My Beauty Best Teacher

On the lighter side of things, apparently you and I are working hard right now to help re-elect President Barack Obama, donating millions through taxes to his campaign to help transport security vehicles, armored limousines, and communications gear into cities ahead of his various campaign appearances. President Obama has decided to fly around the nation giving speech after speech instead of working hard to rebuild our economy, right-size government, lower the deficit, bring efficiency to operations, root out waste and fraud, and working to strike the compromises and deals needed to reform our bankrupt entitlement programs- and you're gonna pay for it.

Via The Daily Caller, Obama campaign gets more Air Force aircraft:

The U.S. Air Force is pulling nine cargo aircraft from military operations to support President Barack Obama’s stepped-up visits to campaign events.

The five medium-capacity C-130s and four heavyweight C-17s will be used to ferry security vehicles, armored limousines and communications gear into cities ahead of Obama’s campaign appearances.

In the months before November, the president is expected to fly into multiple cities per week, and speak at multiple sites per day. On Mar. 8, for example, the president will fly to Richmond, and then drive over to a Rolls-Royce aircraft-parts factory. That evening, he’ll fly down to Houston, Texas.

His wife, Vice President Joe Biden and many of his cabinet secretaries are using the Air Force’s fleet of VIP aircraft to visit more states as the election season speeds up.

The nine cargo aircraft will begin operations in April, said Maj. Michelle Lai, communications officer for the Air Force’s 89th Airlift Wing. “They’ll stand down in November 2012,” she said...

...The cargo aircraft have been used to fly troops, weapons and supplies into U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Iraq and other sites in the Middle East during the decade-long operations in Afghanistan and Iraq...

...The squadrons will supplement the existing fleet of VIP passenger aircraft at Andrews. Those aircraft include two giant Boeing 747s — which are tagged Air Force One while they’re carrying the president — as well as five Boeing 757 wide-body passenger jets, and 11 Gulfstream executive jets.

Those passenger aircraft are already helping shuttling cabinet secretaries to their election-related events, many of which are in critical swing-states...

So, to sum up, rather than protecting our nation, or carrying food to poor starving children, or just sitting and not wasting expensive jet fuel, the President has ordered that military assets be used to supplement his already extensive fleet in ferrying people and supplies around the nation, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands.

It's kind of hard for liberals and progressives to argue that President Obama's actions as demonstrated here are anything other than wrong. On the other hand, I kind of feel like this borders on criminal- it's the utter misuse of government resources to support a person's political ambitions and fly friends and family around the nation in taxpayer paid luxury.

I recently got the opportunity to review both of Dr. Erica Warren's Following Directions workbooks, and I wanted to tell you what I think.

Before we begin, let me just say that Dr. Warren gave these workbooks to me for free, asking if I would review them on my blog. I am not getting any more compensation than just the workbooks themselves for writing this post, and I would never endorse any product I didn't fully believe in.

With that said, let's talk specifically about Warren's two Following Directions workbooks. The workbooks I sampled are called Following Directions (An Intermediate Workbook 1) and Following Directions: The Easy Way (A Beginner's Workbook 1).

The concept for both of the workbooks is the same: we want to condition our students to pay closer attention to directions and be able to follow directions quickly but accurately. To an extent, these workbooks somewhat reminded me of those "April Fool's Day" following-directions sheets that teachers sometimes give to play a joke on their students, like this:

This (obviously used) April Fool's Day prank was found here.

But unlike the April Fool's Day sheets like the one featured above, Warren's workbooks will not embarrass any student who do not follow the directions precisely (no one has to yell a sentence about their school pride or clap their hands twice during these workbooks! lol).

To help condition students to follow directions, Warren has created a series of worksheet pages with a grid of pictures, numbers, or letters on it. Above the grid is a set of step-by-step instructions as to what the student should do on the grid. Here is a sneak peak at the example page from her Following Directions: The Fun and Easy Way (A Beginners Workbook 1) book:





This is just a simple grid -- the grids and instructions get larger and more complex as you move through the book.

One thing I like about these books is that these grids aren't just practice on following directions. Sure, these worksheets will help students practice following written directions. But I personally think they will also help students exercise their "critical thinking skills" muscle. You see, the directions aren't always clear when you first read them. For instance, one of the directions I saw said, "I am in one of the rows above the second-to-last row." Even as an adult, I had to stop and think about what that really meant. Another line of directions said, "I am a consonant." For this, not only do students need to know the difference between a consonant and a vowel, but they also have to reason that if our answer is a consonant, our answer cannot be a vowel; therefore, we need to cross out all vowels.

As I'm writing this, I'm reminded of the logic grids my 6th grade science teacher used to give us:

This particular puzzle can be found here.

I, for one, love using logic puzzles in the classroom because I feel that most students need to practice those much-needed critical thinking skills, and these are the perfect way to do so. (By the way, Puzzle Baron has actual books you buy that contain paper copies of all of their logic grids. Find one here
.)

Anyway, I think Warren's "Following Directions" workbooks could help students in a variety of ways. There are directional words in almost every line of directions, so students could practice directions and prepositions. There are math words such as "less than," "odd," "trapezoid" with which students will become familiar. There is even some science in these sheets: "I need water to live," and "Sunlight is my food" are two examples. All in all, I think that if you want to give your students practice at following directions (and a few other things), these workbooks are a good buy.

Warren offers a free sample of a Following Directions book on her Teachers Pay Teachers page.

If you'd like to read the reviews and/or purchase one or both of these books, click the images below to be taken to their product listings on Amazon.





Even if you don't want to use these pages as actual activities in your classroom, I think they could still be useful as bellwork or "what to do when you're done" activities for those early-finishers. If nothing else, the critical thinking skills students would build from doing these pages could probably prepare students to achieve higher test scores on those state-mandated exams!

