My Beauty Best Teacher

Most likely, the Governor of your state will have a 'State of the State' address coming up soon. If you have a liberal or Democrat Governor who is out of touch with reality too, I suggest that you contact your local taxpayers association group or organize something similar to this yourself. Via the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, written by the great libertarian Republican Leon Drolet:

On February 3, Governor Granholm will present her eighth State of the State Address to Lansing lawmakers. there are fancy receptions prior to the Governor's speech featuring rich hors d'oeuvres and premium bars. Politicians dress in their finest clothes and bring their families and friends to the Capitol to attend the parties. Every state representative gets to bring a special guest - usually a big financial donor - to sit next to them in the House chamber during the governor's speech. It is all very nice. You are not invited.

You see, the State of the State Address isn't about you or your family. Much of the Governor's speech is about the government's budget, not YOUR budget. When Governor Granholm talks about helping the economy, she means giving special tax breaks and subsidies to politically connected and politically-correct companies while raising taxes on every family and business that doesn't have a solar-powered windmill and a healthy lobbying fund.

Let's seize the day of February 3rd away from Governor Granholm and the political class in Lansing.

On the evening of February 3rd, at the very same moment that Governor Granholm begins her speech, the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, and other activist groups like Common Sense in Government, are hosting a different speech outside the Capitol Building. This speech will be a "State of the Citizens Address" where everyday citizens will gather to air their grievances against Governor Granholm and Lansing's government class - and you are absolutely invited!

The protest starts in front of the Capitol Building at 6:30PM and the 'State of the Citizen Address' starts promptly at 7:00PM. Go to www.makelansinglisten.com for more information. Also, check out the great youtube video here.

Friends, it is time to seize the day. It's time to drive to Lansing (dress VERY warm!), and join us outside on the steps of the State Capitol Building. Bring your protest signs and join with fellow frustrated taxpayers in demanding an end to Lansing's failed policies of tax hikes, spending increases and broken promises.

Bring your family, friends and coworkers. The more people we have at this 'State of the Citizen Address', the more the media and (most importantly) the politicians inside the Capitol will pay attention.

Also, call your state representative and state senator and invite them to come too. Tell them that, if they want to really represent you, they should leave their seat on the House floor vacant and go outside and listen to the people. They might tell you that they "have an obligation to attend the Governor's State of the State Address" or that it "would be disrespectful" to miss it. Politely inform them that their obligation is to the citizens, not the Governor. And that we are not asking anyone to interrupt or be rude during the Governor's speech - we are asking them to simply not attend. And to join the citizens outside, instead.

Michigan taxpayers need you to step up. Our economy, our future, need you to step up. Let's do it. Let's rescue Michigan. Let's seize the day on February 3rd! You are invited.

This is a great idea, and I wanted to let you all know about it now, so that you can plan on being there if you live in Michigan, or if you are from another state so that you can begin to plan your own.

In my lecture on the pros and cons of federalism, I talk about how one of the greatest benefits of having a federal system is that states can experiment with policies and if they are bad policies only that particular state will suffer and not the whole nation. If states raise speed limits to 70, is there an increase in traffic deaths (no). If states legalize gambling, will it raise crime rates (no). Etc. Because of federalism, states can try out different ideas and policies on major issues facing our nation today- gay marriage, legalized pot, assisted suicide, etc- and if those policies work, other states can copy them, and if they don't, other states will not have suffered by our whole nation trying those policies. This is one of the major benefits of federalism. And we are ignoring it in the healthcare debate.

Peter Suderman, writing for the Wall Street Journal, points this out in his very good article "The Lesson of State Health-Care Reforms" where he argues that all of the major provisions of ObamaCare already have been tried in the states, and in each case, they've led to increased costs and reduced access to care.

Like participants in a national science fair, state governments have tested variants on most of the major components of the health-care reform plans currently being considered in Congress. The results have been dramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health-care costs, and reduced access to care. In other words: The reforms have failed.

In his article, he talks about New York's guaranteed coverage regardless of prior condition policy and community ratings that don't take into account health policy, and judges them as an absolute failure. He looks at Massachusetts and find that states plan a failure. Maine offered a plan similar to the one that the Democrats are proposing the US do- it was a total failure. As was Tennessee's TennCare plan, which worked so poorly that it soon faced bankruptcy.

The point is that Obama and the Democrats are going to do things to our nation that have failed, failed badly, and failed consistently in every state where they were attempted. And they will fail again when the whole nation implements them. And then the Democrats will run around blaming everyone else for their failed policies and put in place more failed policies that will only hurt the nation more. That's Michigan's experience, and I suggest that you look to states like ours to see what happens when you put an inexperienced leader in charge who talks about change and hope but in reality only taxes and regulates until there are no more jobs left.

In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia was signed, and so began the age of the nation-state. A state is a political and sovereign entity, and a nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. Thus the term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and after 1648 our world was divided up into nation-states.

Before 1648, the world was divided up into multi-ethnic and multi-cultural empires (Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, etc), smaller states at what would now be called sub-national level (Liechtenstein, Andorra, etc), and even smaller states (various German cities and states). After 1648, the world was divided into political, sovereign, ethnically and/or culturally unified nation-states.

Problems arise when these nation-states 'fail'- they are too ethnically diverse, too culturally diverse, unable to control their own borders, or one government is unable to control the area. In these 'failed states', problems arise. According to the Times Online article "The Gathering Storm", failed states are going to be on the rise over the next decade, and are going to present rising security and humanitarian issues.

