My Beauty Best Teacher

In July 2008, TransCanada announced a $7 billion expansion to its Keystone pipeline system, calling the project the the Keystone XL project, which would build a 3,200-km pipe linking Alberta’s oil to refineries in Texas. The line is expected to handle 590,000 barrels of oil a day and would take about a year to build. Three years ago the plans were communicated to the State Department, which failed to move quickly and efficiently to implement the plan and bring jobs and energy to our nation (timeline details).

Then the Obama administration came in, and there was a long delay when nothing got done- no work was put into the project, no reviews were done, and nothing happened for several years. Starting in the summer of 2010, Republicans began to put increasing pressure on the State Department and the Obama administration to do approve the pipeline project or begin the approval process or redesign the pipeline or anything- and yet the months go by and nothing more happened.

Then in December of 2011, the Republicans attached to the payroll tax deal a provision that forces President Obama to decide within 60 days whether or not to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The deadline runs out on February 21, 2012- which is in another 35 days or so. President Obama instead decided today to instead reject the proposed pipeline and turn down all the jobs and money and income and cheap oil, blaming Republicans for his rejection, saying that there was now too little time left to review the project and change its proposed route.

Follow this story on memeorandum, and you can see for yourself what really happened here- Obama did not put in the work and time and effort to get it done.

There is still time left to review and change the route- oh, at this point it wouldn't be easy, and it might take a lot of work and time and effort, but there is still over a month to get it done, and an active and hard-working and intelligent President could get a task like this done. There was still time left to review the project in December and change the route- even though Obama said that it would take exactly a year to finish a review process like this meaning he'd be able to make a decision right after the November 2012 election- but at that time, the administration did not accelerate the process and put in the hard work to get the project up and working.

There was time left in the summer of 2010 to do the review process and change the route- and do in the the year time-frame that Obama suggested that it would take. That means it would already be approved and construction begun by now; perhaps it would even be finished and transporting cheap energy from our friend from the north right now, lowering gas prices and helping poor people heat their homes more cheaply during this cold winter. But Obama did not do anything in 2010, except talk and hem and haw, and demonstrated that rather than put in the hard work to square the pipeline project with his supposed environmental concerns, he instead would just dither and do nothing.

President Obama had ample opportunity to act on this project and compromise and build an environmentally safe pipeline that would bring considerable jobs and money and wealth to America while meeting environmental concerns- but he didn't. He spent his time over the last month (December 2011 to January 2012) in fundraisers, on vacation in Hawaii, and campaigning all around the nation. He didn't get the project done- make some phone calls, bring people together, and hammer out an environmentally friendly pipeline project.

The rejection of the Keystone Pipeline XL project demonstrates more so than anything how lazy, incompetent, and unqualified President Obama is for the office of the President of the United States.

Under Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution, the President has the power to fill any vacancies that may happen during when Senate is in recess. Over the past 100 years, a legal and official Senate recess has been interpreted by scores of Attorneys Generals and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from both Republican and Democratic Party's as the Senate being out of town and not conducting any business at all for at least 10–25 days of duration. No one, not even crazy right or left wing professors or lawyers, has ever before even suggested anything of six to seven days might be enough to count as a recess (source).

Right now the Senate is not in a recess. Every three days it opens up a brief session for a half hour or so and then adjourns for three days before it then has another brief 'pro forma' session. This means that officially, technically, and according to the rules and procedures of the United States Senate, it is still in session. This tactic was invented and used first by the Democrats to block President Bush recess appointments, and it was successful, because legally the President can not make appointments while the Senate is in session.

And so it was quite a surprise to me today that President Barack Obama (one-term Democrat), made several recess appointments, illegally and against the laws of our nation. Check out the many stories on this issue on memeorandum found here or here.

President Obama argued that under his and Democrats leadership America has fallen into such a crisis that he no longer has to follow the laws of our nation. He can simply deem that the Senate is effectively in a recess, and thus appoint whomever he wants to whatever he wants, even without Senate confirmation.

Many bloggers and professors and lawyers have jumped to his defense, arguing that the Senate is indeed in a recess, but that's contrary to what the White House memo says- it does not say 'the Senate is in a recess and the President is making several appointments'- nope, the memo says "Senate has effectively been in recess"- in other words, not technically, not officially, not legally, but "effectively", and so Obama was going to technically, officially, and legally make appointments that would be effective immediately.

Many other bloggers and professors are arguing that the President had the right to break the law here because the Senate wasn't advising and consenting and was simply blocking the one appointment of Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but their arguments were again made into useless junk by the President later making further 'recess' appointments to the NLRB, and some of these appointments had been opposed because the Senate opposed the people involved and did not want to give their assent.

Look, there is no defense for breaking the laws of our nation. None. The ends do not justify the means. I don't care if its a conservative, Tea Party Republican, or a socialist, communist Democrat- the President only has the power to make appointments when the Senate is officially in a recess of longer than 10 days. Period. Anything other than that is breaking the law, and is unconstitutional, and deserving of impeachment.

That won't happen though- bit by bit, crisis by crisis, American citizens are learning to tolerate law breaking. Ignoring established bankruptcy laws to 'save the automobile industry' was okay. Pressuring immigration officials to ignore fraudulently filled out forms and security threats in order to increase the number of immigrants in America is okay. Passing a law ordering people to buy a product or face fines is okay. And making recess appointments while the Senate is officially/legally/technically in session and not in recess is okay. Bit by bit, little tyranny by big, we are learning to accept that one man is greater than the system and can destroy it if he thinks by doing so he can save us.

This incident once more reminds me of a post I wrote last year called America is a Republic- It Shouldn't Matter if Most Want to Tax Millionaires More. In it, I wrote:

Our nation is approaching a key election in 2012, much as Rome faced a key turning point in its history when Lucius Sergius Catilina attempted to overthrow the Roman Republic by playing to the lures of democracy and populism. Catiline rallied the poor to his banner by arguing for debt relief for the poor people of Rome, and many supported him because there are always more people who are poor than there are people who are truly wealthy. Because of the destructive policies of the government, which had collapsed the housing market and had taxed and regulated the small farms and small businesses to the brink of destruction, there were many people out of work who listened to the siren song of 'support me, I'll claim majority rule, and take from those who have wealth and give to those who do not.' Thankfully, Rome had an ardent defender of the Republic in a man like Cicero, and the conspiracy was foiled, but I believe that it had come close enough to succeeding to inspire men like Julius Caesar and Pompey to try again soon after, and they were successful in harassing the forces of democracy to institute a dictatorship over the masses.

Obama is following in the footsteps of Catiline, and bit by bit breaking the laws and traditions and precedents of our Republic. He might be stopped, but the damage he is doing is surely going to inspire a Caesar to put an imperial dictatorship on my children and grandchildren.

UPDATE: Let's make this issue even clearer. On Tuesday, January 3rd, the Senate was in session. You can view their schedule here, and see from it that they were called to order at 11:01 AM. They engaged in legislative and executive business. They adjourned over an hour later after completing the session's business. Several hours later, Barack Obama appointed several people to several different positions, arguing that the Senate was 'effectively in a recess' and that he therefore had the authority to make recess appointments.