Here are ten consequences of a victory by President Barack Obama in November 2012 over Mitt Romney:

1. Obamacare will not be repealed. It is already being demonstrated to raise costs of healthcare and as its taxes and regulations sink deeper through the system, it will cause our healthcare system to increasingly be in a crisis, likely resulting in greater and greater government control to 'fix', until we have a massively inefficient and expensive and bad healthcare system.
2. The unprecedented levels of spending in Obama’s first four years will become the new floor, as America continues its experiment in reckless spending and adding up massive debt. The new normal of debt that Obama has established- $1 trillion a year of living beyond our means as a nation- will erode the value of our currency, lead to higher interest rates, lessen our national security, and eventually cause our nation to collapse. Four more years at our current levels might just about do it.
3. Job creators will face massive tax increases and more Americans will come off the tax rolls—resulting in fewer citizens with a stake in keeping taxes low and more with a stake in protecting benefits. The Bush tax cuts and other tax cuts may be allowed to expire while Obama and the Democrats who still support his failing policies will push for more taxes, fees, and fines to pay for the exploding cost of employing more and more government workers and providing ever more 'free' services and products to citizens.
4. Government dependency, already at record levels, will continue to grow. Based on the results of his first 4 years as President in which record numbers of people went on welfare, more people will go on food stamps and bridge cards and lifelong unemployment and other government programs. They will not gain job skills and any skills they have will be eroded by time, rendering them unemployable, unhappy, and dependent on elites above to provide them with what they need to live. They'll become slaves to the state, living in permanent poverty, and I don't think we can afford four more years of accepting this.
5. Four more years that we have already lost in dealing with the looming and inevitable entitlement crisis will become eight. The reforms needed for strong and healthy Social Security and Medicare programs  will need to be in place many years to avoid the collapse that is coming, and the delay of electing Obama on a myth of hope and change has already set our nation back a critical 4 years- another 4 years of Obama might change the conversation from 'implement reforms to keep these programs' to 'its a crisis and we're facing a collapse.'
6. Obama, unworried about the impact of gas and electricity prices on his reelection, will finally wage the regulatory war on fossil fuels the Left demands. As Obama stated in March, no President wanting to win re-election wants high gas prices- but a President not needing to win re-election because he is a lame duck for four years will not need to worry about high gas prices, and he is sure to wage a war to drive up the cost of gas. The cost of gasoline is a very regressive tax, which means when it goes up it hurts the poor more than the rich, and the effects of 4 more years of Obama will be a more unequal society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
7. He will unleash the Environmental Protection Agency to impose crushing new burdens on U.S. business. Already the EPA is an agency just barely under control, in every way it can waging its green communist war against freedom and liberty and property. Another 4 years of executive orders and ever expanding budgets will make this agency uncontrollable and its regulations and policies will be a corrupting influence on any potential economic growth.
8. President Obama will continue and heighten his administration’s assault on religious freedom, expanding it into other areas in his effort to wipe out the influence of Christians in our nation. Already liberals and progressives speak about removing the 'tax-exempt' status from Churches, closing down all religious schools, and increasing the wall of separation that already exists between church and state. Eventually, once organized religion- mainly Christianity, especially Catholicism-  is walled off and isolated, personalized and demonized, he can finally kill God and replace him with himself or one of his idols.
9. Another 4 more years of Obama will gut the Defense Department, with cuts so deep that America will no longer be a superpower. Already under Obama we have abandoned our long-held policy of fighting two wars; another 4 years of Obama may lead to our inability to fight one war successfully. While the military is cut, Obama as commander-in-chief focuses on making it more gay-friendly and more green, and another four more years of this may result in the US losing its ability to protect its citizens and interests around the globe.
10. Obama could have the opportunity to appoint more Supreme Court justices, and we have seen from President Obama's past two picks for the judicial branch that he does not even pretend to try to appoint moderates and independents, rather fighting hard to advance and appoint the most partisan and extreme judges in our system. If he is given another four more years by winning re-election in November, we could be looking at a majority of the court that agrees with current liberal Justices who argue that the US Constitution is inferior to the constitutions of other states and that we should use international law instead of US law when making decisions for our nation. This extreme and rogue and partisan Court of unaccountable and unelected lawyers will be a great threat to your life, liberty, and property.

You and your family and friends should be opposing President Barack Obama and working to remove him from power because of consequences above, which are all policy options that President Obama freely chooses to engage in. Most of these policies he pushed for when his party controlled all of Congress, and even today his party still controls the Senate. No one forced him to adopt the policies above, which will have the logical and reasonable consequences I detailed. Racism, partisanship, extremism, and dislike for the guy personally are not to be found in my analysis above. Rather my analysis is based on logic, history, reason, and results, from those principles we can see the consequences of President Barack Obama winning re-election in 2012, and knowing this, we should all oppose him and vote for his likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

UPDATE: Thank you for linking Right Wing News and Adrienne's Catholic Corner!

Over the last several years, I have been fighting my own brand of war against those people who are the enemies of freedom and liberty. My style of fighting is to write about freedom and liberty; to discuss and expand on the ideas found in our founding documents; and attempt to apply to modern day policies the principles of protection of life, support of liberty, and protection of property. And those who oppose me have also been fighting me.

But unlike my style of warfare, the thugs who oppose me rely on intimidation, threats, attempts to damage my property, and efforts to silence me. And I am just the sort of target that these thugs like- although elected officials and big-time bloggers are good targets too, they are able to fight back and could become martyrs to the cause, but me and those who support the elected officials and bigger bloggers and private citizens who are attacked are one removed from the dispute and smaller so make much better targets for the thugs and cowards out there who disagree with our views and policy positions.

Although there is no way to compare what I have faced to the attacks on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and others, being a secondary target does not mean that I haven't been attacked too.

In recent years, the worst attacks that I have suffered have come after I have supported and defended those who were attacked by liberal thugs. My defense of the Koch brothers from the President Barack Obama's orchestrated attacks on them caused left-wing fascists to respond by attempting to shut down my blog. The vile creeps even went so far to write a letter to the employer of one of my loyal readers- they thought they were targeting me- as they attempted to respond to differences in views by causing the loss of employment and income. They didn't like the fact that I defended private citizens from slanderous attacks by the President of our nation, and responded to it by engaging in slanderous and personal attacks on me.