Afghanistan and Somalia were (and probably still are) classic cases of failed states. On the edge of collapsing right now are Pakistan and Yemen.

These are the areas were are going to be focusing on the in the coming decade. If you want to see where our troops are going to be going in the next decade, here is the map.

The reasons why these states have failed and continue to fail are because they are destabilized by terrorism, communism, dictatorships, and socialism. Pan-Islamism and One World Government are the some of the bigger threats facing these states, and the United States is going to have to take a steady hand on events and focus on all of those things that make states successful in this world- democracy, rule of law, and conservative ideals.

Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic former Governor of Michigan, is exactly right- the United States can learn a lot of lessons from Michigan's government- lessons on what not to do.

Before the Obama years, many looked back at the Bush years and talked about how bad 4% GDP growth and 6% unemployment were, but to be honest, those numbers were never that good in Michigan, which suffered under a single state recession for much of the 2000's and had low GDP growth rates, high unemployment, and bad numbers on everything else. For many years, the people of this great state were told that the reason why Michigan was doing so poorly was George W. Bush's fault- but from 2009 to 2011 Bush was gone and yet Michigan still led the nation in all of the wrong numbers. The reason why Michigan did poorly as a state from 2003 to 2011 was because during this time our state had a progressive Democrat as Governor who put in place the same policies at the state level that have failed so miserably at the national level as well.

Governor Granholm believed that the government should take money from those who are successful and then use that money to pick and choose winners and losers in the marketplace. Her administration decided that what made a company or an industry a 'winner' was not whether or not it was profitable, whether it provided a good that was valued by society highly (as determined by private investment), or whether it was a stable and sound investment. No, under Democratic officials and Granholm, the decision to use the power of government to anoint an industry a 'winner' was made based on political decisions of whether or not that industry or company donated to the Democratic Party, the decision was made based on whether or not the industry or business was deemed 'cool' and 'hip', and whether not the business or industry provided a good or service that the ruling powers liked, whether it was 'green products' or movies.

Using the power of the government to transfer wealth from savers and producers and successful people to those who are spenders and wasters and unsuccessful has a decided effect on an economy, whether at the state level or the national level- it leads to less economic success, more waste, more inefficiency, less jobs, less tax revenue, and a thoroughly lessened society on almost every level. When property is taken and corrupt decisions are made in the government, a state and a nation are not successful.

Michigan showed the entire nation what would happen if those same policies were enacted at the national level- it was a lesson of what not to do. And yet, in spite of this, much like our national leaders that continue to press on in the face of failure, those who inflicted this awful economy on us have no apologies and hold true to their course. President Barack Obama, much like Jennifer Granholm, will not change in any substantive manner and will not alter his policies if he wins a second term.

Jennifer Granholm is coming out with a new book, "A Governor's Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Economic Future," and in it she gives our great nation of how not to run a state or government or anything at all.

As is typical in a government which inserts itself into the marketplace and plays political games with citizens, the book talks about all of the political gamesmanship and behind-the-scenes deal-making and continual crisis that marked the Granholm years in Michigan. The book argues that government involvement — tax payer money given away in the name of green jobs and pork programs — is essential to economic growth, in spite of the track record that that philosophy has had whenever and wherever it has been tried. They attempt to argue that because another government has (the Obama administration) has awarded tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money borrowed on credit from China as loans to various industries in Michigan over the last couple of years, this is some sort of an indication of success for their method.

Granholm says "Smart and active government is really what's needed"- as if a small elite class of unconnected politicians working in a capital will be smarter than the thousands of decisions that free citizens make every day in a free market, and as if a more active government will not crowd out investment and decisions freely made by businessman and force them into making unwise and bad investments.

"If you place no bets, you will lose every time," she said, suggesting that the government should use its extreme lack of information about the market and rely on its lack of personal investment in the situation to gamble away taxpayer money at every political or 'cool' industry or company that comes along. Oh, a couple of those bets will win- even a Democrat finds his way out of a recession every now and then- but on the whole, taxpayers will take it on the chin many more times than not, and Granholm and her cronies will walk away with pensions, paychecks, a nice university position, and a new book.

United States, be prepared- Michigan has shown the nation the way, and don't ever forget- Granholm won a second term of office after her disastrous first term saw her destroy Michigan's economy and ruin many lives.

Detroit News provided quotes and source information.

Africa is Country's riposte to the FP's annual Failed State index:

...they never cease to amaze with the levels of sensationalism and hyperbole that seem to define their work. Now they’re back with a photo essay titled, Postcards from Hell. And as you can expect from a publication like FP, 30 of the 60 states (the most failed of the failed states!) on their list are in Africa. That’s more than half of the countries on the continent. So, essentially, Africa is hell on earth.

More here
via Aid Thoughts

On my drive home from work today I listened to an interview of Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (Democrat, Wisconsin) on the Ed Schultz Show (1310AM in Detroit). The good Congresswoman described what was happening in Wisconsin as an attack on the rights of workers that was beyond the pale of what is acceptable politically in America. She said that this was an attempt to silence workers at the bargaining table and make it so that they would be treated with disrespect at the bargaining table. Let's address both of these questions by asking two important questions.

