My Beauty Best Teacher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If someone has been wronged or there is some sort of problem, a personal phone call from the President of the United States can be an important piece to improved understanding of the problems and can help to get past any sort of communication issues that are out there. The office of the President is one that is filled with prestige and honor, and a phone call from him that carries the weight of that august office can go far in putting pressure on people to overcome problems or calm down inflamed emotions and right wrongs. But the President's time is valuable and important, so it understandable if his personal touch isn't applied to every situation in the form of a personal phone call and it is okay if he sometimes waits several days before talking to people who are important or who have been wronged.

The important quality for the President of the United States to have is the judgement and decision-making skills to determine who he should take the time to call and when he should decide to just sit it out and not get involved. It is important that the President have the sound judgement to focus on the important issues facing our nation and use his office and the power that goes with it to improve situations and smooth past difficult issues. It is important that the President be able to decide when to use his office to bring light to issues and focus public attention on them with a phone call.

President Barack Obama (Democrat) lacks sound judgement and proper decision making when it comes to making personal phone calls and when to make them.

On April 20, 2010, the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, resulting in a severe oil spill from the ruptured well. BP, which had employed Deepwater Horizon to drill on its Macondo Prospect, immediately began to work with the a range of U.S. federal government agencies and assets to try to reduce the flow of oil into the Gulf, figure out what happened, and try to assess blame and responsibility for the large oil spill. There were a lot of moving and complicated aspects of the US government tied up in this effort, and to coordinate them and make sure that they were used properly at some point the President of the United States should have talked with top level decision makers in BP, including its CEO Tony Hayward.

But for over two months, President Obama did not talk to the CEO of BP and did not make a personal phone call to him to discuss efforts to limit the oil spill, to figure out why the oil spill happened, or to figure out how to overcome the important issues that the spill brought up. This represented an important failure in judgement and a bad decision; a phone call between the President and the CEO of BP could have resulted in more coordination between BP and the US and more understanding of how and why the accident happened, resulting in less oil spilled, less wildlife killed, and a quicker resumption of drilling in the gulf and the lower oil prices and greater economic growth that would have resulted form this. Obama eventually did meet with the CEO, but it took him over two months to do so.

In contrast, two days after radio show host Rush Limbaugh called community activist Sandra Fluke a slut, President Obama took time out of his busy day to make a personal phone call to her to "offer his support to her, he wanted to express his disappointment that she has been the subject of inappropriate personal attacks and to thank her for exercising her rights as a citizen to speak out on an issue of public policy."

The quick personal phone call, especially in light of his two month long wait before calling the CEO of BP after the oil spill earlier, and the fact that he would use the office of the President to call a private citizen and apologize to her for the comments of a private radio host represents a failure of President Barack Obama's judgement and decision making with who receives a personal phone call from the President of the United States. His office phone, rather than being used to coordinate the assets of the United States or figure out how to avoid oil spills in the future, was used instead to make a quick phone call to a private citizen to give official support for their views and to side with her in a controversy between her and a radio host who is trying to generate ratings.

President Obama, rather than following important events around the world and with our economy, clearly is just sitting in the White House listening to talk radio and making phone calls to people mentioned on talk radio stations. The President did not call the CEO of BP earlier about the oil spill, even though he was called many names by bloggers, radio show hosts, and comedians, further demonstrating his poor judgement and poor decision making skills.

Our nation needs someone who understands how and when and why the President of the United States should call people, and these two examples clearly indicate that Barack Obama is lacking in judgement and decision making. We need to- and can- replace him in 2012 with someone with better judgement and decision-making skills, someone who understands that the CEO of BP should have been called in two days and that a private citizen who is called a name by a radio show host should not receive a phone call from the President.

As a conservative teacher, I plead guilty to the worst sort of offense for a public school teacher- thoughtcrimes. I am guilty of thoughtcrimes- I am a conservative teacher even though I do not push or encourage my conservative views and values in my classroom, even though I make conscious efforts to articulate all sides of every debate and situation, even though I play devil's advocate and am critical of all politicians and views at one time or another, and even though I seek primarily to inspire critical thinking.

You see, it is not my actions which threaten liberals and leftists and Democrats- it is my very existence and the fact that I do not quietly acquiescence to their thuggish attempts to convince me to think differently.

In his novel 1984, George Orwell described a thoughtcrime as an illegal type of thought. Liberals and leftists hate and fear me, because while in the classroom I may be a model teacher and may be inspiring and motivating students, in private I am the author of this blog where I state my thoughts and opinions on a range of subjects in a conservative manner, and for that they feel I must be silenced, fired, and perhaps worse.