Liberal bloggers and news pundits and radio hosts are arguing that since the Senate was in a recess for 3 days it was okay- but in reality, the Senate had adjourned for only several hours, and there is no way, no way at all, that an adjournment of several hours can be considered a 'recess'.

The only argument is that the Senate session held on Tuesday for over an hour that accomplished several items of note wasn't a real session, and that argument is utterly laughable beyond question.

The Senate was not in a recess, and thus the recess appointments were unconstitutional and illegal. President Barack Obama acted in a criminal and illegal fashion yesterday, and the only real question I have is whether he did it on accident (believing that the Senate was in fact in a recess) or on purpose (knowing they were not and not caring and breaking the law).

Thank you Powerlineblog for bringing this point to me attention.

UPDATE II: Several days after his power grab, President Barack Obama went further, telling a group of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau bureaucrats that "Now that Richard [Cordray] is your director, you can finally exercise the full power that this agency has been given to protect consumers under the law." The only problem with this statement is that the legislation that created the CFPB includes a section that says many of the bureau’s new powers are to be held by the secretary of the Treasury “until the Director of the Bureau is confirmed by the Senate.” Cordray was not confirmed by the Senate- he was appointed to the position while the Senate was in session in violation to the Constitution.

So how does President Obama's pronouncement square with the law? I have two theories- one, that President Obama is ignorant of the law and incompetent in his understanding of it; or two, that President Obama is competent and knowledgeable and just doesn't care one bit about the law and what's legal.

Source- The Daily Caller, via Doug Ross.

• Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ: The ballot or the bullet

  A Martin Luther King, Jr. Lesson plan from my friend @teacherdude in Greece. This is what he does in his class. Make sure you prescreen movies and make sure that age appropriate films are selected. It is interesting how he handles the discussion in the oft tumultuous Greece.

  tags: education teaching martinlutherking

• Care of Magical Creatures

  This is from one of my favorite teachers on Tumblr - magical teacher. Here, she shares an infographic from AOL the "11 Days that Shaped 2011" to use as a writing prompt and suggests that you have students develop their own infographic for their life in 2011. What are the 11 days that shaped your life this year?

  tags: 2011 teaching lessonplans lessonplan

• Kinect Lesson Plan with Body and Brains: Kicking Your Way to Mastering Math | KinectEDucation

  Get this. A lesson plan using Kinect, teaching math, and aligned with common core standards. This includes handouts. For grades 3-6. If you have a kinect at your school, you'll want to follow kinecteducation.com 

  tags: education kinect teaching math_teacher

• Get Statistics About How You Use E-mail to Use E-mail Less - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

  This is a great post with guidance on helping people use email more efficiently. If you use Google apps for domains, the tools that let you analyze your email use will be great. If you teach digital citizenship and literacy, this is a great starting point for teaching about email. No, email is not free, it costs us time. 

  tags: education email productivity teaching

• The New York Times Accidentally Spams More Than 8 Million People

  Oops. Spam makes the best organization look incompetent. Best option is to admit it, make sure it doesn't happen again. I find schools and organizations that don't have a clue about how to send an email (by using blind copy instead of to everyone on the planet) increasingly annoying because there is always someone on the list who doesn't respect the emails of others and starts spamming. 
  
  Use email well in your organization.If you teach digital citizenship, conversations about spam and proper email etiquette should be part of what you teach. This would be a good conversation starter.

  tags: education teaching digiteen digitalcitizenship

• Teens Stand Up as Abolitionists | hollyboardman

  Teacher Holly Boardman has added her voice to the blogosphere. She's doing great work online promoting the cause of abolition and I've enjoyed reading her tweets. Here is a phenomenal overview of how she has integrated this topic into her literature classroom where she uses writing, literature, and the topic of slavery to make literature of all kinds relevant to her students. How can you make literature relevant and do the world a service? Take a read of Holly's blog.

  tags: education slavery abolition literature_teacher teaching

• Resources for teaching about the Titanic

  January also includes the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Start on this page and on the left you can drill down by age to find the appropriate resources for the age of your students. (You may have to log in to be able to do this. You'll need a free account.)

  tags: education titanic teaching

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Resources

  Several lesson plans and activities for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, coming up in January. This is one of my go to places for resources online. Contribute what you're doing so others can download them. (there is also a download contest right now so you can share a great idea and win as well.)
  
  Lots of good ideas including assemblies from UNICEF, videos, and an analysis of his "I have a dream" speech to use in your speech class.

  tags: education teaching

• Recycling Christmas cards - Resources - TES

  Ideas to recycle Christmas cards. Use those lovely cards in your classroom instead of buying new paper in January and promote an awareness of taking care of the earth.

  tags: education teaching recycling lesson plans all_teachers

• Essay Writing Toolkit - Resources - TES

  If you teach essay writing, you'll want to download this powerpoint toolkit. It is a new resource just uploaded to Tes on December 9th. If you teach writing, you'll see a lot of information here.
  
  "A comprehensive guide to essay writing. The toolkit contains over 50 activities to help students improve their essays, as well as a wealth of other information, ideas and links. All aspects of essay writing are covered."

  tags: education teaching literature_teacher essays literature

• Distracted Driving | One Text or Call Could Wreck it All | Distraction.gov for Teens

  A website targeted to teens about distracted driving. It starts with a test to see how long you can keep your eyes and mind on the road. A great site for health classes or driversed. It is a bit tricky because it tricks you into doing something you might not should do but it does make a point. some kids will say it is lame but it is a start.

  tags: teaching health_teacher cellphone

• VoiceThread iOS App for itouch/ipad + Posterous - Be the Change

  So, you want to use digital storytelling in the classroom. Here Beth Sanders writes about what she is doing with the voicethread app. Some great classroom ideas here.

  tags: education teaching digitalstorytelling

• STEM Research Program for Teachers Accepting Applications -- THE Journal

  The Siemens' STEM program for teachers is an outstanding program for Science, Technology, and math teachers. I highly recommend this program as I've been there for a one day part of their program at Discovery Headquarters and, as always, the work Discovery did was outstanding. You can apply by February 9th. 

  tags: education stem teaching science_teacher

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The President of the United States should be clerk, and nothing more. Conservatives and Tea Party people should not be looking for the President to be a 'king' who commands us to go forth and do his bidding, they should not be looking for the President to be the source of ideas about how government should run, and they should not be looking for the President to be an outsider who will shake up Washington.

The office, as designed by our Founding Fathers and illustrated in Article II of the Constitution, is an office that empowers the President of the United States to execute the laws passed by Congress in the most efficient manner, act as Commander-in-Chief of our military, act as the dignified ceremonial chief of state, handle foreign policy with other nations, and discharge effectively the various other duties of the office. A true conservative or someone who wants our nation to return to its Founding Principles should be pushing for the person who is best able to act as a clerk, a manager, and a CEO for America Inc.