What is a Right?
According to natural rights philosophy, on which our nation is based and built on, rights are claims that we as people have to certain things because those things have always existed and will always exist, no matter which state governs us. Even without states, in a state of nature, people would still have the right to live, the right to live in freedom, and the right to keep and own property. These rights could not be taken away by any government, although they could be violated, because government does not provide these rights or create them- rather, these rights are created by God and given to everyone since we are all made in God's image. Or in other words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Note that rights are clearly not privileges that are granted to certain groups in society by government. If that is the case, than these privileges could easily be taken away, in which case they were never a 'right' but rather a 'grant'. Clearly this is the situation in Wisconsin, where the government granted to certain groups in society certain grants of power which it now can no longer afford to give and so is taking those grants away. This situation is nothing at all similar to any sort of patriotic fight, but is instead just selfish and short-sighted angry grabbing after power that was once granted but now is being taken back.

Even when discussing rights, Congresswomen Baldwin had trouble because she knows on a deeper level that she doesn't know what she is talking about. She jerks back from any mention of where these 'worker' rights come from or how they are in reality 'rights' and not just privileges granted to politically favorable groups by government. She instead just repeats that they are rights and that these rights only belong to government-approved union workers and that everyone should stand with these favored groups and protect their rights. It is surprising that voters put her in office when she has clearly failed to study or think about these important issues, even though she went to college and law school where natural rights philosophy should have been taught. It appears all she learned from her law school was how to go about suing people and spin falsehoods.

Who does Labor sit down with at Bargaining Table?
Public labor unions like those in Wisconsin who would lose their special privileged rights that they had been given by Democratic governments of the past would be forced to sit down in the future with elected officials and taxpayers and determine what their future benefits would be. Congresswomen Baldwin and Ed Schultz both talked about the need for unions to negotiate with evil businesses who did not care about working conditions or workers pay because they were only after profits for their shareholders- but this is clearly not the case when public employee unions negotiate with elected officials and taxpayers, who are not driven by profits, who are responsible to voters if they mistreat workers, who would be liable to large lawsuits if they had poor working conditions, and who are put into office by citizens to represent citizens to hire those people to work for citizens. They are not 'hostile' any more than the average public would be 'hostile' to unions, and if the average voting public is 'hostile' to unions, that is an indication that unions have been 'hostile' to the interests of the average voting public.

When it comes down to it, when pushed and goaded by the fascist thug Ed Schultz, Congresswomen Baldwin fell back on class warfare and tried to argue that what had put her state in such financial trouble were not the generous salaries, pensions, and benefits that workers had bargained from the state over the last several years, but rather tax cuts to the rich or tax breaks to job creators that were given in the last month, and that her state should have just continued to pass the bill on to future generations and papered over the debt with trickery and shell games. After all, that's what she encourages the national government to do with her votes in Congress- she votes in favor of massive deficits that are passing huge debts and liabilities and obligations down on our children and grandchildren, and she does this all while pretending that she is not selfish and short-sighted and a tool to Big Labor.

For more information on natural rights philosophy, check out Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration.

Imagine that you lived in a state of nature- your plane crash landed on some previously unclaimed island that has no inhabitants and there is no hope of being rescued or contacting your previous home nations. Or you go to the moon, or an asteroid, or the bottom of the ocean, or some other location where there are no laws and no legal rights are written down. What sort of rights would you have?

Another way of asking this question is for you to think of things that others would do to you that you would think are wrong- that you would believe are wrong because you know that to do these things are wrong, with or without a government or any sort of legal authority telling you that they are wrong. These are what are called your natural rights.

What sort of natural rights would you have, whereby you would feel violated and wronged by others, even if there were no government or state or authority? Let's say you crash land on the island or find yourself on the moon- would you feel that you had been horribly wronged and violated if your fellow citizens didn't pay for your healthcare insurance in case you got injured? You're on an asteroid, and you demand that the other people on the asteroid buy a house for you or subsidize your loan, and they say no- have you been wronged and your natural rights violated? Of course not- you don't have any sort of right to have others pay for your healthcare insurance, house, car, food, or anything of that sort.

Imagine that you begin to work on your island, tilling a field and growing a crop, where others lay around and do nothing other than to watch you. After you are done growing your crop, they all band together in a large group and vote to have you distribute your crop to everyone, with everyone getting an equal share, even though you contributed all the labor. Were you wronged? Did someone violate your rights? Or let's say on the moon, you provide some sort of service that is essential- taking care of the banking, entertaining others by playing a sport, taking a risk and thinking up a new product- and you work hard at your service and in return others pay you some sort of compensation, that they voluntarily pay for your service because they recognize its worth; and after this, someone else comes along and demands a share of your 'money' in order to pay for someone else to conduct a study of the effects of drinking in prostitutes in China, or to build a road that you will never travel on the other side of the moon, or to cut a check to the older people stranded on the moon, or to hire a bureaucrat to supervise you and tell you all the things you are doing wrong. Would you be wronged then?

Of course you would have been wronged- your labor is yours, and the profit from your labor is yours, and the government does not have any 'right' to your labor, not unless you are a slave to the state. You are okay with voting to provide a military to protect your property from outside aggression, or police or fire service to protect it from theft or fire, or to create a court system to resolve any disputes that may arise regarding your property. But for the government to come and demand the fruits of your labor and lay claim to it is tyranny- it is your property, it existed before government, it will exist after government, and you are the only person who can lay any sort of right to that property. This in your natural right to property.

The purpose of our government is to protect these natural rights- life, liberty, and property. There is no such thing as a 'tax cut for the rich'- the government does not have any sort of claim on the rich citizens' property, so a more proper name for this would be a 'lessening of the unequal taxes levied on those earning high incomes'. You do not have any sort of right to healthcare or housing; but neither do you have any sort of right to social security or medicare- those are provided to some in our society by violating my rights and the rights of other young people in society to keep and earn property in order to provide forced charity to those who have had ample opportunity to earn and pay for their own retirement and healthcare- but they have no right to this sort of forced charitable giving.

