My Beauty Best Teacher

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 Obamacare will not be repealed.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!

In Shadow and Act:

A young radio talk host, Carlos La Menace, unveils in his weekend show three figures of Congo’s capital, Brazzaville. The Sapeur Yves Saint Laurent, surrounded by extreme poverty, chooses elegance as a way of life. Cheriff Bakala is not a usual rapper. Mixes hip hop with Congolese folk, and uses local instruments, such as drums made up with water cans. He’s about to record his first album in a country with almost no producers. Finally, Palmas Yaya, Brazzaville’s wrestling champion is relying on voodoo to defend its throne in a crucial moment of his life…

"Dimanche à Brazzaville" Teaser from Tambay Obenson on Vimeo.

My sense of humor is a bit off, just to warn you, but here are some of what I think are my funniest posts of 2011, filled with a sense of wit and sarcasm and fun. Enjoy.

BREAKING: Barack Obama Time Travels from January to Scold Barack Obama of February of his Lack of Civility in Wisconsin Budget Battle

BREAKING FAKE NEWS: In an unusual move for a sitting President of the United States, Democratic President Barack Obama time traveled from January of 2011 to February 2011 in order to to scold Democratic President Barack Obama for his political finger-pointing and lack of civility and honesty regarding the public discourse over the budget situation in Wisconsin.

January Obama reportedly said to February Obama "(We should all) strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents... more civility in our public discourse... only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation."

In reply, February Obama said to January Obama "Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions..." and then DNC's Organizing for America arm -- the organization and people who were behind Obama's 2008 campaign -- began playing an active role in organizing protests...

(the rest of the post is a long hypothetical conversation between time-traveling Obama's which quotes from him at different times to reveal his shameless hypocrisy in an amusing way)

EXCLUSIVE: Obama Prepared to Demand France Return to 1917 Borders

Following up on his recent calls for Israel to return to its 1967 border, Obama is now calling on France to return to its 1917 border and return the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine back to Germany. For the first time ever, here is President Barack Obama's upcoming speech on Peace in the Middle Europe:...

(the fake speech is quite long- I took the speech that Obama gave at the AIPAC policy conference in May of 2011 and simply edited it a bit- but here is my favorite part of it)

...I said that the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent borders for Germany and France based on the 1917 lines with mutually agreed swaps. In doing so, I give to Germany things which they do not own, and then demand that France trade for those things, as if I have the authority or ability to do any of this. (applause)...

(for similar fun, see John Lillpop's post "Obama to Call for Return of U.S. –Mexico Borders to 1843?")

Obama's Belief in 'Bad Luck' Part of What Religion Exactly?

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck."

If bad luck is the reason that our nation has struggled lately, I wondered to myself just what exactly our President and Commander-in-Chief was doing to combat this recent run of bad luck.

Never in my knowledge has any other President had to battle 'bad luck' before- a google search of past Presidents' speeches did not turn up any results of past Presidents, whether they were Republican like George W Bush or Ronald Reagan or Democrats like Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, ever blaming 'bad luck' for the problems that the United States faced. Perhaps it was because these past Presidents were religious people, who did not believe in paganism and 'luck' so much as the divine will of God and his plan...

(the rest of the post is a serious attempt by me to investigate the role that karma and luck play in the President of the United States worldview and understand what sorts of policies he will put in place to battle bad karma and bad luck- it's a joke because he's a joke)

Scientists Filling Roles Priests Once Filled?

(I'll be honest, this post was simply an excuse to bring up an earlier funny post I wrote called Is Al Gore the Re-incarnation of the Xhosa Prophetess Nongqawuse?, but it remains relevant still)

...increasingly, scientists are filling a role in our society once reserved from priests- they tell fortunes based on reading omens in the weather, they tell the future (inaccurately) based on models they create, they punish unbelievers and reward those agree with them without questioning, they build themselves great temples on universities designed to add prestige to their profession, they advise people regarding the proper sacrifices to make in order to appease the angered science gods, they peddle myths and run secret societies, and they hold to a worldview that does not allow any other challengers.