You see, in reality the presidency is essentially a glorified clerk in our system, and is not actually a game-changing all-powerful King. The power of the President stems from his ability to use his office to trade favors or the promise of favors to accomplish the goal of efficiently managing the affairs of the state; his power does not (nor should it) from his ability to order others to do his bidding and his ability to issue executive orders and put in place policies. The legislative branch is better and more powerfully designed for those purposes, and so all decisions about the laws and policies of our nation should be generated from that branch, and then the President implements them in an efficient and able manner.

The President is able to implement these policies in an able and efficient manner because he has lots of little pieces of power spread through out nation's political system- he is able to send troops abroad, deliver the state of the union address, control various executive departments, play a vital role in the budgeting process, issues pardons and grant reprieves, etc, and he can also use his informal power and influence to invite policy leaders to the White House, go on national TV, lobby for legislation, etc. His power- both real and perceived- gets others to re-appraise what is in their best interest, and they are then persuaded that it is better to get along with the President and what he wants to do rather than fight against his able and methodical and efficient powers.

Look, I know this isn't exciting to you guys- you all want a President who will blow your socks off, light up the system, ride in on a horse of hope and change and remake the world. You want a king to rule you and control other people who you disagree with. You wish that someone who will go into the White House and then start just shutting down executive departments, slashing spending on programs, and ignoring the Judicial and Legislative Branches to bring you closer to our Founding Fathers. The problem is, that isn't how our Founding Fathers designed the office of the President and it is not how our Founding Fathers would have wanted the system to work, and once you go down the path to making our President a King, he can be a liberal King too in a short 4 to 8 years.

As I wrote in Calvin Coolidge, One of the Best Presidents?:

The best Presidents are those who did very little, ran the executive office smoothly and without problems or corruption, and conformed to the Constitution as closely as possible. Jefferson was President for two terms, and other then the Louisiana Purchase, his administration happily has little to note other than peace and prosperity. James Madison had to respond to the War of 1812, yes- but other than that, peace and prosperity. Calvin Coolidge was like this too- nothing to note during his time in office other than nothing to note- peoples lives were protected, the nation was prosperous, and property was well protected.

The President is a powerful person in our political system- but he has grown too powerful, and I don't want him to become even more powerful and active and arbitrary, even if for a while he would be doing so in a conservative or libertarian manner. Rather, our President should be good at working with the Congress to effect significant changes to our laws and policies, he should be good at closing doors and coming out of them with policy-leaders minds changed, he should know our political system inside and out and understand how to move various levers to get stuff done, and he should be able to judiciously use his public prestige to pressure leaders to voluntarily arrive at policy decisions that he supports. He should be a competent manager and efficient steward of taxpayer resources. At the end of his Presidency, we should not say that he brought hope and change to the American system, but rather we should say that when he left after eight quiet years as President, peoples lives had been protected from domestic and international threats, that the nation had remained prosperous and free of debts, and that private property had been well protected and preserved.

The description of a 'great' President that I have outlined above is most definitely not a description of our current President. President Barack Obama went into the White House without the skills needed to be an effective or even good President, and he has shown no desire to put in the hard work, the humility, and the intelligence to acquire these skills. Yes, I know that during his first two years much legislation was passed (which he now claims makes him the fourth best President ever)- but that was during a time period when one element of society- liberal Democrats- controlled almost all the national levers of policy-making (House, Senate, President, and bureaucracy)- and since that time, more elements of society are represented in our political system, and he has demonstrated that in these more pluralistic and typical circumstances that he is completely ineffective. You see, the earlier 'success' he had in driving the policy-agenda was really because it was being driven by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who pushed their legislation and priorities in spite of what Obama desired or wanted- those who have been part of this legislation have written several times that the White House was remarkably passive during that time period and just went along with whatever Congress wanted (which in itself is not a bad thing, but in the context of demonstrating leadership it is). But once Obama's party lost control of the House, we were able to see truly just how bad a President he is and how bad he as at filling this office.

President Obama is poor at working with Congress, bad at working with others of different opinions than his own, too quick to attack in public those who he disagrees with (probably because he is so awful at convincing them to change policies behind closed doors), he does not know how to use all the various levers in policy-making that he has, and overuses the prestige of his office such that it the prestige has been watered down (I'm imaging him promoting Monday Night Football right now). He is an incompetent manager and a poor steward of taxpayer resources (his family is spending millions in taxpayer money on a vacation to Hawaii as I write this). At the end of his Presidency (hopefully next year), we'll look back at the last four years as being some of the most chaotic and partisan and rough years, and look at his record as our President- a nation that is less prosperous, less free, burdened with debts, with horribly destroyed foundations (crumbling roads, bridges, schools, and Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that have been bankrupted and unreformed), and with private property under attack (Occupy Wall Street, Dodd-Frank, the bankruptcy of GM, etc). President Obama is a bad President.

Could any of the Republican candidates for President be a 'great' President? I don't know- I'll let you make your own decisions on that for now. But much of what I wrote here I pulled from an earlier post I wrote called Ron Paul- Drop Out of the Race where I considered Congressman Paul's candidacy in light of these ideas. But do Romney, Perry, Gingrich, Bachmann, or Santorum meet the qualifications I laid out above better than Obama? They likely do- for example, look at Romney's experience as Governor of at blue-state or saving the Salt Lake City Olympics, or Perry's able Governorship of successful Texas, or Gingrich's record of balancing the budget with a Democratic President, but I surely must  revisit this concept and evaluate the GOP candidates accordingly in a later post- be sure to check back often on my blog for this post.

Oh, and in reply to the liberals and progressives and fascists who are emailing me trying to personally attack me- I do have several degrees from good universities in public policy, I teach government for a living, and my argument is based in part on professor Richard Neustadt's book Presidential Power (purchase the book today- Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan). My arguments are sound and hopefully well-reasoned, and as always, I'd love to defend them in print or on the radio, and I would love it if you would email this post or link to it on your blog so that our Presidential election in 2012 is that much more informed.

Seth Godin, author, change maker

Seth Godin is not God. I don't think he pretends to be but sometimes I think those that read his work don't realize who he is. He is a natural born gift writer / rebel who has made his own rules and had is own career. He is one of a kind. That is great. We need more Seth Godins.

In a recent post, Seth makes a great point that we are going Back to (the wrong) school and that we are educating kids for 1925.

Agreed. Totally.

I agree with this statement.

If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.

But there is also some sort of insinuation I read into the post that the problem is having teachers/ educators in authority.

Let's make a line here that needs to be very clear:


We need to be promoting higher order thinking.

Memorizing is at the bottom. We aren't teaching problem solving. We're not teaching anything of lasting substance when we continue to see if kids can memorize. We just aren't.

Seth is on the money when he says that the testing environment has put us on the race to the bottom. I'm glad he's saying it.

Kids need to be problem solvers. They don't need to be told what to do at every moment. They need to know how to figure things out. This is exactly why I don't teach point and click software and handle it more holistically. We've already used more than 30 software programs to solve problems in my Computer Applications class as we customize the experience to the individual and the things we are trying to create.

We also need to have a respect for authority in place so we can have safe places to learn.

The one insinuation that I see in this discussion all over the place is the idea we should disregard authority. There is a big difference between questioning what a person in authority says and the fact that a person in authority has authority.