Understanding property rights and the nature of them is important, because once the state becomes destructive to these property rights that state is on the road to tyranny. We can see it already in our nation, where our government has arbitrarily violated contracts because a car company is going bankrupt, failed to properly issue permits to energy companies who have gone through the (excessive and capricious) permit process, or the forcing someone young and healthy and full of life to buy a product like health insurance in order to subsidize the costs for others in society. Once it has been established that your property rights can be violated by a government- that rights to keep and earn property that existed before government was around and would be around even if government was not around- then the next step is to go after your freedoms and liberties, and lastly, your life.

Fight for the right to keep and earn property, and stop engaging in class warfare, because it will only lead to tyranny and injustice.

For more, check out John Locke, property rights, and economic theory.: An article from: Journal of Economic Issues or John Locke and Property as a Human Right Today: Towards a New Theory of Property Rights.

Markus Virgil Hoehne writes about a classic case of blowback in African Arguments

Somalia has made international headlines for almost two decades now, first as a state of civil war characterized by clan warfare and humanitarian catastrophe, then as a failed state, and finally as a potential safe haven for Islamic terrorists. Contrary to the assumption about ‘black holes’ and ungoverned spaces voiced by politicians and some academics, the Harmony Project of the Center for Combating Terrorism at West Point has recently shown that the absence of a government in Somalia did not automatically provide fertile ground for Al Qaeda terrorism.

More here

Last month I wrote about the reasons why conservatives should oppose Obama's education policy initiative Race to the Top. A lot of people dismiss my criticisms as typical union objections and cheer anything that appears to take power away from the unions, but I wanted to make sure that people knew that there are real reasons for conservatives to actually join with labor unions in opposing Obama's education initiative.

To sum up what I wrote about last month, conservatives should oppose RTTT because it centralizes power in the federal government, the program is a corrupt give-away of taxpayer money intended to bribe states to change laws, the initiative was pushed rapidly to cope with the 'crisis' in education, the initiative attacks teachers, the initiative just throws new money at problems in education without really improving anything, and that the initiative was flawed from the start.

But, Michigan decided to rush through changes in our education system, changes that send more power to Washington, in the hopes of winning some sort of one-time only prize distributed from the 'stimulus money' slush fund that Obama runs. Teachers didn't sign on to the changes or support them, but our clueless governor and inept legislature did. And the result is that Michigan put in place these changes for nothing.

From The Detroit News:

Recent school reforms failed to win Michigan a shot at millions in federal funding Thursday, and officials must wait a month to see if more changes are needed to increase its chances. The state was one of 25 applicants that missed out on a share of $4.35 billion in the first round of Race to the Top education funding.

"This decision is not just disappointing, it is shocking," said David Hecker, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Detroit Public Schools was counting on $80 million.

Michigan schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan said despite not making the cut in this first round of Race to the Top, the state will continue to implement the recently enacted education reform laws.

So, to sum up, Michigan's desperate ploy to grab a bit of stimulus money to use to jam through important changes in education by sending more control and power to Washington failed to win any money for our state... but sent more power and control to Washington and did who knows what else.

In a paper about Somalia, Tatiana Nenova writes that "...the private sector has demonstrated its much-vaunted capability to make do. To cope with the absence of the rule of law, private enterprises have been using foreign jurisdictions or institutions to help with some tasks, operating within networks of trust to strengthen property rights, and simplifying transactions until they require neither. Somalia’s private sector experience suggests that it may be easier than is commonly thought for basic systems of finance and some infrastructure services to function where government is extremely weak or absent..." A discussion analysing this assertion had a number of conclusions in their introductory remarks Ian Bannon and Tim Harford stated that "...Entrepreneurs in Somalia have used three tactics to operate in an institutional vacuum. First, they have “imported institutions,” for example by using banking systems in nearby countries. Second, they have used clans and other local networks of trust to help with contract enforcement, payment and transmission of funds. Third, they have simplified transactions to a point where other tactics are not needed. How can these tactics be reinforced or defended? Are there others that can be supported? There are inherent limits to what the private sector can achieve without the support of a capable state to enforce property rights and provide basic public goods. But there is also a risk that a failed state will be replaced by a predatory one. How can fledgling states be encouraged to support, rather than predate on, entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurs often need to bridge religious, ethnic or tribal boundaries to get things done. Can entrepreneurship be harnessed for peace and reconciliation?..."
Via PSD Blog

The following are my impressions from Democrat Barack Obama's 2011 State of the Union (SOTU) address. As a social studies teacher, perhaps I will have some comment or analysis that you might think is interesting...