It should be no surprise that scientists are filling this role- for thousands of years, humans have turned to priests, shamans, fortune-tellers, soothsayers, magicians, witch-doctors, and religious types of all sorts. These sorts prey on those who are looking for hope, looking for direction, looking for someone to tell them the right way to live their own lives, and these scientists fill that role- many have, after all, devoted their lives to killing the Christian God and subverting his people, and now they rush into that vacuum with their own creation myths, sacred beliefs, sacrifices, and class of keepers of the eternal flame of truth....

Hello John Holdren, Science Czar, believer in the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes, and Tyrant

As the United States of America continues its descent under President Obama and his New Democrat Party into a third-world dictatorship, I still find myself unfamiliar with the overlords who now control my behavior and distribute to me gifts and favors... So today let's get to know a little bit better our Science Czar, John Holdren...

...Holdren is a believer in the so-called Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes. This theory is that all left wing causes- including global warming, global cooling, overpopulation, endangered species, poverty, diversity, and many others- can all be solved by a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite that will force others to live their lives differently and will redistribute their property as they see fit...

(Here I am simply amused by the phrase Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes, as if this is some sort of pseudo-scientific system out there- check out Powerline's post on this for more)

Chimpanzee Hunting Driving Monkeys to Extinction? Those Damned Dirty Apes!

Scientific American reports that that red colobus monkeys in Uganda's Kibale National Park are being hunted to extinction—by chimpanzees. According to a study published May 9 in the American Journal of Primatology, this is the first documented case of a nonhuman primate significantly overhunting another primate species...

...Scientific American is wrong- this is not the first time that those damned dirty apes have tried to kill other primates. Several years ago I got my hands on an account of apes hunting man- I know it is sketchy at best and is not a complete account, but I am going to pass it on to you now to think about.... here is the other account that I have read of ape hunting man...

(you'll have to read the post to get the joke- you'll chuckle, I am positive)

Funny Rick Synder Story about Bureaucrats

Yesterday I got a chance to sit down and talk for a bit with Michigan Governor Rick Synder and he told me a pretty funny story. I'm going to try my best to rely it to you...

(it's a good story- I can't improve it in any way by summarizing it for you, so just read the post)

Hopefully these all brought you a chuckle to start off the year, and you all will be sure to regularly read A Conservative Teacher for insight, humor, and a dose of reality.

Due to minimum wage laws, child labor regulations, more restrictions on driving, and additional costs imposed on employers due to laws passed in recent years, many of my students have been unable to find employment. These government-created barriers to their desire to work has prevented them from making money and paying for college expenses, but even worse, these government-erected barriers have prevented these young students from gaining needed work experience and job skills that will help them in the future.

At a recent speech in New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich took aim at some of these child labor laws, saying that kid janitors “would be dramatically less expensive than unionized janitors.... I’m not suggesting that they drop out of school and become janitors, I’m talking about working 20 hours a week and being empowered to succeed.”

He went on to call child labor laws “truly stupid” at an appearance at Harvard University, saying that he would propose extraordinarily radical changes to these laws that would fundamentally transform the culture of poverty. He further said that children in the poorest neighborhoods are “trapped in child laws” that prevent them from earning money.

The reaction to his comments has been swift and largely negative. Many have accused him of attacking union jobs, suggesting that only unionized employees have the skill set to accomplish all aspects of being a janitor, but these sorts of accusations are not grounded in reality. Of course it would be essential to have a unionized master janitor to supervise and direct the young kids, but many other tasks (such as sweeping, cleaning boards, picking up trash, etc) could be performed by young students without any sort of prior skills. These students could gain job skills, make a little bit of money, and build pride in their school.

Others have accused Gingrich of being insensitive the to the needs and pressures of young children and have tried to paint him as some sort of evil industrialist suggesting that little kids go to work in the mines. This criticism also is misguided- in their desire to protect children from being taken advantage of in the workplace, these kids are being deprived of a chance to make money and earn skills that they want- prevented from doing so by rules and regulations pushed by well-meaning adults that backfire and instead hold kids back and increase their poverty.

My own theory is that many reacted so negatively to Newt's comments because they are trying to protect the monopoly on education and learning currently enjoyed by schools in America. Teachers, administrators, liberals, and Democrats have for years attempted to limit student's abilities to learn outside the classroom, burdening them with massive amounts of homework, making it difficult for these students to miss class to spend time at internships or job-shadows, and putting in place laws and regulations which prevent them from getting jobs. They do this because they want to control what sorts of education and learning these students receive, and recognize that if students were go get out in the real world and begin paying taxes and earning their way in life, they would no longer be as dependent on their teachers and the educational establishment and would be less controllable by administrators.