The lack of discipline in schools is one reason that many of my teacher friends are quitting. I know of one local school that talked to teachers about putting bullet proof glass in every classroom to protect the teachers. How about protecting the students? If teachers are afraid, how about the poor scrawny kid who won't go to the bathroom all day because he's afraid of bullying?

As a society, we don't trust people in authority. We don't trust organizations in authority. We've had a complete erosion of the belief in authority.

Never mistake a teacher in authority for a dictatorship.

Right now many of those in authority in education have led us down the wrong path as a country. So, it is understandable. But let's turn our eyes to the kids for a moment.

The danger of Selective Authority
Many parents have advocated a principle of "selective authority." Selective authority looks like this

"I'm going to learn from you because you can give me something" or
"I'm not going to learn from you because I don't like you." 

What results is punk football players who are very coachable but have no integrity and keep getting in trouble with the law. This problem is everywhere.

This type of philosophy means if a kid can convince Mom and Dad that "my Lit teacher doesn't like me" and the kid knows that suddenly anything I do to that lit teacher is excused and encouraged.

WRONG.

The "rights" of a few who don't deserve it

Rafe Esquith in his book,Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56,  talks about an incident where a group of fifth graders were interrupting their fifth grade graduation with profanity and trash talk. Rafe removed them from the proceedings and was promptly told by the principal that everyone "has a right to graduate" and that the could do nothing about it.

No! Those kids should get a diploma but they should not have the right to completely ruin the graduation for the other students.

Schools and principals who tolerate such misbehavior look impotent, incompetent, and totally backwards!

Do we encourage disrespect?
PROBLEM. The problem in many schools is that it is impossible to even teach lower order industrial age thinking because our society has so worshipped the young that we are encouraging a total disrespect for authority.

We all have bosses. We all have laws to follow. Lots of times we don't like the boss or the laws but we have to follow them anyway. We need to follow people we don't like sometimes so we can be successful in life. We can respect their authority even if we don't care for them as a person.

We can also be a renegade with cool ideas in the classroom and beyond if we have empowering teachers to bring that out of us. I can be empowering and still have my classroom management act together.


Show up and Keep your Promises
A young man at Walgreen's yesterday was talking to me. He was missing the first half of his family reunion because the manager could not get anyone to work for him. He was at work anyway. I was very impressed and told him so. He said,

'My Momma raised me right. I need to show up where they are counting on me and keep my promises."

Respect for authority does not mean subservience, slavery, or even the worst case, abuse. It means that we have guidelines. It means we treat each other with respect and have character.

Scott Filmer's Photography Journal

We need yellow lines.
We have guidelines like the yellow line in the middle of the road.

Thank goodness for the yellow line in the middle of the road. It is that guideline that keeps us all safe. We need them in school too!

No Discipline Problems
I've had a few discipline problems in my career but not many. Typically, I have to fill out a discipline form once or twice a year. That is because my principal is exceptional at handling discipline. He is consistent (writing up his own son for not having a hair cut) and treats everyone fairly.

I am free to teach. There were times, I admit, under another principal that it wasn't so pleasant. When  discipline is maintained we have freedom to learn.

Appealing versus Arguing
Authority does not mean that a person is always right. The first day of class I always say something completely, totally WRONG. Something everyone knows is wrong. The kids now know my reputation and so they get it more often than not, but I always say.

"This is my classroom and we will work together to learn, but that does not mean that I know everything. I'm wrong quite a bit. You've just let me say something you know is wrong. Why did no one stand up to me? What is the right way to disagree when a person in authority says something is wrong?" (We discuss.) Then I end with, "This is OUR classroom. We learn from each other. If you disagree with me, I respect you if you disagree respectfully in a way that helps me and the others learn and I will treat you the same way. It is ok to make mistakes and sometimes I will say things to make you think that I may or may not agree with. I want your brains and your thoughts not just your blind acceptance of what I say. But you can know that if I do say something wrong like I just did that I will always correct myself in that same class period - you can trust what I say, but I needed to prove a point to you today. Say what you think not what you think I want you to say."

Note that I don't make this a habit to do this very much because I want students to trust what I say. If I say something wrong, I always admit it pretty quickly so they know that I knew it was wrong. I don't think it is a good practice to just "lie" all the time to confuse kids. But to do it once to make a point and to say I intentionally did it is OK.

There is a difference. In this case, I've preserved my authority. My "yellow line in the middle of the road" type authority while also making my classroom a safe place for open dialog, discussion, and learning by everyone.

Our Current Students aren't ready for 1925 work in some cases
A close family member employs some of those "1925 labor workers" as he works in a factory. The problem is that many of the workers he gets aren't even fit for that. They don't know how to show up on time and only 20% of them know fractions. (They ask where the bubbles are for the answers and are told that in the real world you don't have 4 answers for every question.)

Right now, the current public education system, at least down here in South Georgia doesn't really even produce good factory workers. Yes, it is broken, yes we need to fix it.

We need people who can keep their promises. Who can be productive. Who aren't just robots who test well.  We also need students who know basic math and fractions in the real world where there are no bubbles.

We need to improve and change how we are teaching but we also need to restore the guidelines and accountability that keep us safe. According to Maslow's heirarchy of needs - if a student is hungry and feels unsafe they aren't going to learn. Yes, we need to improve our teaching but to have good teaching we also need good discipline.

The danger of the rebellion against "industrial age do what you are told" education is that some people ARE not going to realize that the scripted, step by step teaching, worksheet mentality, and memorization mantras are the problem and in fact will think it is having discipline, order, and guidelines that are the problem.

Seth Godin on Education
So, as smart as Seth Godin is, take his posts on education for what they are. Very well written big-picture critiques of the big-picture problems in education and not a prescription for how to fix education. Honestly, I'm not even sure that some of our current education "leaders" are prepared to fix those problems as they have a self-interest in preserving the current systems that have gotten us where we are.

Whatever the solution - restoring order and discipline and SAFETY is an important part of improving any school. It is called "learning environment" and it is a top indicator of a successful school.

In Conclusion
Let's promote higher order thinking but to get there we do need consistent discipline and respect for authority back in our schools.

Remember your noble calling, teacher. Remember that those who critique a system are critiquing a system.

There are many amazing teachers out there and most likely you are one of them. No one can take away your nobility but when you act beneath yourself, you alone can give away that nobility. Let's teach anyway as best we can until people realize that the Freedom to Teach is one of the best things they could give teachers.

____
Unless noted otherwise, photos are from iStock Photo.

No offense to those candidates who had previously announced that they were running for the United States Senate seat that is up in 2012, but since none of those candidates really got me too excited or had a big enough name, I was playing around in my mind with running myself for that Senate seat. The 2012 election is going to be more about the President than it is who will be Senator, and although Debbie Stabenow (who currently ineptly fills the office) is a good fundraiser she is good at little else and is able to be beaten if someone lays some solid body blows on her record and character- and I could do those things. I don't have very much money and have few connections to people who do, but once you're a candidate, those things appear, and then it's just about hammering away at the weak candidate that Stabenow is. Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner John McCulloch, activist Peter Konetchy, and former judge Randy Hekman are the only candidates currently running against her, and I've got as good as a shot as any of them, so I was playing around with it in my mind. Now, thankfully, I don't have to.