Increasingly as our nation descends into a totalitarian fascist state, people like me are a threat to the government. Some people might be conservatives or libertarians or Republicans, but they're usually not teachers, and if they are they have been successfully revealed as thus and thus marginalized and silenced already. What really bothers the government and the fascist thugs who run it is that I'm still hidden in the system, unexposed, unsilenced and unmarginalized, and still teaching. I'm still teaching young children the skills of how to think critically. I'm still exposing students to tough questions and hard facts, and them giving them the skills to grapple with them- without telling them what to think about those facts or without answering the questions for them as a liberal leftist teacher would do. I'm still employed, even though I am a conservative and a teacher.

Some teachers inspire a few students to be conservative by accident or just absently are a conservative and a teacher- but I've thought about this beforehand and put forethought into it, showing that I have a plan to teach students how to think and to give them a wealth of information to think on, and I have done all of this knowingly and purposefully- and that's a crime worse than actually pushing my views or indoctrinating students. I'm not just a conservative and a teacher- I am A Conservative Teacher, and that's a threat to liberals and leftists and makes me guilty of thought crimes of the worst sort.

In many ways, thought crime is an even more serious offense than committing an actual crime, and that is why I have inspired such hate and attacks from my comments and blog posts, more so than others who simply are conservatives. Our outward actions and character stem from our inner world, and my inner world is conservative, and thus it does not matter to liberals and leftists what my outer world of teaching is like and how professional I am in that environment- they know and I know they know that I am a conservative teacher.

Many out there, including President Obama and the modern day Democratic Party that has been infiltrated and taken over by liberal fascists, believe that you can practice one thing all you want, but you must think and believe only what the fascist government tells you to believe. And I don't, and that is why I am a threat that they need to silence, intimidate, and threaten.

The good news is that I have for years been lying about who I am- using friends for radio interviews, having family members post my comments and blog posts from their locations, and even mixing up personal details. Since I started this blog in 2008, I've moved three times and worked in two school districts on either edge of town, gotten married, had a dozen kids, and even taken up urban farming! Because I am still unknown, I remain a threat. I'm nearing retirement age though and just need to hold on for a couple more years. And you wolves, although you may circle me, I am a friend of liberty and a patriot, and you will not terrorize me into thinking differently. Two plus two does equal four.

One important power of the President of the United States that conservatives apparently didn't realize that he had is the power to appoint federal judges. It's surprising, because usually conservatives have a good idea of what is going on in government and are usually pretty educated about the Constitution, but on radio show after radio show I hear conservatives arguing that they would rather that President Obama wins another term of office and appoints judges who do not like our Constitution rather than Mitt Romney win and appoint judges who would follow the Constitution.

They comment on blogs and on facebook that they would rather stick to their perfect principles and not vote in 2012 and let Obama win and stock the court system with judges who believe that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice and fairness.

In spite of Mitt Romney stating his desire to appoint people to the Court who have a strict interpretation of our Constitution, in spite of Mitt Romney's many statements in support of President Bush's conservative judicial appointments, and in spite of Romney's frequent criticism of Obama's appointments, many conservatives would rather that our judicial system be instead filled by liberal activist judges who ignore the Constitution and make up laws and regulations that they can't get passed in Congress. These conservatives argue that it is important to believe in something and that voting for Romney would be betraying their principles, even as they help Obama fill our court system with lifetime appointments that will destroy our nation.

Conservatives need to figure it out and figure it out quick- “No other candidate will do more to advance the conservative judicial movement than Governor Mitt Romney … Governor Romney is committed to nominating judges who take their oath of office seriously and respect the rule of law in our nation.” Judge Robert Bork- a conservative judge if there ever was one- said this in his 2008 endorsement of Mitt Romney.

President Romney is not going to be the perfect conservative or tea party guy- but he will appoint conservative judges to the court. If you or anyone you know persists in spewing this 'I would rather stay home than vote for Romney' rhetoric, make sure that they know that in doing so they may possibly be giving President Obama the opportunity to replace two of the four conservative judges on the court system with radical left-wing liberals. And if they decide that they'd rather destroy the Constitution, our nation, and our future rather than vote for a moderate/conservative Romney who will appoint solid conservatives to the bench and reduce the deficits and debt, then call them a liar- they are not voting their principles like they say they are, but are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

For the record, this argument also applies to a President Santorum or a President Paul or a President Gingrich- all of them would appoint better judges to the bench than Obama and avert the utter destruction of our Constitution and way of life that would be another Obama Presidency. A principled, moral person would want this and would vote against Obama no matter who the GOP picks as their nominee.