• Before the President even speaks, I was flipping around the various channels listening to their comments, and what I heard over and over is that this speech will continue Obama's attempt to portray himself as a moderate, or that this would speech would help make it look like he was moving more to the center, or that this speech would help him to court independents... he's been in office for 2 years and is still in campaign mode trying to fake people out and disguise who he really is. I can't believe that voters might fall for it- he is who he has always been, a committed leftist liberal Democrat who believes in government control over our lives, less individual freedom and liberty to you, and abortion on demand to correct for the mistakes of humanity.
• His first several minutes were pretty good- hopeful, uplifting, and commenting on how great America was and how we were a tough, innovative country. Then he started lecturing me about how he knows better than me about how to innovate and about how I'm so weak so I need a bunch of help- that was less good.
• About 15 minutes in, and most of this has been some pretty general language about why education is important and why it is important to be smart. I guess this was all to set up that RTTT was a good law (which I disagree with, see earlier post). That's a pretty weak lead-off.
• Around 20 minutes in, I guess in the spirit of 'bipartianship', he re-proposes amnesty to illegal immigrants and pushing for the DREAM Act, which just was shot down by both parties in Congress.
• About 25 minutes in, Obama time-travels back to his childhood in Indonesia, when a nation's prosperity was based on the amount of railroads and roads that the nation had. He suggested that this will be done by having the government coerce private investment and then form a Big Government-Big Business-Big Labor partnership to force us to travel on railroads. I'm not a big fan of fascist proposals from the 1930's myself.
• About 30 minutes in, he begins to lecture Republicans on cutting deficits that he says started "a little over a decade ago" (the election of Bush in 2000?) and lectures the GOP on reforming massive entitlement programs that he has vastly expanded and enlarged and added to over the past 2 years. Is this some sort of Cloven-Piven strategy- wreck everything beyond repair and then talk a good game about unwrecking things? Will voters buy this sort of garbage?
• About 40 minutes in, Obama brags about a series of successful foreign policy initiatives that were begun under Republican President George Bush and that Obama bitterly opposed and fought against. He then talks about his foreign policy ideas that haven't quite worked out yet (but that is not to say that they won't eventually).
• About 45 minutes in, Obama gave a good statement of support for Tunisia. Perhaps he read my blog post criticizing him of being too weak on this issue? Although I wouldn't read too much into this statement- he said something last week of a similar nature and then turned around and called another Middle East dictator and said he really didn't mean it, so we'll see.
• He had a lot of good lines and well-written stuff in there- I really liked the criticism he had for central governments and the defense for our democratic process- that was nice and really jumped out as new and different. I think someone other than him wrote the beginning and end of his speech, but the middle was all his usual liberal hope-and-change nonsense.
• I really liked the fact that there was not a lot of applause and few delays. He delivered a good summary of what he saw as the 'state of our union', which is still strong, with a few problems he needs addressed. Overall, I generally liked it.
• Listening to the commentary, a couple things I heard- 1) Obama still picked enemies- oil companies, Wall Street, the rich, etc; 2) Obama really didn't feel like focusing on foreign policy, showing that he is still mainly a 'Legislator-in-Chief'; 3) Obama spoke about a lot of new 'investments', but there is no money for that; 4) Obama seemed to be going 'small-ball'- talking about 'big things' but really proposing only small little tweaks and nothing big, and this likely indicates that he is just going to play defensive from now until the election, simply sitting in the weeds and criticizing any solutions to the problems that he created, rejecting proposals to deal with any of the long-term issues in favor of winning short term political points. Just imagine if this guy gets a second-term and how unrestrained he will be.
• Republican response thoughts: Ryan delivered one of the best 'reponses' that I have seen. He approached it from the perspective of a calm parent who was non-partisan, and dissected and destroyed Obama's policy responses over the past two years the the challenges that he confronted, from discussing Obama's failed stimulus plan, failed Obamacare, and failed regulations. He was a sound and reasonable voice in response to the empty hope-and-change of Obama. He quoted the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and translated it to the times of today- so sweet! He delivered a fantastic speech that spoke to what makes our nation great- our freedom and liberty and capitalism and businesses and property protection and limited government and free enterprise- that compares favorably to Obama's speech which was about all the things that government can do (poorly). Congressman Paul Ryan for President!
• Comments from the media about Ryan's response were that he didn't deliver any specifics (neither did Obama), that he didn't show leadership (neither did Obama), and that he wasn't serious enough (neither was Obama).

UPDATE: Comments from Sean Hannity's panel- "I feel like I was taking crazy pills while watching that," "he wants to cut spending and proposed more spending on investments and freezing spending on other items- that isn't 'cutting spending'," "let's look at the facts," and "he's doing his best" (this is a key phrase- his best isn't good enough to be President).

UPDATE II: Saw former Speaker-of-the-House Congresswomen Democrat Nancy Pelosi give her thoughts, and she just said that Obama has created more jobs in our nation in his two years than George W. Bush did his entire eight years as President. She just said that. Really. I think she believes it too. If this is true, give me Bush's unjob creation and unemployment of 4% instead of Obama's job creation and unemployment of 10%- at least under Bush jobs weren't created but we all had them, rather than Obama who creates jobs that no one has (it makes no sense Pelosi- I just ingested crazy pills listening to her).

Pelosi followed this with some Kennedy quote about how it isn't about GOP and Democrat and how it is about rising above differences, but those darn GOPers need to be crushed first and only Democratic policies should be passed (crazy pills).

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.

Cynthia Stroum served as the United States Ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg from December 7, 2009 to January 31, 2011, when she resigned after (source)

...an internal State Department report released Thursday, less than a week after she quit, Stroum's management of the U.S. Embassy in the tiny country was abysmal. The report says her tenure of about one year was fraught with personality conflicts, verbal abuse and questionable expenditures on travel, wine and liquor.

The Luxembourg embassy "has underperformed for the entirety of the current ambassador's tenure," said the report, which was prepared last fall before she resigned abruptly. "At present, due to internal problems, it plays no significant role in policy advocacy or reporting, though developments in Luxembourg are certainly of interest to Washington clients and other U.S. missions in the NATO and EU communities."

Stroum resigned effective Jan. 31, just days before the scathing report from the State Department's inspector general was made public...