Another round of attacks came on me after I defended the tea party on several blogs and forums, responding with reasoning and calls for a more adult discussion to those who called those who supported tea party views and ideas various names. Those who disagreed with my views- those on the left who call themselves progressives or liberals but in reality are simply fascists- responded by filling up the comment sections of all of my posts with their various rants and foul language, and because I didn't want my blog to be a forum for their hate I was forced to disable the comment section on my blog.

One of the most clever attacks on me came after I defended in blogs and in forums and on social media Rocky Raczkowski, who was tea-party favorite and GOP nominee in 2010 for Michigan's 9th District. Someone emailed me pretending to agree with my comments and asked questions about the advertisers on my blog, and the next day my advertisers dropped me and confiscated my money due to what they said was fraud. I'm not going to say exactly what happened (I don't want to give the thugs ammunition), but the result was a loss of income for me and the loss of a good sum of money (Google never responded to my inquiries or pleas for reconsideration).

These attacks on me are not isolated to just me. Over at Legal Insurrection, Will has a story up that rings very close to my own experiences, called Welcome to total political war:

...I’m not talking about the attempt to get advertisers to stop advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s show, or Fox News, although that would be bad enough. I’m talking about the second-tier of the warfare, the attempt to intimidate those removed by one or more degrees of separation from the dispute, and to use them as tools against the target.

We have seen it a number of times in the past couple of years.

When King & Spalding agreed to represent the U.S. House of Representative after Obama changed positions and announced that the Justice Department no longer would defend DOMA in court, there were not only protests against King & Spalding, but threats to picket and protest clients of the firm who had nothing to do with the dispute. The threat that clients of the firm who were completely unconnected to the dispute would be harrasseed was enough to cause the firm to withdraw the representation.

Similarly, when the new Rhode Island Attorney General announced that he would cooperate with the federal goverment in the enforcement of federal immigration laws, protesters not only invaded the lobby of his offices, they picketed his house and confronted neighbors about the issue. Dragging his neighbors into a dispute which had nothing to do with them did not cause the RI AG to back down, although not for lack of trying.

Which brings me to the present dispute with Rush Limbaugh, and radio show host Kim Komando, who has a very well-known computer talk show. What did or does Komando have to do with the dispute? Nothing, except that one or more of the advertisers targeted by the anti-Limbaugh groups also advertises on Komando’s show. Komando received a flood of e-mails demanding that she drop the advertisers....

...What is happening goes beyond Obama’s call for people to argue with their neighbors and get in their faces. It goes far beyond Bill Clinton’s politics of personal destruction directed at accusers, and beyond name-calling by right wing pundits.

This total war, in which no one is allowed to be non-political and neighbors and clients become mere pressure points, is a dangerous development.

This is indeed total war, and that realization has only slowly dawned on me over the years that I have been writing on this blog. It is scary, but not surprising- most of humanity today lives in a state of fear and oppression from tyrants, and for most of human history humanity has lived in fear and oppression from tyrants.

It is in the worst nature of people to attempt to oppress others and use them as slaves- use their labor and intelligence and skills and drive to provide them with things they did not earn- food, clothing, shelter, medicine, drugs, influence, power, money, loans, etc. The worst nature of people is to react to arguments and reasoning with intimidation, threats, and personal attacks. And the worst nature of people is to take that which they did not earn, suppress and lessen the freedom and liberty of others, and if possible choke the very life out of those who oppose them.

It's a total war and it's getting worse as our opponents grow more bold and get closer to winning the war. I can only hope that in 2012, you and your friends and family recognize that we're at war and take the proper steps, because the last time the American people pretended that they weren't at war, we saw the error of that thinking on September 11.

UPDATE: Thank you for linking to this post Conservatives on Fire and Fuzzy Logic!

In case you aren't aware, Read Across America Day is also Dr. Seuss's birthday! :) He was born on March 2, and it seemed fitting to celebrate reading on the birthday of one of the most famous authors in the world.

When I was in school, Read Across America Day was my absolute favorite day. All day, in all classes, we just read! It was the only time I didn't have to drown out my classmate's incessant talking/giggling/goofing off in order to read after my assignments were finished. It was the only day I could read for 8 hours straight without my dad yelling at me to go outside and play or my grandma checking to see if I had a fever because "something is wrong with this kid!" I L-O-V-E reading, and I am more than willing to spend any entire day celebrating it as a teacher!

NEA has several ideas for activities you could do on Read Across America Day (if you didn't want to just read the entire time). Since this is also Dr. Seuss's birthday, you could have some fun by bringing "Seuss-tastical" activities or food into the classroom as well.

Naturally, I turned to Pinterest in order to generate some "Seuss-y" ideas. Here are my favorites:

One Fish, Two Fish book cover creation:

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Green eggs that the kids might actually eat: a vanilla wafer + green pudding + sprinkles

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Thing 1 and Thing 2 Hand-print art

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Red Fish, Blue Fish estimation activity

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Dr. Seuss photobooth op: take student pictures and put them on a bulletin board or card home for the parents

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List all the Dr. Seuss books you've read. Take it one step farther by polling students on their favorite Seuss book and graphing it!

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 FREE Dr. Seuss unit

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Truffula Tree Dominos

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 Make your own Foot Book (and other ideas)!

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Do you have any Read Across America/Dr. Seuss's birthday traditions in your classroom or school? Are you trying a new activity this year that I didn't mention above? I've love to hear about it in the comments below!

In 2008 in my post Obama Intends on Bankrupting all Coal Producers in the US I wrote:

Check out this clip. In it, Obama tells the interviewer that he intends to put in place government policies that will bankrupt anyone who wants to build a coal power plant, and progressively ramp up pressure on coal producers already there in the hopes of bankrupting them too. He clearly states this as his goal as President- to bankrupt coal producers.

Look, a lot of people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Colorado, or Wyoming work in the coal industry. He is telling you he intends to take your job away.

