the grassroots opposition to the radical Democratic agenda. In my experience at Tea Party events, we seem to get a bigger turnout of women — and women tend to dominate the organizer ranks as well.

In my experience as well, the Tea Party ranks are filled with Republican women, and to be perfectly honest, there have been some pretty fine looking conservative women at these events. It is about time that the GOP has encouraged more women to take on leadership roles in the party- they've always been there and have been an important part of the GOP, but for some reason haven't stepped forward to take on leadership roles in the party. It just goes to show how important Sarah Palin is to the GOP- she has proved that you don't have to be some sort of pseudo-intellectual unattractive boring politician (Democratic women) to be a leader in politics. I just hope more women follow her example and step forward to challenge Democrats and Republicans for the future of the party.

Graph Comparing Unemployment Rate For GOP and Democrat Senators

A couple months ago I analyzed the employment numbers (for the full and lengthy discussion, see the post Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%) and concluded that over the last 20 years, having a Republican Congress resulted in an increase in 0.4% to the total number of people employed in our nation, having a Republican President resulted in a decrease of 3.6%, having a Democrat Congress decrease of 3.3%, and having a Democrat President an increase of 0.7%. I concluded that that as a voter you should 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.

Here is more data to back up my conclusion and analysis, via theblogprof, via American Thinker. You don't have to be a genius to read that data and make the correct conclusions.

The Secret to Doing Well on Government and Civics Tests: A Grader Tells All

Occasionally companies hire me to work on tests for them. I can't be too specific- confidentiality and all that- but I can tell you that after working on these tests I gain valuable insights into how to do well on them. And for anyone that is interested, I'm going to pass on a huge tip on how to do well on any government or civics test- be a conservative.

That's right, after grading thousands of tests over a period of many years, it suddenly hit me me- the number one way that a student could improve their score on many of these tests on government and civics is to be a conservative instead of a liberal.

Before you just laugh and reject my thesis, hear me out. Liberals (Democrats, progressives, communists, socialists, progressives, whatever you want to call them) tend to get a lot of questions wrong on government and civics tests because in order to be a liberal you have to buy into certain myths, lack important information about history and economics, or have an elitist or judgemental personality that does not lend itself well to open, honest, unbiased tests.

For example, when students are asked about group voting tendencies on a test question, liberal students reply that every group in society is moving Democrat because Democrats are right on all the issues, and that only racists and evil businessman still vote Republican or conservative. Conservative students reply that some groups are moving Democrat because of their stance on some issues and other groups are moving Republican because of their stance on some issues- which is the correct answer. The only difference- being a liberal makes you put the wrong answer down.

Another question asked about federalism and limited government. Liberals answer that federalism does not exist any more and that limited government is an outdated answer that no one believes in any more. They write this because they think this is correct- they base their answer on faulty information. Conservative students reply with discussions on how federalism has changed and how limited government has changed, which again is the correct answer.

Liberal students reply to questions about fiscal policy by asserting that raising taxes and raising spending makes the economy go up and lowering taxes and lowering spending makes the economy go down. Conservative students discuss Keynesian theory vs Hayek, which again is the correct answer.

When asked virtually any question about civics and government, a liberal student's answer is filled with inaccurate information, myths, lies, distortions of the truth, and falsehoods. That's not to say that conservatives don't also do this, but one thing that I have noticed about conservatives is that they do this much less and attempt to provide evidence to support any assertions they make, whereas liberals, because they know they are right, throw off multiple lies, hoping one will stick.

Once, a student asked me how I could consider myself a conservative, when conservatives are such bad people (in their opinion). I said that I wish I could be a socialist, or a liberal, but sadly, those ideologies are false- they do not describe the reality of the world that I see about me. An ideology is a way of looking at the world, a lens through which you can view things, and if the lens is wrong or incorrect, you won't see the true reality of the world. Liberals don't see the true reality of the world around them- in fact, most outright reject that there is any sort of true reality to the world and that everything in it is just subjective- and so whenever they advance their theories, make predictions, or shape policy, they are always wrong, because their lens is wrong. I'd love for them to be right- if only money grew on trees and that paying people to stay home and do nothing made society a better place to live and criminals could be released early from prisons and holding hands and singing a song made evil dictators be nice- but sadly, that isn't the way the world really works. To be right, to be correct, you have to be conservative.

And on thousands of tests that students are taking all around the country on government and civics, that is the biggest difference between a student doing well and a student doing poorly- the ability to see the world correctly by being a conservative and not a liberal.