Former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra is expected to jump back into the race against Stabenow as early as today, and he represents exactly the kind of big-name, high-experience, solid candidate that I have been looking and waiting for to get into it against Stabenow. Hoekstra retired this year after serving nine terms in the federal House of Representatives, after his run for Governor was unsuccessful. While in the House, he rose to Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, where he left his mark on key anti-terrorism legislation. Before entering politics, he served as a vice president of marketing at Herman Miller, the office furniture maker headquartered near Grand Rapids. Since leaving Capitol Hill, Hoekstra's worked for Dickstein Shapiro, a top law firm based in Washington, where he has continued to keep in touch with all the issues facing our nation.

Hoekstra is the kind of candidate that we need in the Senate. As I pointed out in my post Graph: Public Debt Over Time, Color-Coded by Party in Power, although the President is important in our nation, having a solid and conservative Congress will go farther to restoring the sanity to our nations finances, so it is good to finally have a solid candidate running for the US Senate against the weak and corrupt Stabenow, who has grown fat on taxpayers for too many years. My post Graph: U.S. Foreclosure Rates, Colored-Coded by Party in Power also indicated that the worse thing for our nation as far as foreclosures go was having a Democratic Congress, and knocking out Stabenow, who represents the farthest extremes of progressives as a Democrat in Congress, and replacing her with Hoekstra, who represents a solid Republican vote, will work to stop the foreclosure crisis that is hammering our nation.

Congressman Pete Hoekstra was honestly my choice for Governor of Michigan last time around- in my post Recommendations for Michigan's Primary Election in 2010 you can read about my struggles with deciding on a candidate, and after much research and analysis I decided that Hoekstra was the best- even better than Rick Snyder, who went on to become Governor. I decided that Hoekstra was a solid candidate, someone who people spoke well of, he had good family values, a solid background in business and government, and he is a good conservative who is friendly to the Tea Party movement (see post Tea Party Express Stop Southeast Michigan: My Report, with Pictures and Video).

And Senator Stabenow is not a good Senator for the people of Michigan. As I wrote in my post 10 Good Reasons Why Senator Stabenow Should Be Re-Elected, the joke was that there was no good reason for her to be re-elected-

She does a poor job advocating for Michigan, she is consistently ranked as one of the weakest politicians in Congress, and according to the National Journal Group she is the most liberal member of the Senate and thus more liberal than any of her constituents in this fine moderate state of Michigan. If she were a run-of-the-mill liberal who did a good job helping constituents and was chair of a powerful committee than I could see her winning re-election, but that describes Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), not her.

Stabmenow is going to be a tough battle in the election, that's for sure. As I wrote in Senator Stabenow at DEC Event Details What a Political Economy Looks Like:

Don’t get me wrong- she is going to be a formidable candidate this election, because her campaign is going to be awash in kickbacks from companies who have benefited from her abilities to distribute favors to politically connected companies, and because unlike the last time she ran, this time she has experience and knowledge on the issues and has passed some legislation.

Whoever the Republicans choose to run against her- whether it is indeed Terri Lynn Land or whether it is Pete Hoekstra- I really hope that they realize that to campaign against Stabenow will require a lot of hard work and determination. She is going to be heavily funded by groups that owe her for all of her hard work redirecting taxpayer money to big businesses that she likes, and she is going to have a strong record to run on of passing policies that look good. It is going to require a lot of educating of voters and connecting with voters to get them to see that her policies are bad for America and bad for Michigan and that she should not be elected to office again.

But I think that Hoekstra is the kind of candidate who can and should defeat her attempt to hold on to her ill-bought seat. He has managed to weather tough and dirty attacks on him before- remember last year when President Barack Obama went into his home district to cut the ribbon of another government-financed battery plant and took the occasion to make a bunch of snide underhanded comments directed at Hoekstra as he stood uncomfortably there? I wrote about it in my post Republican Congressman Visits White House and Insults Democrat President in Front of Friends (which is a joke, because the exact opposite occurred). Hoekstra took in in stride, calmly and dryly moved past it, and didn't lower himself to the levels that the partisan joker who inhabits our White House did. If Hoekstra can navigate situations like that, I have high hopes for him navigating through the negative and mean and bitter and partisan attacks that an incompetent liberal who is out of touch with voters like Stabenow will unleash in her desperate attempt to clutch to power.

So, thank you Congressman Hoekstra, for entering the race for US Senate in 2012, because now I no longer have to think about running for this seat myself. Good luck and you can count on me for anything you need!

President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress who voted in favor of it are going to stand for election in another year, and when they do it is important to for voters to remember that one of the biggest pieces of legislation that they pushed for and voted for was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as 'Obamacare.'

Part of Obamacare included a provision for temporary waivers, which were put put in place to encourage employers and insurers who are currently offering mini-med plans not to withdraw medical coverage before the full regulations come into force. This is an important aspect of the legislation- if these waivers were not in place, employers and insurers might decide to drop coverage for employees and push these employees into the public system, thereby driving up costs for the public and putting further pressure on our already bankrupt system.

The problem with these waivers is that like most aspects of the Obama administration is that it was a corrupt process- corrupt in the sense that this waiver process became tied up in trading in influence, patronage, cronyism, electoral fraud, and kickbacks. Democrats in Congress were supposed to be proving oversight to this process, but were negligent in their duties, and so there was all sorts of evidence that the waiver process was corrupt. I wrote about it myself in my post Evidence is Mounting that Obamacare is All Sorts of Corrupt?, where I wrote the following:

It was my suspicion several months ago that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a corrupt piece of legislation designed to transfer property and choice from those who have it to those who want it. There would be those who would not want to be part of this process who would then ask for waivers, and it was my suspicion that these waivers would be given out based on political considerations- in other words, they would be given to groups that support the Democratic Party, Obama in particular, or to companies who had access and connections to those Democratic party officials who were making the decisions on the waivers, likely because of their campaign donations. So I started to do some research on the issue- as I stated, the research was by no means an exhaustive list of evidence but did end up being some pretty fair anecdotal evidence that those who are receiving waivers from Obamacare are those who donated large amounts of money to Barack Obama. Check out the post for my little bit of research on this issue.

The process of getting waivers was established by law, and supporters of Obamacare gave many speeches on it where they further clarified and expanded on the meaning of the law, and in every case, these Obamacare waivers were to be granted until 2014.

But, as the corruption inherent in the process has become politically damaging, Obama has decided to change the law by issuing a decree ending the health care waiver program on September 22.

This is President Obama, supported by the modern Democratic Party- ruling by decree, changing laws around to suit their political interests, and restraining themselves from engaging in further corrupt activities only because their past corruption is now being exposed by bloggers like me.

The purpose of these waivers was to avoid disrupting coverage, but Obama has decided that it would be much better for him to disrupt insurance coverage for our nation if it will remove a politically embarrassing and corrupt program that he worked to pass. Let me be clear- Obama has made a selfish decision that will damage our nation because he believes it will help him hide politically his policies and his past actions. These sorts of actions move Obama away from simply naively incompetent to dangerously corrupt.