Look, a lot of our energy in this country is produced by coal. Obama is telling anyone that uses any energy at all that he intends to drive up the price of it. Combine this with his anti-drilling stances for oil, and get used to an economy that is starved for energy- high inflation, low growth, unemployment, and bad times.

The beauty of being a conservative instead of a liberal is that my predictions are usually correct more often, and 4 years ago I predicted exactly what would happen after our nation elected someone who was opposed to life, opposed to liberty, and opposed to the creation and protection of property- high inflation (maybe?), low growth (yup), unemployment (yup), and bad times (yup).

And President Barack Obama (Democrat) has followed through with his stated intentions- via the Gateway Pundit I read this anecdotal evidence that his personally-run agencies are systematically implementing rules and regulations that have caused at least 3 coal-fired plants in West Virginia to close, causing loss of jobs, higher energy prices, more people on food stamps, and more Democrat-dependent voters:

Ohio based FirstEnergy Corporation announces it will close three coal fired power plants in West Virginia by this fall. The closings come directly from the impact of new federal EPA regulations.

The plants to close are Albright Power Station, Willow Island Power Station, and the Rivesville Power Station. The company says 105 employees will be directly impacted.

The three plants produce 660 megawatts and about 3-percent of FirstEnergy’s total generation. In recent years, the plants served as “peaking facilities” and generated power during times of peak demand for power.

The plants operated under subsidiary Monongahela Power. Mon Power recently finished a study of unscrubbed coal fired plants in the system to determine the potential impact of the most recent environmental regulations from EPA. Company officials determined the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) made it unfeasible to retrofit or continue operating the three plants.

“The high cost to implement MATS and other environmental rules is the reason these Mon Power plants are being retired,” said James R. Haney, regional president of Mon Power and president of West Virginia Operations for FirstEnergy.

Let's not lose sight of these decisions made by the President of the United States that have adversely affected our economy- he'll try to confuse us, attack his opponents, and will point to signs of economic growth (companies that either fought through and past Obama's policies or companies that gave political support and cover to Obama and were rewarded with loans and support), but the reality is that policies that he implements and tries to implement still are bad for America.

There is a choice though in 2012- between President Obama and more of these sorts of policy decisions and the Republican nominee (whomever it is) who will not put in place these sort of EPA policies that force industries to go bankrupt. Let's make the right choice in 2012.

Since Valentine's Day is next Tuesday, I thought I'd start looking for some cute Valentine-Day-related decorations, food, and kid crafts. I found some really good stuff, so I thought I'd share it with you!

Here are my top finds so far (in no particular order):

1. Heart-Shaped Boiled Eggs. You could bring these for breakfast for your students and surprise them! It's healthy, too! 

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2. Paint-Chip Heart Garland. I'm normally not an advocate of stealing borrowing paint chips like this, but if you have purchased a lot of materials from your local paint store recently, I think you're probably justified in taking a few paint chips. :)

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3. Paint Chip Heart Bookmark. I figured I'd go ahead and get the other paint chip idea out of the way in the number three slot... so cute, and so easy! My students were always asking for bookmarks, so I think giving bookmarks as gifts is a fabulous idea.

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4. Heart-shaped Muffins or Cupcakes! Just place a marble at the top and watch a heart-shape appear. Looks easy, but I haven't tried it yet...

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5. Hand-print Heart Mural. SUCH a cute idea for a bulletin board or "parent welcome sign" for the V-Day party! I love how everyone has to work together to build the heart, too. Ooh, the counselor-side of me is itching to make this into a "when we all work together, more is accomplished" lesson! ;)

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6. Peanut Butter Blossoms. My grandma makes these with regular Hershey's Kisses, and they are DE-LISH! I'm sure if they were made with heart-shaped chocolate, I would love them even more (pun intended).

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7. "From the Bottom of my Heart..." card. I mean, it's so stinkin' cute, I coudn't exclude it from the list!

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8. Hand-print Heart Card. Such an easy gift for parents (or grandparents)!

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9. "You Make my Heart Glow" Teacher-to-Student gift. The Teacher Wife even offers the label as a freebie! All you have to do is buy your own glowsticks. Click the source link to be taken to the freebie!

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10. "I Dig You" Teacher-to-Student Gift. SO CUTE! You could probably find those shovels at a dollar store!

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Annnnd, normally, it pains me to end a list on an uneven number (it's that OCD CDO [alphabetized] kicking in), but I also loved this craft and didn't want to leave it out. So instead of calling it number 11, I'll say, "And one to grow on!"

"No one touches my heart like you!" card:

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What great Valentine's Day ideas do you have? I'd love to know!

This year I'm getting off to kind of a slow start- for example, just yesterday I got my new Franklin planner pages and figured out what is going on for this month and this year. This post is another example- my obligatory 'best of' post. 2011 was a good year for my blog- readership is way up and lots of radio and newspaper interviews were set up- and there were a lot of great posts from which to choose from, so I basically just went with the numbers. Some of you are new regular readers and might have missed these, and my usual readers will also enjoy reading some of these posts again. So here you go, the Best Posts of A Conservative Teacher 2011:

How I Helped Mary Beth Hicks Write her Book 'Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid'

Many of you know that I have been interviewed by newspapers (Detroit News) and by major radio shows (Larry Eldar Show) and some of you have even tuned in to hear me occasionally co-host a radio program (Total Education Hour), but it may surprise you all to know that I have also been a part of a major best-selling book- Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left's Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom by Mary Beth Hicks...

The rest of the post is about how I helped out Mary Beth Hicks- although again, I did very little other than nudge her in a direction. You really all should pick up her book- it's great.

Yulia Tymoshenko, former PM of Ukraine, is Now in Prison for Political Differences

For some reason, my blog has been getting very popular in Ukraine recently- after the US, the second largest source of readers of my blog is coming from Ukraine over the past month, and all-time, Ukraine is the 5th biggest nation of readers of my blog. Why Ukraine? Perhaps it stems from a post I wrote in January 15, 2010 supporting Yulia Tymoshenko for President of Ukraine...