Second Vermont Republic Group

In my post Guns, Gold, and Secession from February of 2009, I wrote about how the election of Obama and liberal Democrats (such as my very own Congressman Gary Peters from Michigan's 9th, who has a wikipedia page that can be edited) had indeed changed our nation, spurring record sales of guns and gold and increased calls for secession. The secession movement has lost a little steam of late, but states continue to attempt to nullify the federal government's unconstitutional power grab for control of healthcare policy, and the tea party movement borders dangerously close to secession grounds sometimes.

In my earlier post, I wrote about the Second Vermont Republic (SVR) group, which is a secessionist group within the U.S. state of Vermont which seeks to return to the formerly independent status of the Vermont Republic (1777–91). This group calls for Vermont to secede from the Union. Although this group disbanded in 2005, in 2010 nine Vermonters announced they were planning to run for governor, lieutenant governor and seven seats in the state Senate on a Vermont secession platform. The candidates did not organize a formal political party organization but are running as individuals under the “Vermont Independence Day Party” label.

Has it really come to this for some people? Is this really what some people want to do? Look, the American political system is set, and has been set for some time. One nation, indivisible. Secession isn't going to happen. And while I'm at it, it is a two party system, a third party or independent is a stupid idea, vote Republican. You don't need to withdraw from society, or throw your vote away, to change the nation- Obama proved that you need to exercise your right to vote at every single possible opportunity- primary, federal, state, and local elections- and fight fight fight the liberal progressive leftist commies continually.

Gold

Gold is a highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since the beginning of recorded history. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. Gold is dense, soft, shiny and the most malleable and ductile pure metal known. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Gold is one of the coinage metals and has served as a symbol of wealth and a store of value throughout history. Gold standards have provided a basis for monetary policies. It also has been linked to a variety of symbolisms and ideologies. A total of 161,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history, as of 2009.

And now gold is valued at $1223 per once.

Up until WWI, gold was worth about $20 per once. In 1934, gold was worth about $35 an once. In 1971 President Richard Nixon ended US dollar convertibility to gold and the central role of gold in world currency systems ended. The dollar and gold floated and in January 1980 the gold price hit a record of $850 per ounce (in inflation adjusted US dollars, the price would have to reach about $2,200 to break the record in real terms). Back in 1980, the world was facing major recessions, debt problems, crisis in the Middle East, a major invasion by the Russians, and the dramatic fall of US power world wide.

As gold surges in value, one has to wonder what has changed over the last several years to drive this surge in the value of gold. The biggest change in US politics was the election of Obama. Could that be the change that is driving the rising value of gold?

State Capitalism, Crony Capitalism, Corrupt Capitalism, Syndicaliam, Corporatism... Obamaism

In my post Crony Capitalism Booming Under Obama Rule in February of 2010, I wrote:

One of my biggest fears about the Obama administration is not that it is liberal and not that it is communist, but rather that it is the beginning of a renaissance of National Socialism. One of the common misconceptions that people have about National Socialism is that it was against big business, or that big business opposed it. Free markets oppose national socialism, and individuals oppose national socialism, but Big Business, threatened by government, does the logical thing, and joins in. National socialism leads to an alliance of Big Business, which enjoys government protection against challenges to its market share and in exchange transforms itself into a tool of government control over the economy. Top executives and lobbyists do very well under a National Socialist regime, while the people suffer.

At the time, I was responding to a post that I found on powerlineblog called Crony Capitalism, which itself was a response to the article from Michael Barone called: "Under Obama, crony capitalism again rules the day."

That was several months ago now, and with the passage of time, we can re-evaluate my thesis- that the Obama administration is putting place a version of fascism that you can nicely called Crony Capitalism or State Capitalism, whereby the government subverts the free market for the good of the 'state' and makes alliances with Big Business to crush smaller companies through regulation and taxation.

Gregory Scoblete updates the situation with his article Will Free Markets Give Way to State Capitalism:

State capitalism, Bremmer writes, "is a system in which the state dominates markets primarily for political gain." From state-owned corporations operating in strategic industries like natural resources or defense, to enormous sovereign wealth funds in the hands of autocrats with opaque operating principles, state capitalism has enabled the world's autocratic states to reap the benefits of capitalist enterprise while maintaining a vice-grip on political freedom.

In Bremmer's telling, the world's autocratic states learned a valuable lesson from the implosion of the Soviet Union: command economies do not work and when they fail, they can bring down the over-arching political system with them. They also watched the post Soviet experiment in crash liberalization with horror. To protect their hides and preserve their privilege, autocratic rulers in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have created a "hybrid" system that leverages many of the tools of capitalism to generate wealth while the heavy hand of the state ensures that wealth is put to the service of the elites and rulers of each country.

Here in America, we have a ruler who wants us to emulate China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia- he wants to create a 'hybrid system' here where the fascist state can leverage capitalism for the good of the all-powerful state through the heavy hand of a tyrannical government. I'd love to sugar coat this, but the evidence is piling up that this is his intention.