Much like the communists in Russia and China recognized the threat that religion represented to their absolute control, the educational establishment reacted negatively to Gingrich's suggestions of reforming child labor laws because it is jealously guarding its territory, trying to block students from learning about the outside world so that they will be forced to learn all their information from unionized teachers in the public school system.

UPDATE 11/29: In response to those who are asking me who I endorse... I already wrote about Ron Paul, I don't think Bachman or Huntsman or Santorum have high enough polling numbers to consider further, and Hermain Cain should drop out of the race now before anything else comes out about him. That leaves Gingrich, Romney, and Perry, and Perry demonstrated an inability to communicate his message combined with horrible stumbles in debates, so it's either Gingrich or Romney.

UPDATE 12/2: So, apparently Newt is continuing to work on this theme- memeorandum has linked to several stories now that go along with Newt's getting kids back to work theme- check out Jonathan Capehart's article in the Washington Post called Newt Gingrich's disgusting remarks about ‘really poor children’ or Nick Kalman of Fox News' article Newt: Poor Children Have “No Habits of Working”.

Progressives and Liberals and the Democratic Party that they've seized control over frequently claim that it is under evil right-wing Republicans that the 'rich get richer' and that there is 'rising inequality.' These groups suggest that having the government seize more power over the free people of our nation through increasing taxes and regulations and increased government spending results in a more equitable distribution of wealth and a more equal society. By having the government make choices for people and take property away from others, they argue that a more fair society can be created and that the playing field can be evened; liberals say that government social programs will stop inequality in our nation; and that religion, class structures, education, and traditions make the rich richer and cause inequality and therefore these social structures must be attacked and broken down. The problem though is not that liberals are ignorant of their policies and their arguments- it is that their policies and arguments are just not true.

From Investors Business Daily article Income Inequality Rose Most Under President Clinton:

In his weekend radio address, President Obama decried that "over the past three decades, the middle class has lost ground while the wealthiest few have become even wealthier." Although he was trying to leverage the Occupy Wall Street movement, the income gap has been a longstanding concern of his. During the 2008 campaign, Obama said, "The project of the next president is figuring out how do you create bottom-up economic growth, as opposed to the trickle-down economic growth that George Bush has been so enamored with."

But it turns out that the rich actually got poorer under President Bush, and the income gap has been climbing under Obama.

What's more, the biggest increase in income inequality over the past three decades took place when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House.

The wealthiest 5% of U.S. households saw incomes fall 7% after inflation in Bush's eight years in office, according to an IBD analysis of Census Bureau data. A widely used household income inequality measure, the Gini index, was essentially flat over that span. Another inequality gauge, the Theil index, showed a decline.

In contrast, the Gini index rose — slightly — in Obama's first two years. Another Census measure of inequality shows it's climbed 5.7% since he took office.

Meanwhile, during Clinton's eight years, the wealthiest 5% of American households saw their incomes jump 45% vs. 26% under Reagan. The Gini index shot up 6.7% under Clinton, more than any other president since 1980...

That's right- like most liberal policies that have addressed poverty, energy, unemployment, deficits, and helping out minorities, the results of their policies have resulted in the exact opposite of what they have tried to do. The reason for this is quite clear- liberal policies are wrong.

When government takes power and property away from individuals and transfers that power and property to those it favors, of course it results in rising inequality- the rich are of course more connected, and those who are connected prosper and make more money, resulting in the rich getting richer and rising inequality. But when people make free decisions and earn and keep their own property to do what they wish with, it doesn't matter what sort of connections people have and it doesn't matter what their previous status or station or wealth is, and so the rich don't get richer and inequality doesn't rise. As evidence, I submit to the jury real evidence- read the IBD article and you'll see it quite clearly there.

Today let's learn about our Science Czar, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren.

As the United States of America continues its descent under President Obama and his New Democrat Party into a third-world dictatorship, I still find myself unfamiliar with the overlords who now control my behavior and distribute to me gifts and favors. Oh, I know who is elected into office, and being a teacher of this sort of stuff I understand the bureaucracy and how it works. But who the heck is John Holdren, what role does he play in our political system, how did he get that role, and what sort of a person is he to be controlling me?