Via memeorandum I came across this story- In the Arena: Libyan opposition has less than 1,000 fighters:

During "In the Arena," Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer for The New Yorker reporting from Benghazi, Libya, tells Eliot Spitzer that the number of opposition fighters on the front lines are fewer than anyone would think and that they are poorly armed and badly trained. Anderson says, "Effective number of fighting men, well under 1,000. Actual soldiers, who are now in the fight, possibly in the very low hundreds on the opposition side."

If Obama is correct and the situation in Libya is a humanitarian crisis which demands that the United States act, then the United States needed to act while it was still possible to act, or else resign itself to the humanitarian crisis which would result. But Obama did not act while it was still possible to act, and the reason for the delay was his own incompetence and ignorance, for which he, and he alone, is to blame.

Obama is ignorant that it takes real people to fight wars and real hardware to engage in a revolution- and his delay in acting meant that Qaddafi was able to kill many fighters and retake many weapons- Obama has no experience in the military and has shown little familiarity with military subjects and is ignorant that battles are fought with people and hardware and are not simply chess pieces to move around a board. Obama is incompetent in that he does not recognize his own ignorance on this issue and instead of acting on advice from those smarter than him he instead worried about his NCAA bracket or jetted down to Brazil or hosted fancy dinners and events with celebrities.

Early on in the conflict (February 27) I wrote this:

(Obama's) failures resulted in a longer, more drawn out, less sure conflict, one in which the moderates saw the President of the United States doing nothing and so decided to support the established powers, one in which the revolutionaries saw their morale drop due to lack of support, one in which the established powers in Libya believed that is was okay to use deadly force and hire international mercenaries to keep control.

Several weeks later I had become disgusted with Obama's handling of the crisis in Libya and wrote this:

...I have no problem blaming Obama for the ensuing humanitarian crisis that is going to unfold in Libya. It was okay to wait a bit, because the US shouldn't just jump willy-nilly into every conflict, but the minute the rebels stalled, the math was pretty simple- either jump in now in support and knock Muammar Qaddafi out while building goodwill with the rebels who would then march to power and restore order, or stay out of it and watch Qaddafi retake his nation and punish the rebels and build goodwill with him and his son...

...But President Paintywaist instead anguished about the decision and tried to hide and ran around yelling 'present' on the issue while issuing empty rhetoric and throwing pixie dust at the situation. I don't care how hard he tries to re-write history on this one- he sat around, watched the rebels get pushed back, watched them lose their best fighters and leaders and most dedicated freedom fighters, watched Qaddafi take back cities and kill and rape everyone who was against him in those areas, watched both Qaddafi and the rebels get weaker, and then when the French and British said 'screw you, we're doing something' he fled to Brazil and let Hillary make the call....

Let me be clear- President Obama waited too long to commit the United States to this conflict, and his waiting let Qaddafi forces kill too many revolutionary fighters and recapture too many revolutionary resources, and now the outcome of the situation in Libya is more uncertain. His address this week did little to explain why this critical and increasingly important delay happened, in spite of his efforts to retell the story, and he should be held to blame for the now greater cost that it will take to avert a humanitarian crisis in Libya.

Genocides piss me off and I hate it when people die when they shouldn't, and the blame for this situation should be put squarely and fully on Democratic President Barack Obama.

UPDATE: This does not cause me to become less angry- according to the Jawa Report, there are now less opposition fighters left in Libya than there are members of the 501st Legion, a group of Star Wars fans who dress up like stormtroopers and other characters from the movies, prompting him to ask the important question "Are There More Actual Stormtroopers Than Libyan Rebel Fighters?"

UPDATE II: RedState's Caleb Howe has produced an awesome graphic comparing Obama's war in Libya with Bush's war in Iraq. Check it out, via Doug Ross.

According to Niall Ferguson (a British historian who teaches at Harvard), the defining characteristic thus far for Obama's foreign policy is "not just a failure to prioritize, but a failure to recognize the need to do so." In other words, Obama has no foreign policy, is making it up as he goes, is reading the polls to try to figure out what the right thing to do, is behind the curve on world events, and doesn't know up from down, and the saddest thing is, he doesn't even know it. He is in way over his head, dangerously incompetent, damaging our foreign policy the mere fact of his presence, like Jimmy Carter, except without Carter's work ethic or willingness to seek out help. He has surrounded himself by few foreign policy experts, few business experts, and no conservatives, instead preferring to surround himself with liberal Chicago politicians who can hold his hand and tell him everything is going to be okay as long as he fools you or your husband or your wife or your kids or your friends into voting for him. This Niall Ferguson fellow is a whole lot smarter than me, and he agrees with my points- watch him tear the old media liberal types up on this enjoyable and informative clip:

Originally via theblogprof, where I commented "I love how uncomfortable the MSNBC people look during this video- it is like reality is intruding in on their happy-nice sunshine naive idiot view of the world. Fergusan pounds on them, and they are stunned by how easy it is for him to do so. Towards the end the MSNBC hosts desperately turn to the 'yeah, but Bush was worse' meme- that's classic too!"

Fore more on Fergusan, check out The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, or Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power.

Over the last two weeks in Libya, important events were occurring. There was an important revolt against a ruling power, a revolt that was inspired by events in nearby nations and that was driven by forces including a desire for more liberty, a desire for better protection of property from takings by the government, and a desire for more protections of life. Of course there are other forces swirling around too in Libya- the whole life, liberty, and property line also needs to have added to it tribal, religious, and other overtones- but the idea is that there is an important revolution occurring in Libya today.

Opposing the revolutionaries are those who like the status quo in Libya, those who are part of the tyrannical government system, those whose livelihoods are based on the looting of their fellow citizens, those who feel that elites and overlords and government agents should control what people do in their lives, and those who abuse human lives with cruel and unjust judicial systems. These people have important skin in the game too- if the tables are turned on them, they die and their way of life dies, and so they are going to fight tooth and nail and to the last bloody body to keep their unearned gains.

And then there is probably the most important group in Libya, that of the middle. Everyone always remembers the American revolutionaries and the British and Loyalist forces, but few ever think about the great percentage of people who sat out the opening rounds of the American Revolution and watched events before deciding which way to commit. There is a large number of people in Libya who are on the sidelines, watching- although they might agree with the revolutionaries, if the revolution is successful, they may not gain personally and they may have less wealth or power, or although they might agree with the established power, but they may live in an area where the revolution is doing well or may think that long term the revolution will be successful. There are a great number of people in Libya sitting on the sidelines- generals, political leaders, business leaders, and teachers- who are trying to figure out which way this whole thing is going to break so that they can be on the winning side.

The United States had the opportunity two weeks ago to put pressure on all three to achieve some sort of an outcome, and because of the incompetence of its primary political figure in charge of international events, the President, it has failed to do so and only now, several weeks later, is it finally making weak policy decisions on this important event.