The rest of the post is about Mrs. Tymoshenko, who is a pro-democracy former businesswomen who rejected the communist approach of keeping the masses poor while the elites proposer, so the elites manipulated the voting processes and the masses to defeat her, and then they turned around and imprisoned her and likely will kill her while she is in prison.

Evaluating the Leadership of Obama and Romney Using Howard Putnam's Principles of Leadership

...Yesterday I heard some more about leadership from Howard Putnam at the Get Motivated Business Seminar that was held in Auburn Hills (see my post Get Motivated Business Seminar Review: Powell, Giuliani, Cosby, Putnam, Walsh, and More! for my full review). Mr. Putnam rose through the ranks at Southwest Airlines to become CEO of the company, where he led it to great profitability and success. According to Putnam, there are several principles of leadership. Let's look at each one, and then evaluate whether Obama, Romney, or I follow these rules on how to be an effective leader:...

The rest of the post looks at Obama and Romney and evaluates their leadership in light of the principles that Putnam laid out.

America will Realign Towards the Tea Party in 2012; Write it Down in Stone

...In my post NYT's Douthat is Wrong: Realigning Elections Exist and One is Coming I countered an argument that was advanced by the New York Times Ross Douthat where he claimed that Harvard Professor V.O. Key's theory on realigning elections was wrong. Douthat thought that 2008 was supposed to the be realigning election, and now that we can all see that it was not, he has become disillusioned with the theory that Key advanced in his iconic essay “A Theory of Critical Elections” and now thinks that elections that change America's direction are no longer possible. But he is wrong. In my post Why 2008 Was Not a Historic or Realigning Election (written in 2009) I addressed Key's theory of realigning elections and looked back on the election of 2008 and looked forward to 2012....

This post is one of my more educated posts- I pull from political science and pundits and election data to project 2012 as a re-aligning election that will be dominated by the Tea Party (in Congress).

USA Today Is Wrong- 58.5% of Americans Have Jobs, not 45.4% as Reported

...But I have some issues with this data. According to my own analysis of the information provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing the employment-population ratio from 1988 to 2011 (seasonally adjusted), the number of people employed in our nation is holding steady at a new-normal post-Obama post-recovery number of 58.5%...

This post has been updated from time to time- and in spite of the supposed 'recoveries', the number of employed in our nation has actually gone down. Go to the post and you can link to the numbers yourself and see just what the 'new normal' of employed is under Obama and the Democrats.

Increase the Number of Representatives in the House? An Argument in Favor.

...In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I wrote that "At one time, I thought the 1930's were at the root of all that is wrong about America, and compiled a list of all of the laws and taxes and liberal decisions passed during that time." That post contained a list of all of those bad laws that came out of that time of fascism and communism and war and depression and collapsing social values. But one law that I left off that list was the Reapportionment Act of 1929, which established a permanent method for apportioning a now constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to each census, essentially capping the number of Representatives at 435...

This post goes on to argue in favor of increasing the number of Representatives in the US House. Yeah, if I were in charge we'd move past the cartoonish arguments that Republicans and Democrats are currently having in the political world and really start getting to the root of bringing our nation back towards conservative principles. Check out this post and get educated.

The Story of a Bear named 'Bearack Obama' and How Liberal Policies Are Affecting His Brother Bears Too

...According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, there are even reports of a black bear that has recently taken to sitting every day at the picnic table, apparently waiting to be fed. He also has refused to dig out his own winter den, forcing government employees to do so. Although the bear once was self-sufficient, he now begs for a handout every day from our generous government, who provides him with food and a home because those rich fat cats who make a profit deserve to suffer or something or other. Because the bear was once a healthy and prosperous bear but now is just a lazy welfare case of a bear, the local residents have taken to calling him Bearack Obama...

This post is amusing, but it was based on a true story.

Abolish the Department of Education- What Does the Data Suggest?

...the massive spending in education at the federal level was largely a waste of money and did nothing to improve our test scores.... this group would argue that all of the spending done at the federal level is having little to no effect on test scores for students because the money is being gobbled up by bureaucrats in Washington who are far removed from the real educating of students at the local level. They would suggest spending less amounts on education at the federal level and seeing what might happen- perhaps test scores would remain flat as they have done for over 30 years, but if this happens than our nation could save that $77 billion dollars/year and use it in other areas where it might be needed or not use it at all and have our government run a balanced budget....

This post considers two arguments in favor of the Department of Education- you'll have to read the full post to find out what the data suggests regarding this federal agency.

In my post America's Youth Will Rue the Day They Voted for Obama I wrote:

...(the national debt piled up under the recent budgets of President Obama) is going to destroy the life, liberty, and property of my children and grandchildren. They are going to grow up in a world less secure because our nation will owe money to nations ranging from Middle Eastern oil dictatorships to communist China, our children will have lesser fire and police and hospital and library services than we enjoy today, inflation will destroy savings and inheritances and businesses passed on, Social Security will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), Medicare will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), higher education will be too expensive except for the richest of the youth, and our society will be one which rewards those children whose parents have political connections and not those children who work hard and innovate. A Leviathan will rule over my children and grandchildren, controlling their actions and dictating to them in a poor society that is yet a shadow of what America used to be, all thanks to liberal and progressives and their failed policies which have destroyed the financial and moral foundations of nations, states, and cities already....

...our nation will fall father and farther behind in developing energy and be forced to transfer more and more wealth to tyrants overseas just because Obama and the Democrats are slaves to a failed Green God religion and its corrupting influence.

The very nature of Obamacare is to transfer wealth from young to old, by forcing healthy members of society who are choosing not to buy healthcare to buy healthcare and subsidize the old people in society who use it. The promise is there that someday they'll also get to join in the intergenerational theft, but when America's debt soars ever higher, that promise will not be followed through on, and besides, promises of intergenerational theft are still nothing more than theft.

America's youth will rue the day that they voted for Barack Obama on a naive promise of hope and change and togetherness. They will rue the day....