Today on the Ed Schultz show Ed was interviewing some expert, and the two liberal Democrats agreed with one another that the problem with our current political system was not the fact that our national government is exceeding its limited powers and spending too much money, but rather the problem with our current political system is that our national government is not efficiently and effectively systematically looting the wealth from productive members of our society and giving that wealth to those who are politically favored.

Is this what modern day liberalism is? Is this what the modern day Democratic Party has become? Is this the goal of President Obama and the new-Democrats in Congress? Is this what their policies and laws and orders are attempting to achieve?

Oh, I know that Schultz and the expert (I didn't catch his name) don't 'represent' the Democratic Party any more than Rush or Sean do the Republican Party. But even still, it is a sign of what I am fighting against and what I am pushing back against, and it is distressing to hear that these people support what President Obama and the Pelosi-led Democrats in Congress are trying to do- they are pushing for the United States government to put in place laws and policies that more efficiently and effectively loot the wealth from those people who have earned it in order to transfer that wealth to those people whom it favors.

That's tyranny and corruption and despotism, boys and girls, plain and simple, and I mean to fight it, just like my forefathers did before me. Although the Republican Party is not perfect- far from it- it is the only party in our system that serves as a means of blocking the attempts by Democrats and liberals of turning me into a slave of the state- voting Republican in the upcoming elections is the only real way today of making it so that my labor and time and effort and energies are my own and serve my purposes and that the fruits of my labor and the product of my time and effort and the wealth that my energies produce are not taken from me to be given to someone else.

Let's dress up this pig here and put some lipstick on it- the election of 2012 is a going to be a key one, an election that will determine the future of our nation, and it is not simply enough for President Obama and the Democrats to lose- no, the Democrats must suffer historic losses such that they learn that the purpose of the United States government is not to systematically loot the wealth of others in order to give it to those who did not earn it, but rather the purpose of the United States government is to protect my life, liberty, and property so that I may achieve the fullest of my God-given abilities.

This two party system has run its course, and the modern day Democratic Party must be destroyed, to be replaced by a Tea Party dominated conservative party that will battle for offices and power with a moderate Republican Party. No longer can our nation tolerate people on the radio who advocate for higher taxes so that older people can live comfortably on wealth they did not earn; no longer can our nation tolerate politicians who advocate for more land regulations and environmental policies so that property ownership becomes more costly; no longer can our nation support people who want corporations and businesses to pay so that they can collect money in the form of unemployment insurance and welfare even when they did not pay for these things; and no longer can the debate be about how tyrannical and despotic the government should be but rather why we should allow people who dodge taxes to create our very tax policies.

Liberals and the party that they have seized control of might believe and argue that the United States government should systematically loot those who have property and transfer it to others- but I don't, and I ask you to support me in 2012 by rejecting Democrats up and down the ballot by voting Republican.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 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.

We know we have to update our apps on our smartphone or tablet to fix bugs and add current enhancements. It is what we do when we want to (usually) get the best out of our device.

Update Your thinking and  Update Your Life
We need to update our thinking and habits too. So we can fix things that don't work or improve things that already do. It is what we do when we want to get the best out of our life.

Yesterday as I talked to my 9th graders about life, we talked about the average lifespan and agreed - let's use 80 years as a round number. I asked - what percentage of your life is the next 4 years. 5% - if we're lucky. So, can we wait to live our lives until after high school: no. (My life, by this calculation is 52.5% over!!! I'd better get busy.)

The decision to not make decisions or set goals is also a decision.

You are what you think.

One of the best ways to update your life and your thinking is to listen to inspirational, informative "radio shows" or as we call them now, podcasts. We call it a podcast, typically if it is an mp3 or audio-only and a vodcast if it is using video, but now most people just call all of it podcasts.

The iTunes method of getting podcasts is clunky and unreliable, so I have a podcatcher app on my iphone and iPad.

Use a Podcast Catcher
iCatcher lets you type in the podcast and is very good at finding the feed and adding it to your list. You can create playlists as well for different times, like listening in the car, your chore time or washing dishes. It can take a bit to update and you do have to launch the app for it to update, but I use iCatcher EVERY day. (I know other people that like Downcast instead.)



Program your thinking by listening to good things.
 

 I use iCatcher my iPhone (for audio) and iPad (for video) to catch and update the current podcasts. I love the 1 minute podcasts because I can have a playlist and listen to 5 different things on my five minute drive home.














The easiest way to add these is to look them up in iCatcher to find the podcast. I've included my screens so you can get some ideas but, by all means find your own based upon your personal interests and goals.