...The report paints a picture of a corrosive atmosphere at the small embassy, with the ambassador running roughshod over staff, threatening to read their e-mails, largely concerned about job-related perks and involved in improper purchases.

The situation was so bad that the inspector general recommended that the State Department dispatch medical personnel to Luxembourg to test the stress levels of embassy employees. It said at least four staffers quit or sought transfers to Iraq and Afghanistan during her tenure, unusual steps for diplomats assigned to a modern, Western European capital.

"The bulk of the mission's internal problems are linked to her leadership deficiencies, the most damaging of which is an abusive management style," the report said. "She has followed a pattern of public criticism of colleagues, including (deputies), who have not performed to her satisfaction."

Cynthia Stroum was a political appointee who was nominated for this position because of her extensive fundraising efforts on behalf of Barack Obama when he was running for President in 2008. When he won his election, Obama rewarded many supporters like Stroum with positions in our government, as is our custom. Although I do not fault Obama nor his continuation of appointing to political positions key supporters of his campaign, I do fault him for picking a poor nominee, although not greatly, because her resume was solid and she likely seemed like a decent pick, and it looks more as if this was simply a reward and not a personal pick of Obama's.

Mostly I lay blame for this international disaster at the feet of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is supposed to check and vet and provide oversight to the President's nominee's for offices. They failed in their duties to do their proper due diligence on this issue.

As you can see from the following video of her confirmation hearings before the Senate, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, October 08, 2009, which begins discussing nominations at the 11:00 minute mark, Democrats supported and believed in Cynthia Stroum. Senator Cantwell from the state of Washington gives the first speech in support of her (15:00-17:00) and vouches for her. Cynthia Stroum begins speaking herself at the 30:00 minute mark, and in her testimony she thanks Obama, cries, and speaks about why she is going to be a great ambassador. The bulk of the time she talks about cancer research and money laundering. She finishes at the 34:00 minute mark. As far as I was able to figure out, she was only asked one softball question at the 64:00 minute mark about how the people of Luxembourg feel about how they are doing in Afghanistan (where they contribute 9 troops and some money), which is done at 66:00. She was later confirmed with no further discussion, hearings, or testimony.

The Democratic members of the 111th Senate Foreign Relations Committee that fail in their duties and did a poor job in confirming the poor nomination from Democrat President Barack Obama. Hold the following Senators responsible for voting for and confirming this poor nominee: Democrats John Kerry (Mass., Chairman), Christopher Dodd (Conn.) Russ Feingold (Wis.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Bob Menendez (N.J.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Jim Webb (Va.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Ted Kaufman (Del.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.).

Powerline blog has a great post up today- Don't Blame Us, We're Incompetent!

We devoted almost all of our radio show today to the Obama administration's recent foreign policy stumbles--in particular, Hillary Clinton's European apology tour and President Obama's mysteriously insulting treatment of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. We speculated about whether Obama's treatment of Brown was calculated disrespect, or whether the administration simply doesn't know how to host the Prime Minister of our most important ally on a state visit to Washington.

The White House, evidently stung by negative reaction in Great Britain, is now telling the British that the insult to Brown was inadvertent, the problem being that President Obama is "overwhelmed" by his job: Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special elationship.

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk. A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".

Where to begin? Obama, after two years of expressing smug contempt for the Bush administration, is "surprised at the sheer volume" of work the President has to do. And he's too tired to deal competently with one of the most important foreign officials he will meet during his term in office. So: maybe he should cut down on the late-night White House partying? And why in the world does the White House--let alone the State Department!--not have someone who is "[familiar] with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister?" If true, this is rank incompetence.

To some extent, the Brown fiasco might be attributed to Obama's failure to "even fake an interest in foreign policy." (Just think, by the way, how much work he will have to do when he realizes that as President, he has to deal with both domestic and foreign policy!) But I'm not sure that's the whole explanation.

The Telegraph's story contains this suggestion that Obama's slight of the British Prime Minister may have been intentional, at least in part: The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key. The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

So: was the Brown fiasco intentional, or was it the result of Obama administration incompetence? Or a combination of the two? Most likely, I think, the latter.

There are a lot of things going on in my household right now, and we've been up late at night too- my wife suggests that because of her lack of sleep, she should be forgiven for any major policy blunders or international incidents she causes. I told her that excuse won't fly in this house, even if it flies in the White House.

A word of advice to President Obama- take some more vacations, exercise a bit more, and delegate authority better- you might make less mistakes then. To be fair though- you'll be called lazy and incompetent by liberal Democrats like you if you do that.

President Obama's State of the Union Address was the best ever. Not the actual address- that was the usual bunch of lies, rhetoric, and deception- but I watched the address with a crowd of over 150 people at a local event that was hosted by the Americans for Prosperity.

Americans for Prosperity, Rocky Raczkowski (Republican-candidate for the MI-9th), and the Core Principles-Center Right Coalition sponsored a State of the Union speech watch party at the Sheraton in Novi. Organized only a few days in advance, it drew anywhere from 150-200 people, who packed in the crowded room to watch Obama's speech on the big screen. A couple speakers spoke beforehand, and then the crowd watched his speech, hooting and hollering and making comments as he went.

With a crowd of Tea Partiers, of course they were critical of Obama's speech, especially his talk about the budget and the debt. People around me were engaging in conversations about economic theory and principles, history, and political theory and thought while we watched his speech. This crowd was not politicians and rich people, but rather good decent citizens who care about our nation and just want to see it prosperous and happy. The words that this group was using the most often in conversation by this group were 'liberty,' 'freedom,' 'citizen,' 'republic,' or 'responsibility.' It contrasted with President Obama's speech, which instead highlighted regulation, taxes, partisanship, and blame.