My prediction was that someday in the future, America's youth will look back on the election of 2008 and think to themselves that they should not have voted for him because in this distant future America's youth will be unemployed and facing crumbling foundations and massive debt. My prediction was wrong- it turns out, America's youth should be ruing the day right now that they voted for Obama, because now none of them have jobs:

Just 55.3 percent of Americans between 16 and 29 have jobs.

That means that almost half of all young people are not getting any job experience and are not gaining critical job skills, and in the decades to come, now will be a lost period during which the future did not set themselves up for a brighter future. Instead the young are draining the resources of other productive people in society by living at home and eating food paid for by their parents, who could have been using using that money to invest or save for retirement or give to charity.

Although I was not able to find any information to compare 55.3% to from the Department of Labor, I was able to find a paper which suggests a pre-Obama employment rate for 16 to 29 year olds of 65%. This suggests that the addition of variable "President Obama" to the American economic equation resulted in an increase in 1 in 10 young people not being able to find a job due to his job-killing policies.

The reason why these young people can not find jobs is not because 'Bush lied and soldiers died' in Iraq, it is not because Bush didn't stop global warming, it is not because the Republicans are 'obstructing' tax increases and increased government spending, and it is not because 'tea party people are racist.' The reason why young people can not find jobs is that legislation and policies passed by Obama and the Democrats make it more expensive to hire workers (such as increased healthcare costs associated with Obamacare), make it more risky to expand production (when government policies could change and turn on any sort of industry), when being productive makes you more of a target (the 'evil rich' are being attacked by class-warfare playing Obama), and that the government is encouraging young people to not get jobs by pushing more student loans on them and getting them covered on their parents insurance longer.

Young people, because they are up-and-coming and energetic and healthy and productive and strong, should vote conservative and Republican, so that government gets off their backs and lets them be all that they can be.

Before we visit the best posts of 2011, let's all take a moment to reflect back on some of my best posts from last year, 2010, and see how the analysis, predictions, and theories that I advanced in those posts have held up over the past year.

Obama: Didn't Waive the Jones Act, Made Gulf Spill Worse:
Occasionally I break a major story, like this one, which I was on well in advance of the MSM. Here was the story that I broke in 2010:

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'...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....

In retrospect, it is clear that Obama did have a reverse-Midas touch with the Gulf Oil spill- every move he made or didn't make during this disaster was the wrong one. From not temporarily waiving the Jones Act (which effectively forbid foreign nations from assisting the US by banning ships flagged, crewed, constructed, or owned by other nations from transporting cargo from one US port to another US port) to overstating the extent of the disaster (his talking about it caused a larger drop in tourism to the entire Gulf region than the actual disaster did), we can see in the Gulf oil spill just how aimless and unhelpful President Obama is when America faces an immediate crisis, and this post was yet more support to that argument.

Obama Nicknames
Every President has a nickname- Reagan was the Gipper, Bush was W, Clinton was Slick Willy, Thomas Jefferson was Long Tom, Chester Arthur was the Walrus, Calvin Coolidge was Cool Cal- so in this post I decided to pull together some of the top Obama nicknames that I have seen or heard. It's a good and solid list, and I've added to it over the past year (2011). My personal nickname for Obama: Waffles the Clown.

Oppose Race to the Top: Reasons Why Conservatives Should Oppose RTTT
This post was one of my 'thinking posts', where I was asked a question that I should have considered before but hadn't, and I went home and really thought through my views and beliefs and arrived at an answer. My instinct was always to oppose Race to the Top, which was President Obama's major education initiative, but I wanted to make sure that I was opposing it for the right reasons- not because the NEA was against it or because Obama came up with it, but because it violated conservative principles. Read the whole post, but here is a bit of it...

Recently, Michigan Senate Majority leader Mike Bishop asked me for my opinion on the President's Race to the Top program. I told him that I didn't support it, and he looked at me in a way that said "I thought you were a conservative" and "I thought you wanted to help education." At the time, I struggled to explain why I didn't like the program- I didn't really know all the details to it, but suspected that I was indeed correct in opposing it from what little I knew. He thought I was just a tool of the teachers unions, who also oppose RTTT, but I knew that for some reason I didn't like this initiative by Obama, and it wasn't just paranoid anti-Obama sentiment.... Today, via theblogprof, via Right Wing News, I came across the an article called "Ten Rules for Anti-Government Republican Radicals in D.C. ." As an anti-government conservative radical, the kind that our founding fathers were, the kind of people that built our nation and made our country a great success, I find these rules to be useful in helping me begin to articulate why I oppose Race to the Top....

Since I put together this post, I've gone on the radio multiple times in a variety of shows to talk about a true conservative approach to education, one that emphasizes decentralization of power, local control, less federal spending, regular and measured policies, structural changes, the humanity of the system, the lessening of federal laws, and the passage of good solid legislation. A good conservative believes 'first, do no harm' and 'less is more' and that the purpose of the state is to protect life, liberty, and property, and Race to the Top is not legislation that a conservative should support, even though it attacked the NEA and labor unions and put in place small good changes to the system. Read my whole post and you'll see yet another reason why thinking individuals should be opposing Obama in 2012.

Obama's New NASA Policy- Yet More Broken Promises and Lies
American Exceptionalism is being killed by Obama, in ways big and small. Once America was a great nation that put men on the moon- an exceptional nation capable of spaceflight and exploring new worlds. Now...:

Out of all of the broken promises of President Obama, this one is probably not the biggest to a lot of people. Out of all of the phony and lying rhetoric about hope and change, this latest policy announcement that kills hope and changes things for the worst is probably not the most backstabbing that he has uttered. But that does not mean that Obama's plans to destroy NASA's budget and redirect its mission away from exploration is not big or important to me....

Obama's attack on NASA didn't stop in 2010 as he continued to oppose its vision of boldly exploring new worlds and demonstrating America's amazing exceptionalism. I revisited this theme several times in 2011, notably in my posts Nuclear Power and Manned Space Flight: Victims of Democrat's Progress Backwards? and Obama Killed My Child's Dream of Being an Astronaut.  Obama and the Democrats will not be happy until America is an average nation that has fallen back into the pack of tyranny and debt that is the history of the world, and their policies towards NASA are an example of this.