Some of my favorites include:

Short Podcasts

•  Minute with Maxwell, 
• 60-Second Mind, 
• 60-Second Science
• Love Language Minute with Dr. Gary Chapman

• FAVORITE must listen to podcast every week is iPad Today because they talk about more than just iPads and it is a great show. 
• I also listen to this Week in Tech and 
• Tech News Today for an overview of technology news.
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity Podcasts (with Wesley Fryer)

Video Podcasts (sometimes called Vodcasts)

• Lifehacker
• Tekzilla videos
• TED (although I usually use their app because it is great.)

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.

The coming year will give voters a real choice of visions- divide up the wealth in our nation differently or grow the amount of wealth in our nation.

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

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

In reply to the emails from snarky liberals who ask 'just what do I expect Obama to do about the Gulf oil spill', the reply is 'get the hell out of the way'...Let loose the power of free markets and civil society and restrict government to limited and defined roles, and the world will be a better place. In this particular case, just 'what can Obama do'? Here is one of dozens of examples that are specific and have few drawbacks but Obama isn't doing- Obama can temporarily waive the Jones Act....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

President Obama, like most liberals and the party it controls (the once-proud Democratic Party), doesn't like the fact that you make decisions regarding your life- he wants to make them. And now that he has the power of trillions in taxpayer money and thousands of employees, he has the means to tell you how to live your own life. And so he has decided that he doesn't like big stores that thrive by providing goods and services to people in efficient and low-cost ways; rather, he likes small stores and so is going to go around the nation and pay for his administration to fly around the nation making speeches ordering you to not shop for great deals and save money at the big stores, but rather to shop at smaller stores, because he wants you to.

Liberals, being the elitists they are, don't really like Black Friday- as E.D. Kain describes it, these liberals reject Black Friday and the larger consumerism that accompanies this season (regrettably) for two reasons

...first, a sense that such overt consumerism is the hallmark of capitalism and that capitalism is somehow morally insufficient; and second, a distaste for the aesthetic of Black Friday – all those plebes rushing about buying things like so much chattel- these denizens of midnight Walmart sales are just icky...

It is the second thing that I believe really strikes me as the case, because most liberals think they are so much smarter than the rest of us and look down their noses at us, wanting to govern and manage us because they don't understand liberty, freedom, private property rights, capitalism, religion, morality, civic mindedness, charity, and all the other hallmarks of the conservative heartland of America. Because they don't understand these concepts, they reject them, pretending that they don't really exist, and that instead everyone who believes in them must be stupid or dumb, and so they wave around their Ivy League diploma's and listen to their pretentious public television or radio, use big words, scold everyone for not having proper grammar, and make fun of all the 'average people' scurrying about on Black Friday getting good deals and saving money and making our economy go around.

You see, you won't catch Barack Obama or other liberals out on Black Friday- he'll be joining the other Occupy Wall Street protesters in boycotting it, because they have enough money not to need deals, they have enough time to spend hours looking for a great deal, and they generally are not thrifty and efficient spenders enough to care about saving money as a family and getting the best deal.

Robert Frank is a great example of the sort of liberal who forms the intellectual backbone of modern day liberalism, the sort that dominates the Democratic Party today. He had time and money to go out and get several degrees in math and statistics, taking time off from his studies to work in government and give lectures, before he settled into an Ivy League school to lecture other elitists and write columns for snooty New York Times and write books with Ben Bernanke. For most of his life he has written and talked about how wealth and prosperity for all has somehow made the poor in America even more poor, and he sees no hypocrisy in doing so as he has flown around the world, eaten in nice restaurants, and lived in a nice house.

In this week's New York Times article How to End the Black Friday Madness, lectures those whom he sees as beneath him with a contempt just hidden (unlike the contempt that I hold him in that I am not hiding). He writes:

ADAM SMITH’S most enthusiastic modern disciples insist that the recipe for economic progress is to push government aside and let unfettered markets work their magic. His invisible hand theory does provide a tidy account of how market incentives can generate enormous wealth. But as Charles Darwin saw so clearly, unbridled competition doesn’t always promote the common good....
....In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m., prompting complaints from employees about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families. But retailers ignored those complaints, because their earlier start time proved so successful in luring customers away from rival outlets...

Frank, being an educated liberal, employs here the usual judgement of other people, feeling that he somehow gets to decide what is a 'reasonable hour' for stores to open, even though he does not run any sort of stores and has never served as a manager of any sort of store at any level his whole life.