This is an important event, you see- Libya is a significant oil producer, Libya has over 6 million people in it, Libya is in a strategic area of the world, and Libya has been a thorn in the side of the United States for years as an active supporter of worldwide terrorism. It is a nation that could be better- it could be a more reliable producer of cheaper oil for us, it could be a nation that has fewer human rights abuses and more political freedom and happiness for its own people, it is a nation that could serve as important source of stability and support in the region, or it could be simply removed from being a thorn in our side and stop supporting worldwide terrorism.

It isn't guaranteed, of course, that these positive events can and will happen- one must always weigh the possible positives of the future with the current situation- but as Libya was a 'bad' nation who wasn't our ally, it can't get much worse (this contrasts to my position on Egypt which was that it was a 'not totally bad nation who was our ally and could get worse').

When this revolution started up several weeks ago, there was every possibility for the United States to put pressure on all three factions working in Libya. Now, of course that pressure needed to be subtle and applied in the right manner by the right people, but I think my case has been laid out strongly that some action should have been taken in some way as soon as possible in this revolution in Libya.

All three factions- the revolutionaries, those in power, and the significant middle in between- could all have been acted on. The revolutionaries could have been provided with support- moral, international, actual arms and weapons, etc. Those in power could have been pressured through sanctions, embargoes, stern words, seizure of assets, or threats of more by moving military assets into the area, and this may have moderated its response and taken off of the table such actions as bombing civilians or hiring foreign mercenaries. And the moderates and those who hadn't decided which faction to support would have observed these reactions and made the call that the winning side and stronger horse to bet on in this revolution was the revolutionaries, thus swelling their ranks and leading them to quicker and less bloody victory.

But Democratic President Barack Obama did not act quickly, surely, or strongly. Other nations did- the British seized assets, the Chinese moved warships into the region, the French acted diplomatically- but not the world's greatest superpower and the one with the most capacity to act in a positive manner. Instead, Obama did nothing, he dithered, he went to basketball games and concerts, and he did not exercise the leadership that was so critical during this timer period.

His failures resulted in a longer, more drawn out, less sure conflict, one in which the moderates saw the President of the United States doing nothing and so decided to support the established powers, one in which the revolutionaries saw their morale drop due to lack of support, one in which the established powers in Libya believed that is was okay to use deadly force and hire international mercenaries to keep control.

The fact that Obama is acting now to issue weak international language condemning Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi does not improve my regard for him or his actions; it instead makes me regard him worse. If Obama was going to oppose Qaddafi, he should have opposed him- if Obama was going to support Qaddafi, he should have supported him- but instead it appears that the leader of the free world and commander-in-chief of the greatest military force ever was a confused, unprincipled, weak, inept, and incompetent moderate who is simply waiting on the sidelines trying to look good in the end rather than being a strong, principled, competent leader who takes action, even if that action is a strong no-action.

President Barack Obama must be removed from office sooner rather than later because he is not a good leader and is incompetent and his failures are leading to a world that is less free, less secure, and more dangerous to the living. He may be a fine father and a good person and a great community organizer, but it was and continues to be a mistake to have him as President of the United States.

UPDATE: Something about this subject must inspire deeper thoughts about the President and what sort of person should occupy that office, because Richard Fernandez over at Belmont Club has also penned a great editorial on this very subject titled The Root of All Evil- check it out!

Reuters released a story revealing some pretty shocking things going on over confidential diplomatic cables from the U.S. embassies in Beijing and Hong Kong:

As the U.S. Federal Reserve grappled with the aftershocks of financial crisis, the Chinese, like many others, suffered huge losses from their investments in American financial firms -- from Lehman Brothers to the Primary Reserve Fund, the money market fund that broke the buck.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks, show that escalating Chinese pressure prompted a procession of soothing visits from the U.S.Treasury Department. In one striking instance, a top Chinese money manager directly asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for a favor.

In June, 2009, the head of China's powerful sovereign wealth fund met with Geithner and requested that he lean on regulators at the U.S. Federal Reserve to speed up the approval of its $1.2 billion investment in Morgan Stanley, according to the cables, which were provided to Reuters by a third party.

Although the cables do not mention if Geithner took any action, China's deal to buy Morgan Stanley shares was announced the very next day.

If this is true, and I hope that House and Senate immediately investigates these charges, then we have evidence and records of US officials being successful pressured by the Chinese government to unlawfully use the power of the federal government in such a way to benefit Chinese investment firms.

Timothy Geithner is the United States Secretary of the Treasury, appointed this position under Democrat President Barack Obama, and if it is true that Geithner was pressured by the Chinese to use federal government pressure in any way to circumvent the normal processes of our government then Geithner and anyone else who covered up or knew about this scandal should be impeached and thrown into prison.

Morgan Stanley received billions in taxpayer money as part of the bailout of 2008-2009. This taxpayer money helped Morgan Stanley stay in business. Chinese officials later bought a large chunk of Morgan Stanley, apparently after the White House applied pressure of some sort of federal regulators.

THE CHINESE ARE RUNNING OUR GOVERNMENT UNDER OBAMA AND HIS POLICIES, and Obama's latest debt proposal will put us further under communist China's control- they're already calling the shots in the Obama White House, Obama's bowing to the Chinese not just in reality but in real meaningful policy ways to, and this is now rising beyond 'Obama must go because he is imcompetent' and is getting to the level that 'Obama must go because he is criminally complicit in using the power of the White House to inappropriately apply pressure to other government agencies to help foreign governments to the possible detriment of US citizens.'

UPDATE: After sleeping on this one, I've decided that neither Obama nor Geithner has likely committed treason or other high crimes and so should not be impeached (although one could argue that it is possible that since Obama accepted massive amounts of donations from unidentified foreign sources last election that there is some sort of possibility of conspiracy that may be criminal). They are and continue to be incompetent in office, but no longer in the sort of incompetent bumbling fools sort of way, but now rather in the incompetent to the level that it is dangerous to the future of your children sort of way.

UPDATE II: Via memeorandum I see that Breitbart is on to this story now, so hopefully it will gain some legs, because if what Wikileaks reports is true, there are some borderline criminal behaviors that need to be investigated.

Earlier last week I was critical of Obama's response to Tunisia's revolution, where it appeared that rather than take an active role in events, Obama's administration simply sat on the sidelines and tried to figure out where Tunisia was (I'm kidding- I heard that he had a 40 minute briefing on Tunisia after the revolution broke out- I'm sure he learned about it then). He is dangerously incompetent, especially on important world events that our President is supposed to be the primary actor on in our political system. The revolution in Tunisia though was just the start of something bigger, something that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has taught us will have repercussions lasting decades, and that is the revolution that is taking place right now in Egypt.

For the past couple days I have been trying to get a handle on events there, much like our President, and like usual, my reactions have mirrored Obama's. First I first supported the young revolutionaries against the bad dictator, while Obama supported the bad dictator. But now I support the bad dictator over the evil militant terrorist groups who want to take power in Egypt, while Obama now supports the evil militant terrorist groups (he supports them by not saying anything bad about them while saying bad stuff about Mubarak- that's an upgrade over his usual 'voting present' by showing support for the bad guys). Obama is dangerously incompetent again and once again, anyone who voted for him or his party made our nation and world a worse place by doing so.