Recommended Read: Codevilla's 'America's Ruling Class'
This post was an attempt to get people to read one of the most important essay's of 2010- Codevilla's essay America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution that was published in the American Spectator.

...it lays out quite clearly the two classes that are evolving in our nation- what Codevilla calls the 'ruling class' and the 'country class.' Codevilla echo's what I tell my students every year- it is getting increasingly important to understand how the ruling class in our society works and how they use government to maintain their ruling status, because our society is increasingly about what the government does and less so about what you do...

Revisiting this essay today, you can clearly see the increasingly divide in America between those people who are benefiting from government connections and those who are not, increased by the policies pushed by the modern-day Democratic party and to a lesser although still significant extent the Republican Party. Solyndra is a great example of this- a company that found favor in the ruling class was able to secure loans and help while other companies not favored by the ruling class had money taken from them in the form of taxes and regulations and fees and permits. The massive expansion in food stamps or the massive expansion of taxpayer subsidized healthcare are also great examples of how the ruling class is increasingly looting all of us in order to give gifts and trinkets to the country class as our nation descends into tyranny.

You need a break or you'll break... literally. Take some down time, help others, reconnect with your family, and get a head start on life next semester. Here are some things you'll want to fit in to your time.

1. "Veg"
"Veg" is a word that implies to vegetate or just relax. But it also implies what it means... vegetables or really anything good for you. Here are some of my favorites:

• Don't set your alarm clock and get up when you're ready
• Get off caffeine and drink lots of water (I always do this)
• Lay on the couch all day and watch movies with your kids
• Pull out one of your favorite movies from when you were a kid and rediscover it with your own children (Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, Chariots of Fire are some of my faves)
• Drink you favorite drink in the morning.
• Eat just when you're hungry
• Cook a new recipe or an old one that you haven't had time to do
• Make a batch of cookies unexpectedly (don't tell the kids - just let them run in because of the smell - my favorite recipe site is All Recipes)
• Cook some good fresh vegetables and keep cut up fruit in the fridge to munch on
• Read a book or two
• Go to your library and mess around and look at books
• Take a walk or run in a new place
• Flop like a flip flop with no guilt
• Don't make a list for at least several days
• Take long bubble baths
• Do your favorite relaxing past time with those you love

Watch a person tuning a guitar. If the string is too tight the sound is not good and the string will eventually break. While some natural tension is good for being productive, you can wind yourself too tight. If you're a teacher, you know that you're going to be teaching like Taz (the tasmanian devil on Bugs Bunny) till May so you need this break.


2. Reconnect
When I was a child time would drag by -- now time drags me.

Spend time with yourself, your significant other, your children, your parents. (See Be the Present.) Hang out without a rush and just inhale their presence to nourish you when they are no longer here one day.

Remember that it isn't all about you. Sometimes it is being thoughtful. If your son loves egg nog, get a carton and put it in the fridge. If your daughter likes a latte, make her favorite unexpectedly. Think of others and remember that the big things are often little things.


3. Organize
 Next week after Christmas, I'll be "Pareto-ing" everything. Pareto's principle says that 80% of the productivity comes from 20% of the things you do. So, you probably wear 20% of the clothes in your closet 80% of the time. You use 20% of the apps on your ipad 80% of the time. How could you improve your life if you focused on that 20%?

My Ipad Screen (see Pareto-ing your Home Screen), my closet, my kitchen, everything gets the once over.

For example, in my kitchen, I take everything that I use daily or weekly and put it within easy reach. (Zone 1) Then, zone 2 are things I use monthly and they can be down lower or up higher. Finally, deep storage is for those things I use once a year (if I really must keep it.) If you separate things by frequency of use then you can have a system that makes sense for organizing.


4. Donate
If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've asked you to donate one tweet or one Facebook status a day to #endslavery. (Read about the #endslavery challenge here.) If you're not going to support this cause, use your tweets to support the cause of your choice. Social media does impact giving, awareness, etc. We have the ability to put things on the front burner and garner attention. To me, nothing deserve more attention than the 29 million people enslaved in the world today. It is easy to look down on the ancestors of centuries a go but if we won't tackle slavery today, I don't want to hear it.

But you can also donate your time and you can donate gently used things that you don't need any more. Just remember this, Goodwill isn't a trash can. If it belongs in the trash, do them a favor and throw it in the trash. I know you may hate to part with Great Aunt Sarah's stained sweater but if you don't want it, no one does.

Give back this Christmas in some way. It isn't that hard.

5. Anticipate
After being rested and reconnected, then it is time to look ahead at the upcoming things.

For me, it is the official Flat Classroom book launch and book club (see www.flatclassroombook.com) as  well as sports schedules, and writing assignments etc. I'm having knee problems and want to work on running with better form because I love it and I can't regain the 50 pounds I've lost so I begged Randi Farina, Lifetime's Social media director to let me test  Chi Running / walking materials. If that doesn't work, I will be doing something every week to stay fit because that is what I do. Great accomplishments are the results of decisions. No excuses.

Also, I'll go ahead and plan the menus for January. Get calendars set through spring break. And plan routines. I don't make "resolutions" I literally plan out routines. 95% of what you accomplish in your life is due to the routines you have according to Brian Tracy. Because routines. make you who you are going to be. (See: The Routine of Being Amazing.)


All I want for Christmas...
to season the season with family, faith, food, and fun
and remember the reason.


Photo Credits:
Big Stock (a great place to download photos licensed for blogging)

A a recent article that Charles Moore wrote, I think he put his finger on exactly what is going on today- the success and advance of the twin threats of fear and doubt. Moore, who is a British journalist and former editor of The Daily Telegraph, in an article about Margaret Thatcher, wrote that after the long boom and success of capitalism and free market economics that "the worm of doubt entered the system":

You borrowed all the money needed for the price of a house. This made you, in your mind, though not in full fact, an owner. Because the value of the house was rising, it also made you, again in your mind, richer. The bank, which actually owned the house, found clever ways of mixing and selling on the loans it had granted so that it, too, felt richer. Governments, happy at rising revenues, thought it was their business to make sure that when the symptoms of high risk began to present themselves, they were suppressed.... (then) the roof fell in... (and now) when people now hear words like globalization or capitalism... they feel slightly sick.