From this place of supreme unwisdom and experience, guided by a piece of paper saying that he knows something, he has decided to play God and decide when people should start shopping. He then ignores the overtime that these employees are paid and has no knowledge of the many people hired just for this day- people who are not regular employees but who are given a paycheck on this day purely because the hours are not regular- and with this lack of knowledge of what is going on he has decided that it isn't becoming of employees to go in to work at a job that they choose to be at. Don't worry workers- with a guy like Frank on your side, he'll push for less jobs and less overtime and less hours, and in so doing make you more poor. He's like all other liberals, and the Liberal-in-Chief President Obama, in his utter failure to understand economics, math, statistics, people, or anything else about this world.

Frank believes that if we were all to empower him with the ability to control the world, the collective will would be better served by him controlling when we shop and how much items sell for and all the other sorts of personal decisions made by private individuals that he doesn't understand or know about.

I've never been a big fan of Black Friday, but if the liberals and Obama and Robert Frank are against it, I think that I need to change my tune, and do a little bit of online shopping tonight!

Stick it in Frank and Obama's eye- buy something tonight! Here are a couple suggestions...
Shop Amazon's New Kindle Fire
Shop Amazon's Holiday Toy List
Shop Amazon's Gift Cards - Perfect Anytime
Shop Amazon's Christmas Corner - Holiday decor, tableware, and entertainment

UPDATE: Welcome readers from The Village Voice! Take a look around and learn something!

One thing that has troubled me this election cycle is the portrayal of some on the right or conservative side of the ideological spectrum of Mitt Romney as some sort of flip-flopping, unprincipled moderate who would be an enemy to conservative and libertarian interests. In articles, blog posts, and comment sections, many on the right argue that voting for Romney is 'essentially the same thing as voting for Obama' and that 'Romney is the same kind of guy as John McCain or George Bush.' The problem with this portrayal is that it is not accurate.

As reported by Micheal Medved:

...In February, 2008, the most influential (and persuasive) right winger of ‘em all threw his all-important support to Romney’s then struggling candidacy. “I think now, based on the way the campaign has shaken out, that there probably is a candidate on our side who does embody all three legs of the conservative stool, and that’s Romney,” he told his massive audience. “The three legs of the stool are national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives.”

After Rush highlighted the de facto endorsement in his newsletter with the headline “One Candidate Now Represents All Three Legs of Conservatism” the rest of syndicated talk radio (Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck) largely followed suit. Laura Ingraham introduced Mitt at CPAC as a “true conservative” and “a conservative’s conservative.” Only one lonely, courageous voice among the top-rated national hosts (and that would be me) openly dissented and proudly (and perspicaciously) endorsed McCain. Even Jim DeMint, the most conservative member of the US Senate, fell in line behind the Mittster...

So, if Mitt Romney was a 'true conservative' and 'represented all three legs of conservatism' in 2008, he would have had to have swung considerably to the middle in recent years for conservatives and libertarians and right-wingers to reject him so strongly. But yet, he hasn't- if anything, he has become more conservative since then. As Medved says:

...On no major issue did he move to the center in the last four years and on several (like Medicare reform, or environmental regulation) he moved decisively, even boldly to the right. The conservative commitments he made in 2008 (on social issues and other matters of policy) remain firmly intact, and the notorious flip-flops with which his thinking “evolved” over the years have receded further into the past (mostly before 2005) and so should seem less relevant, not more so.

Furthermore, as a candidate Romney has vastly improved with his self-assured, focused and coherent debate performances and a more genial and engaging, less plastic and patrician, personality. Looking at tape from four years ago and comparing it to the polished, capable candidate on display today, it’s easy to find reasons to rally to Romney’s cause this time, but impossible to discern any change for the worse...

So why don't conservatives like him this time around? Medved continues...

...Romney looks suspect to many activists on the right not because he isn’t conservative enough but because he isn’t angry enough. His real problem isn’t a question of ideology, it’s a matter of attitude. Mitt can’t keep himself from looking self-possessed and unflappable, cool and collected, reasonable and restrained. Rage isn’t part of his emotional repertoire: even when visibly frustrated by Rick Perry’s boorish disregard of all rules of debate in the Las Vegas slugfest, he came across as more pained and perplexed than infuriated.

Like most seriously successful businessmen, Mitt is a pragmatic problem solver, a sensible fixer, a technocrat. It’s easy to imagine him rolling up his perfectly cuff-linked sleeves to begin a process of cooperative, institutional repair in Washington but it’s tough to visualize the perfectly poised governor at the head of an avenging conservative army, laying waste to the opposition in a merciless effort to smash the remaining redoubts of their power....

Michael Medved is the author of The 10 Big Lies About America: Combating Destructive Distortions About Our Nation and Right Turns: From Liberal Activist to Conservative Champion in 35 Unconventional Lessons.