The best article that I have found to help me get a handle on what is going on in Egypt appeared today in the Jerusalum Post by Caroline Glick called Our World: Clueless in Washington. I am going to pass on some of the better parts of it to you to help you too understand a little bit better what is going on in Egypt...

The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.


On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.

But does his wisdom apply in this case?

Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak’s predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.

This reality has led many American commentators across the political spectrum to side enthusiastically with the rioters. A prestigious working group on Egypt formed in recent months by Middle East experts from Left and Right issued a statement over the weekend calling for the Obama administration to dump Mubarak and withdraw its support for the Egyptian regime. It recommended further that the administration force Mubarak to abdicate and his regime to fall by suspending all economic and military assistance to Egypt for the duration.

The blue ribbon panel’s recommendations were applauded by its members’ many friends across the political spectrum. For instance, the conservative Weekly Standard’s editor William Kristol praised the panel on Sunday and wrote, “It’s time for the US government to take an active role… to bring about a South Korea/Philippines/Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy.”

The problem with this recommendation is that it is based entirely on the nature of Mubarak’s regime. If the regime was the biggest problem, then certainly removing US support for it would make sense. However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.

Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.

According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.

When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN’s Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.

WHAT ALL of this makes clear is that if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak’s military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US’s greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Israel’s peace partner will again become its gravest foe.

What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.

They have pointed out that the Obama administration’s behavior – as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics – is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US’s other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.

The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively? Why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charting a course that will necessarily lead to the transformation of Egypt into the first Salafist Islamic theocracy? And why are conservative commentators and Republican politicians urging them to be even more outspoken in their support for the rioters in the streets?

Does the US not understand what will happen in the region as a result of its actions? Does the US really fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the Middle East if the Muslim Brotherhood either forms the next regime or is the power behind the throne of the next regime in Cairo?...

...As Prof. Barry Rubin wrote this week, “There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt but the Obama administration may be adopting something close to the worst option.”
 
Unfortunately, given the cluelessness of the US foreign policy debate, this situation is only likely to grow worse.

Two more years remain in President Obama's term of office. Hopefully voters in America will wake up and realize how dangerously incompetent his administration has been and how destructive the impulse to take a flier on this unknown was.

According to the AP, President Barack Obama's new chief of staff William Daley respond to the proposal from congressional Republicans to cut $55 billion from the federal budget by going on CBS' 'Face the Nation' and asking the "Where's the beef?" He then elaborated that he is very curious to see exactly where those cuts will come from, implying that Republicans are playing the same sort of game that Obama plays often where he makes vague statements with no details to back them up. Both President of the United States Barack Obama (Democrat) and him apparently can't find the details for these cuts and so think that this is some sort of trick.

This is really sad, because I opened up internet explorer, went to google, searched 'details of gop plan', and the very first site that was listed was "A Roadmap for America's Future: The Budget Committee Republicans," which links to the GOP's detailed plans to cut $55 billion from the federal budget. That I was able to find the details to the plan so easily and yet the President of the United States and his chief of staff were not able to speaks to one of two things- one, they're all incompetent idiots who lack basic computer and research skills because they are all stuck in the pre-internet past, or two, they are disingenuous liars who are knowingly trying to scam and fool the American people because they know they are not decent or honest or truthful people so they can't find any refuge there.

Daley is thus either an incompetent idiot or a disingenuous liar- either way, the fact that he was chosen to be the main advisor to our President speaks to the kind of people that our President has chosen to surround himself with.

In case Obama or Daley ever do figure out how to use the internet and read by blog, I'll help them out by putting the apparently hard to find information on where 'the beef' is below:

• LEGISLATIVE BRANCH...............................$1,283,000,000. (23%)
• Notes: The Government Printing Office is abolished.
• JUDICIAL BRANCH......................................$2,434,000,000. (32%)
• AGRICULTURE............................................$42,542,000,000. (30%)
• The Agriculture Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Resources Conservation Service, and Foreign Agricultural Service are abolished. The Forest Service gets a $1.2 billion haircut.
• COMMERCE...................................................$5,322,000,000. (54%)
• National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is cut by $857,000,000.
• DEFENSE.......................................................$47,500,000,000. (6.5%)
• EDUCATION..................................................$78,000,000,000 (83%)
• Only the Pell grant program survives.
• ENERGY............................................................$44,200,000,000 (100%)
• The Defense Department takes over all of Energy's remaining functions (nuclear waste, for example) and about $18 billion of its budget.
• HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES..............$26,510,000,000. (26%)
• Notes: FDA is cut by $230,000,000; Indian Health Service is cut by $650 million; CDC is cut by $1.17 billion; NIH by $5.8 billion.
• HOMELAND SECURITY.................................$23,765,000,000. (43%)
• Notes: Coast Guard is shifted to Defense. TSA's funds are cut by $900 million.
• HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT....$53,100,000,000. (100%)
• Notes: Completely eliminated. Veterans' housing programs are transferred to the VA
• INTERIOR........................................................$10,934,000,000. (78%)
• Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Indian Affairs are abolished.
• JUSTICE.............................................................$9,057,000,000. (28%)
• Note: Office of Justice Programs is abolished.
• LABOR....................................................$2,803,000,000. (2%)
• OSHA, MSHA, and the The Employment and Training Administration are spared all cuts (no cuts to unemployment benefits)
• STATE...................................................................$20,321,000,000. (71%)
• Note: Massive foreign aid cuts. All international commissions and organizations are defunded.
• TRANSPORTATION............................................$42,810,000,000. (49%)
• Notes: Amtrak is completely de-funded.
• VETERANS’ AFFAIRS..........................................No cuts
• CORPS OF ENGINEERS......................................$1,854,000,000. (27%)
• EPA..............................................................$3,238,000,000. (29%)
• GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION.....$1,936,000,000. (85%)
• INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS...$24,300,000,000 (100%)
• NASA.........................................................................$4,500,000,000 (25%)
• NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION...............$4,723,000,000. (62%)
• OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT.......$9,070,000,000.
• SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION.........No cuts
• FCC...........................................................$2,150,000,000. (22%)
• ABOLISH...............................................................$2,050,000,000. (100%)
• (1) Affordable Housing Program.
• (2) Commission on Fine Arts.
• (3) Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• (4) Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• (5) National Endowment for the Arts.
• (6) National Endowment for the Humanities.
• (7) State Justice Institute.
• MISC
• Collect delinquent taxes from Federal Employees........$3,000,000,000.
• Freeze Federal Government employee pay...................$2,000,000,000.
• Reduce Federal Government travel..............................$7,500,000,000.
• Repeal Davis-Bacon..................................................... $6,000,000,000.
• Prohibit union project labor agreements......................$2,000,000,000.
• TARP repeal.................................................................$4,481,000,000.
• Sell Federal Buildings..................................................$19,000,000,000.
• Reduce Federal vehicle budget..........................................$600,000,000.

UPDATE: Comment from theblogprof's story on this subject, which I echo:

Note the one cut close to the end: "Collect delinquent taxes from Federal Employees." $3 BILLION??? Good grief. How are they still federal employees at all?