It's tough to keep all these czars straight, you know, since under Obamathe number of unelected, unconfirmed offices who go by the old imperial Russian title of Czar has gone up quite a bit (although to be fair, the number of people who have been considered czars under Obama is still just under the number of people who were considered czars under Bush, a two-term President roundly criticized by both the right and left as being undemocratic and statist). Still, I'm determined to get to know all of them- from Kenneth Feinberg, Head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront and Pay Czar who although being a long-time Democratic operative and chief of staff for Democratic Senator Kennedy was put in charge of determining how much CEO's should be paid in once-free America, to Gary Samore, former US Communist party member and current WMD Policy Czar, to Ed Montgomery, auto-worker czar and distributor of gifts and favors.

It's going to be important for all of us to become more familiar with how things work in America now- after the change- we'll need to know how to curry favor with royal envoys, how to avoid being intimidated and bullied by bowing low and saying the right things, and how to bow get gifts from to our new overlords, who now tour around the land giving gifts to favored people.

So today let's get to know a little bit better our Science Czar, John Holdren. From Who Runs Gov:

Holdren is a powerhouse in the world of science and public policy. As director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST), he is the top adviser to President Barack Obama on science and technology, issues that are increasingly relevant to homeland security, energy and the environment. Holdren casts all of the above as priorities.

He also leads interagency efforts to develop and implement sound science and technology policies and budgets, and works with the private sector, state and local governments, the science and higher education communities, and other nations to advance his policy initiatives.

Although a lot of conservatives may focus on other aspects of John Holdren- for example, in a book he published in 1977, he wrote about and appeared to be supportive of forced abortions, mass sterilization, a "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens, populations that would be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food, and other similarly frightening ideas. This research is important and should be realized, but I want to focus instead on another aspect of Holdren- his belief in a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite that will forcibly transfer wealth for some reason or another.

Holdren is a believer in the so-called Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes. This theory is that all left wing causes- including global warming, global cooling, overpopulation, endangered species, poverty, diversity, and many others- can all be solved by a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite that will force others to live their lives differently and will redistribute their property as they see fit.

Basically, Holdren is a run-of-the-mill tyranny supporter, and was appointed to his position by tyrant-in-chief President Barack Obama, and he is to be opposed by all freedom and liberty loving patriots out there.

The worst part about Holdren, aside from the fact that he seizes on the left wing cause of the day to push his tyrannical beliefs, is that his ideas and theories about everything are wrong. From Forbes:

....In keeping with his dogmatic limits-to-growth convictions, Holdren joined his frequent co-author, eco-doomster Paul Ehrlich, in a famous bet against cornucopian economist Julian Simon. In 1980, Holdren, Ehrlich and Stanford colleague John Harte picked a basket of five commodities--chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten--that they were sure were going to rise in price as they became increasingly scarce. They drew up a futures contract obligating Simon to sell Holdren, Ehrlich and Harte the same quantities of five metals that could be purchased for $1,000 10 years later at 1980 prices.

If the combined prices rose above $1,000, Simon would pay the difference. If they fell below $1,000, Ehrlich would pay Simon. Ehrlich mailed Simon a check for $576.07 in October 1990. Simply put, the combined real prices of the metals selected by Holdren and his colleagues fell by more than 50% during the 1980s, confirming cornucopian claims that the supply of resources over time becomes more abundant, not scarcer.....

...Holdren introduced in 1971--with his colleague and perennial population-alarmist, Ehrlich--the concept of the I=PAT identity. Human Impact on the environment is equal to Population x Affluence/consumption x Technology. All of which are supposed to intensify and worsen humanity's impact on the natural world.

History shows that the I=PAT identity largely gets it backward. Population is at worst neutral, while affluence and technology actually promote environmental flourishing. It is in the rich, developed countries that the air becomes clearer, the streams cleaner and the forests more expansive....

...Holdren doesn't appear to have an adequate understanding of the economic process through which these technological advances are achieved. He seems to think new technologies arise full-blown from government agencies and university laboratories....