Free market economics and capitalism did not lead our nation to failure- rather, during its wild success at making millions around the world more prosperous over the past centuries, communism and socialism and fascism latched on to it, sucking from its prosperity to feed its sick aims like parasites, and over time, many smart people began to become confused and unable to see the parasites from the concepts that they latched on.

Where free markets and capitalism created wealth and encouraged personal responsibility, governments and elites put in place rules and regulations which weakened the foundations of the system, subsidized risky behavior such as sub-prime mortgages and leveraging investments, and gave out handouts to favored industries and distorted the market by doing so. When banks, businesses, and corporations operated in a free market of capitalism, they could succeed or fail based on their own efforts and innovation; but in the new markets, which were no longer capitalistic or free, government subsidies and spending and lobbying and regulation and rules determined whether or not a business, corporation, or bank was successful or failed. And although this was no longer capitalism or free markets, but rather markets once free now twisted to the aims of elites and socialists and communists and fascists, many smart people became critical of the markets or capitalism because of the failures of the government bureaucrats who were twisting and corrupting the system.

And then the parasites of leftism began to weaken and kill the free market and capitalism, and the people cried out 'capitalism and free markets are failing us'- when it wasn't the free markets and capitalism that failed, but rather the people who failed the system.

They were led to this failure by fear and doubt- they did not believe in the hand of the God and the freedom of individuals and life, liberty, and the protection of private property.

The people (or The People, as leftists call them) feared that although they were becoming prosperous and their lives were rapidly improving, they were somehow falling behind others who were advancing more rapidly. Rather than looking at why they were successful in the free market capitalism- because of their hard work, innovation, and yes, luck- they instead demanded government policies to hold back others and help out themselves, corrupting the very system that had brought them so far. They doubted that if people were free and made free decisions, they would make 'the right decisions'- that is, the decisions that they would make if they controlled the other people and had power over them (their definition of 'right decisions').

Rather than just letting go and trusting that the unseen hand of God, trusting to the thousands and millions of individual decisions, and working to ensure that private property rights are strengthened and respected, they doubted that this giant experiment of capitalism and a free market would work, and feared that they would somehow fall behind others in material wealth if they didn't vote for and support people who promised to corrupt the system and abuse the system and circumvent the system. Many people trusted and believed in the power of men to control other men and redistribute property to other men, and in so doing rejected free markets and capitalism.

Fear and doubt came to the people's mind every time there was a recession, or even during periods when great wealth was created but wasn't immediately distributed evenly. The people reacted to the Great Depression by doubting that the free market would correct (as it had done in the 1920's and dozens of times before in the 1800's) and feared that he return to prosperity wouldn't come fast enough- and so they worked to destroy the system, corrupt the system, and make the market less free- and the results were a slight recession during into a decade long destruction of wealth.

And today, government policies and regulations and taxes and laws which corrupted the free market and corroded private property rights have let the worm of doubt creep once more into the people's minds, and in their fear that maybe they won't get to loot the dying Republic of its wealth they vote for Democrats who promise to manage the downfall and distribute the ever-decreasing wealth in the system to their supporters and voters and friends.

To return to success and advance again as a nation in wealth and happiness, we must reject doubt of the free market system and capitalism and trust the people- we need to trust and believe again that the thousands of decisions of free people will create more wealth and make more people happy, and reject those who suggest that having a smaller number of elites make those decisions for us is better. We need to let go of our fear that if we don't control the market and the system that you'll lose out, and instead work hard, innovate, save your money, and invest wisely.

UPDATE 12/7/11: President Obama delivered a major speech today on the economy, in which he expressed his doubt that the capitalist system could continue to provide wealth and prosperity for many and work to make society more equal, and from this place of fear he instead wants to trust himself and his fellow men to run a better system that will somehow do a better job of creating wealth and distributing it than having free people make free decisions.

Via memeorandum, in his Remarks by the President on the Economy in Osawatomie, Kansas, we read the following fear and doubt from US President Barack Obama, one-term Democrat. These are selections from the speech- (you can read the whole thing yourself here if you want):

My grandparents served during World War II. He was a soldier in Patton’s Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried -- no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out.

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success -- from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor.

In this passage, Obama communicates to us that his parents believed in capitalism and free markets and personal responsibility and liberty and protection of property. And furthermore, Obama knows that this system worked. But yet, he has this nagging doubt and fear...

But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments -- wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t -- and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

He doesn't BELIEVE in capitalism. He has no faith in people, freedom, liberty, and rights. It's clear he doesn't have any hope that people will make the 'right decisions' (the decisions he would make) and he wants to therefore control other people. He continues:

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can. (Applause.) He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for consumers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t.

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you’re on your own” economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country.

And it is around here that we get to the heart of the matter- in the last quarter of his speech, after ripping on capitalism and freedom for 3/4's of the speech, that we finally here what he wants to do...

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy? Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want.

We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools. Of course, those productive investments cost money. They’re not free. And so we’ve also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.

So, in summary, here is Obama's alternative to free markets and capitalism- give him more power. Give him the power and authority to tell employers what to pay their employees, give him the power and authority to combine big government with big business and big labor (ie, fascism), give him and his cronies the power to give money to favored constituent groups to fund pet projects of vanity (palaces, statues, etc), and the power to demand that all of these decisions are paid for by someone else who does not want to pay for it- to use the power of guns to the head to make people give up cash to Obama and his people to feed their wrong ideas about the power of men to control others for their benefit.

Obama is wrong. He needs to be defeated- not just politically, but his ideas and beliefs need to be rejected by all good people and good citizens and patriots and he and his policies need to be forever rejected in decent society. We must instead look to capitalism and freedom and liberty and property protection to our future, and not look backward to the sort of tyranny that Obama is proposing.