This is the general flaw to the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes- that bureaucrats like Holdren know what they are doing and if they are given more power over others- power that those free people once exercised- and are given more resources- resources taken from the labor of once-free people- that these bureaucrats will make the world a better place for us all to live- a more prosperous, free, and happy place. It turns out though that he is wrong in almost all of his theories- from bets he placed to equations he invented to his general understanding of economics. He is a failed person- perhaps no more failed than the rest of us, but yet given more power and authority and wealth over the rest of us by a government not in any way empowered to do so.

People are not completely 'benelevent', and neither are the governments they create, and there are no 'enlightened' people in charge of our government today, either Democrat or Republican or liberal or conservative. Whatever the cause that you believe in or support, the answer is never the Unified Theory of Left-Wing Causes, and yet the Obama administration has appointed as Science Czar one of the greatest believers in this theory- a guy who is supposed to be a scientist actually at his heart a firm believer in a theory that is demonstratively wrong.

John Holdren is yet another example of a failed administration based on failed theories and ideas putting in placed failed administrators who implement failed policies- and we can see the results of this failure in America today.

Today I'd like to draw your attention to a recent story that appeared in The Hill and talk about several of the alarming aspects of this story and what it says about the Obama Administration, the Democratic Party which supports this administration, and the people in our nation who continue to support Obama's policies.

The opening line of the story is this:

President Obama’s education reform efforts will address growing income inequality in the U.S., Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Wednesday..

The United States Congress is empowered by the Constitution of the United States to regulate commerce, levy taxes, provide for the general welfare, and a range of other powers- but no where is the national government of the United States of America given the power to 'address income inequality in the U.S'. Oh, I know that addressing income inequality has been an issue in our nation for years- but even liberals used to argue that the reason for progressive taxation was that the 'rich' used the services of the U.S more and so should pay a larger percentage of their income or that anti-poverty programs were simply a helping hand up- never in our nation's history has an administration openly pushed for policies designed to simply take wealth from one group and give it to another group.

And the worst part about this administration's push for income redistribution is that it knows that the Constitution does not give this power to our federal government- or more specifically, Obama and his cronies know that it is not one of the enumerated powers given to Congress in Article I and there is no way that policies designed to redistribute wealth are necessary and proper for helping Congress to do its other enumerated powers. They know that what they are doing is unconstitutional and not allowed in our government- but being the tyrannical thugs they are they are going to do it anyway

Duncan’s comments are part of an effort by the administration to call attention to efforts by the president to take actions on the economy that do not require legislation from Congress.

Did you all catch that? The administration is going to purposefully make laws and policies from the executive branch, knowing that these laws and policies would not and could not and should not be passed by the branch of government in our nation given the authority and power to make those laws and policies. This is wrong and contrary to the way that a free and limited government of free men is supposed to be run.

Congress needs to immediately defund any agency or department or official who begins to exercise arbitrary power in our nation and act in a way that is unconstitutional and contrary to the law. Obama's czars and administration are setting down precedents that I don't want anyone to follow, from either party- that executive officials are and should be putting in place policies that our elected officials don't want and putting in place policies that are not authorized by our governing documents.

And the Supreme Court needs to step in and defend the founding principles our which our nation was based- separation of powers and checks and balances. Actions of the executive branch can also be checked by judicial review- and if Congress has not provided for authorization and funds for the Department of Education to engage in a policy of wealth redistribution through its college loan program (which was recently nationalized by the federal government), then any policies that the DOE acts on are unconstitutional and should be rejected and declared null and void.

Obama, his administration, his officials, his party, and anyone who supports him is destroying our Republic through actions such as these, and our nation needs to act swiftly and quickly or we will no longer be living in a nation where people's life, liberty, and property is protected by an impartial government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Instead, we'll be living in a tyranny, where people can be killed, their decisions and choices taken from them, and their property redistributed by unelected officials who do this because- to quote Obama- they can and they won.

• Students 'Mix It Up' to promote tolerance | The Montgomery Advertiser | montgomeryadvertiser.com

  Such programs are fascinating ways to help promote getting along and working with others.
  
  "National Mix It Up Lunch Day, now in its 10th year, is coordinated by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance program. It served as the catalyst Tuesday for millions of students, including some locally, to cross social boundaries and foster respect for one another."

  tags: education information_change worldonline

• My Child is a Cyberbully, What Do I Do? | Webroot Software

  Tips for parents to help their child with cyberbullying.
  
  "Research suggests that between 10 – 20% of students will be a cyberbully at some poin"

  tags: cyberbullying social community_citizenship parenting education

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

Juan Williams was on Sean Hannity today discussing President Obama's economic and domestic policies, and when push came to shove and facts and figures and data and evidence was cited, he fell back on the same argument that liberals and progressives always fall back on when the results of their policies prove to be harmful to poor people, minorities, and the groups in society that need the most help- he fell back on the argument that for all of the government's faults, at least it was taking wealth from rich people and redistributing it as charity to poor people.

Liberals and progressives, who have seized the old Democratic Party and are now running it as a communist organization, believe that one of the primary roles of the new United States of America is to use the power of the state to distribute charity to those who need it. But their actions and beliefs are in fact resulting in less money and wealth going to the people who need it in society because the government is THE SINGLE WORST charitable organization in the world, having considerable overhead, being motivated by politics and not need, and full of corruption and graft.

CATO, in a report that, although dated, still gets to the heart of the matter, said:

Private charities have been more successful than government welfare for several reasons. First, private charities are able to individualize their approach to the circumstances of poor people in ways that governments can never do. Government regulations must be designed to treat all similarly situated recipients alike. Glenn C. Loury of Boston University explains the difference between welfare and private charities on that point. "Because citizens have due process rights which cannot be fully abrogated . . . public judgments must be made in a manner that can be defended after the fact, sometimes even in court." The result is that most government programs rely on the simple provision of cash or other goods and services without any attempt to differentiate between the needs of recipients.

Take, for example, the case of a poor person who has a job offer. But she can't get to the job because her car battery is dead. A government welfare program can do nothing but tell her to wait two weeks until her welfare check arrives. Of course, by that time the job will be gone. A private charity can simply go out and buy a car battery (or even jump-start the dead battery).

The sheer size of government programs works against individualization. As one welfare case worker lamented, "With 125 cases it's hard to remember that they're all human beings. Sometimes they're just a number." Bureaucracy is a major factor in government welfare programs. For example, a report on welfare in Illinois found procedures requiring "nine forms to process an address change, at least six forms to add or delete a member of a household, and a minimum of six forms to report a change in earnings or employment." All that for just one program.

In her excellent book Tyranny of Kindness, Theresa Funiciello, a former welfare mother, describes the dehumanizing world of the government welfare system--a system in which regulations and bureaucracy rule all else. It is a system in which illiterate homeless people with mental illnesses are handed 17-page forms to fill out, women nine months pregnant are told to verify their pregnancies, a woman who was raped is told she is ineligible for benefits because she can't list the baby's father on the required form. It is a world totally unable to adjust to the slightest deviation from the bureaucratic norm.

In addition to being better able to target individual needs, private charities are much better able to target assistance to those who really need help. Because eligibility requirements for government welfare programs are arbitrary and cannot be changed to fit individual circumstances, many people in genuine need do not receive assistance, while benefits often go to people who do not really need them. More than 40 percent of all families living below the poverty level receive no government assistance. Yet more than half of the families receiving means-tested benefits are not poor. Thus, a student may receive food stamps, while a homeless man with no mailing address goes without. Private charities are not bound by such bureaucratic restrictions.

Private charity also has a better record of actually delivering aid to recipients. Surprisingly little of the money being spent on federal and state social welfare programs actually reaches recipients. In 1965, 70 cents of every dollar spent by the government to fight poverty went directly to poor people. Today, 70 cents of every dollar goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats and others who serve the poor. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.

Democratic policies are increasingly being defended on 'charitable' grounds, from healthcare policies to economic policies to environmental policies, but the truth of the matter is that government is a poor method of distributing charity. Instead of relying on government and its horrible charitable giving, all of these programs should be ended and the money spent on them should be returned to citizens. Even if a small percentage of this money was given in charity, then it would be more successful than government programs, and as long as there are a lot of conservative Republicans around, we can be sure that a good percentage of money will be donated and not a small percentage (according to studies, liberals don't donate to charity- they feel superior by taking money from you and giving that to charity).