And this group wasn't a 'Republican' group either- every speaker spent time bashing the Republicans for their failures in office when they were in charge. We expect Democrats to raise taxes, put in place more regulations on our lives, and be corrupt, but we don't expect Republicans too, and so this group ripped into them as well.

As to what I thought about Obama's speech... I thought it was one of the most divisive, partisan speeches ever uttered to a joint session of Congress. Maybe Obama's teleprompter was to his left or maybe he just always looks left all the time, but if it not, it seemed to me he spent most of his speech staring down at the Republicans, brow-beating them and lecturing them. His little chin started drifting up, his shoulders got all narrow, and in this pose, he stared to the left for most of the speech, directly at the Republicans, lecturing them about subjects of which he has little to no knowledge or experience in. He pushed his agenda, spoke about everything in 'us vs' them tones, and spent little time laying out his vision or goals for the nation. I don't think he has any visions or goals, other than power and control, and he didn't disprove my theory in his SOTU address tonight.

There were parts that made me angry- when he took credit for the isolating of Iran when he wants to meet with them without precondition, or when he began to cite the Declaration of Independence and simply stopped with equality and fraternity, or when he said that every generation has fought for change but failed to mention that every generation that fought was fighting for freedom and liberty and not what he wants, or when he blamed Bush for the debt- but mostly I shook my head and thought to myself 'who actually believes this guy anymore.'

As I drove home from the AFP event, I listened to the radio, and heard a much better vision of America from the Republican response. If you haven't listened to their response yet, look it up and do so- the GOP's vision of America is a lot more hopeful, a lot more change for the better, a lot more free, and a lot more prosperous than the stuff Obama uttered tonight.

The picture is from the AFP event- I hope for you it was also the best State of the Union Address ever.

UPDATE: The Detroit Free Press covered this event- read their article on it by clicking here.

As a side note, one way that bias is introduced by the media is through misleading crowd counts. By my count, there were closer to 200 people at this event then there were (as the Freep notes) "about 150 people". The Freep is right about this though- "The catcalls, boos and ridicule from the crowd were frequent" and deserved.

Here are my notes and thoughts as I watched President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address:

• All of the conversation on the channels prior to the address centered on how this address is going to be used as a way to launch the President's re-election bid and as a taxpayer financed campaign speech. I've been watching these things for years and although past incumbents running for re-election have used this speech to speak about all their accomplishments, President Obama appears to be the most brazenly partisan in using this speech as a campaign speech.
• I found a list of past 'special guests' who have been invited by the President- Lenny Skutnik in 1982 (saved passanger from drowning plane), Sammy Sosa in 1999 (relief efforts in Dominican Republic and home run chase), Hamid Karzai in 2002 (Afghanistan President), Julie Aigner-Clark in 2007 (founder of Baby Einstein)... and now Warren Buffet's secretary in 2012 (prop to use to try to bring up point of taxing the rich more). Whereas once President's (both Republican and Democrats) celebrated people who had done things, President Obama celebrates someone who has called on other people to do more things (pay more money) and yet has no real accomplishments of her own (no offense- I'm sure she is a fine person).
• It was amazing and wonderful to see Congresswomen Giffords there- she has made such a great recovery and I wish her the best on her future.
• President Obama begins with his foreign policy accomplishments, which he can take credit for, although he should share this credit with George W. Bush, who put in place the foundations and background for many of these accomplishments (the pull-out in Iraq, the groundwork for catching Osama, drones and catching terrorists in the War on Terror, etc).
• Obama next suggests that private citizens should be more like the military and act as soldiers for the state. Citizens should stop fighting one another, stop disagreeing about the direction of the nation, stop pushing for their individual rights and liberties, stop trying to keep their property and the fruits of their labor, and instead citizens should serve the state, citizens should put aside their differences and just follow orders, and people should give up their wealth and property to the state so that it can redistribute it to those people who it favors. This all sounds vaguely familiar and has strong echo's of fascism in it, although I could sugar-coat it if you'd like.
• In 2008, the 'house of cards collapsed'- banks made loans they shouldn't have (which he pushed for a community activist), regulators didn't do their jobs (which they were not held accountable for), bonuses were paid to these banks and government agencies (to which they were never held accountable for)... he is on the wrong side of the ledger here- he was pushing for the collapse and after the collapse did not hold those people accountable.
• "State of the Union is getting stronger"- as if the mounting US debt is to be ignored and we're all just to pretend that trillions of dollars in my children's spending is not damaging the foundations of our nation and creating a time-bomb that will destroy America.
• President Obama says that he can't get anything done without control of every single aspect of our political system- he decries the 'obstructionism' of the GOP controlling one single house of Congress. No one- no one- should ever be elected President who says that he can't get anything done unless he has total power- that is bad for America and bad for democracy.
• "What is happening in Detroit can happen in other industries"- what happened in Detroit was that the auto companies were bailed out, costing taxpayers $80 billion in loans, debts forgiven, pensions guaranteed, and other loans. GM made $6 billion last year in profits- taxpayers should get that back, plus the next $74 billion in profits, and then we'll claim success in saving a company at no cost. Imagine if he were to bail every unprofitable business out at massive losses to taxpayers- what would that sort of economy look like?
• Proposes new tax on multi-national companies, to be redistributed to companies that 'hire here in America'- some sort of new loan to be administered by Obama officials based on conditions that he'd set. The increased taxes on MNC's will be sure to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices on goods and services, causing inflation and hitting the poor especially hard. Why does Obama hate poor people so much?
• "We brought trade cases against China at over twice the rate as the previous administration"- but the Chinese just laughed at us because Obama bowed to the Chinese President and begged to borrow trillions more of their money so that he could blow it on his wasteful spending. It's nice that he's suing China though- I'm sure that's employing lots of lawyers.
• President Obama is mystified on why employers don't hire workers- perhaps if he would have had some sort of a job at some point in business or in the private sector or in some sort of productive economic enterprise he'd know that increasing regulations, fees, requirements, red tape, and the such encourage employers not to hire.
• Obama proposes starting a temp agency company... with taxpayer money. This government financed and supported company will compete with all of these Michigan companies.
• Obama is right- good teachers like me matter, and also he's right that teachers like me are attacked all the time- I'm bashed by liberals and progressives who call me all sorts of names. The President's other education policies are pretty- they are nice words that mean nothing since the federal government isn't supposed to be involved in education in any way other than making sure that there is equality in education for different races and sexes (Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965).
• It is almost as if the right answer to everything that Obama says is the opposite of what he says. He says that it is wrong for taxpayers to be giving illegal immigrants a paid education and then sending them home at the end- he suggests we should make these people here illegally citizens after investing all that money into them, while I kind of think that taxpayers shouldn't be investing money into people here illegally. Get a work or education visa or something to stay here or pay your own way.
• President Obama attacks inequality in pay between mean and women in work- that's right Obama, tear this straw man up! That straw man can't fight back- I suggest he go after those who want children to work in coal mines next!
• I followed this line... "need more bullet proof vests... computers chips... innovations... industries... energy..." what???
• President Obama claims that our nation needs an "all out all of the above strategy"- it's double-speak though, because in his next line he clarifies that this strategy means less oil, less natural gas, less coal, and less drilling. His 'all of the above' strategy is going to include additional fees, regulations, and rules on companies that he doesn't like. So, in summary, he is pitching a "some of the below strategy".
• On to exploding batteries discussion... Bryan (the guy Obama referenced) used to build luxury yachts, but when government policies that Obama supported (he wanted a higher tax on yachts) destroyed Bryan's company and industry, Obama was there to throw taxpayer dollars at him to get him restarted building taxpayer subsidized wind turbines, and now Obama is some sort of 'good guy.' He's the bad guy in the story, kiddies. Holland-based Energetx Composites LLC, you just got mentioned by Obama in his State of the Union address- that's the kiss of death.
• Proposed more small fees and regulations and burdens on businesses... I missed what sort of scheme it was supposed to pay for in order to be 'budget neutral'.
• I'm caught up now... "we need smart regulations"... "we need rules"... these rules and regulations "make the free market more free"- LOL. Did he just say "I've ordered thousands of federal agents to spend thousands of man-hours to search for useless regulations that waste taxpayer money"- I must have heard this wrong. He's moving on though to proposing new rules and regulations- I guess he was done with the part about getting rid of regulations and rules after he threw the joke out there. Listening to him talk, I feel like he's a joke of a President.
• Someone add up how much all these regulations, agencies, bureau's, rules, and investments are going to cost America... I'll have to look at the transcript, but I'm pretty sure all he does is to propose these things without any sense of cost. A man (or woman) could spend a hundred years undoing all the damage that this guy is doing to our Republic.
• "The recovery is still fragile"- but earlier he said the "State of the Union is getting stronger"- let's square this round issue, folks.
• Did you know that President Obama has cut the deficit $2 trillion? And not raised it $5 trillion like what really happened? BIZARRO WORLD!
• Let's not forget this people- President Obama hates people earning millions and wants to go after them and confiscate their income redistribute it to people making less. Those who are already wealthy can keep it, those who are on the bottom might like it, but there will be no more moving between classes in Obama's America. This guy wants to slap class systems on us and turn our nation into the rich- those who already made their wealth and who have connections with government- and the rest of us poor. "You can call this class warfare all you want" he says- it's class warfare. It's class warfare. It's class warfare. It's class warfare. It's class warfare...
• The partisan divide is getting worse every year he says... especially over the past 3 years. It must be George Bush's fault or something, right? Or maybe it's because you President Obama are the most bitterly partisan figure in the history of our nation and is tearing our nation into serfs and masters. President Obama attacks running a 'perpetual campaign'- but yet he is the worst offender in this, running continually for office in a way that no President in history has ever done, running campaign commercials a year in advance of the general election, and even trotting out his wife to make frequent partisan attacks.
• He just said-"With or without this Congress I will keep implementing laws and putting in place policies that I want, but if Congress went along with what I was already doing it would give me cover and get us all involved." This guy is a bully and a dictator. Maybe I heard him wrong though; I'll go back and re-read the transcript, maybe I got it wrong.
• The speech must be coming to an end- after spending a couple minutes in the beginning to address our military and veterans, we're now going to end with a couple minutes at the end about the military and veterans- I though think that the military shouldn't just be props in Obama's game of 'we're all in this together' meme; maybe he should talk about military programs in the body of his speech that he wants to cut or increase, about what he's been doing as commander-in-chief, etc. The military is not simply there to make Obama look good. "No one thought about politics on that day" Obama says- but yet the photo of Obama in the war room was staged. Nice words Obama, but in your mouth, they are just words, merely words.
• President Obama says that as long as we are all commoners, living like peasants on the land, serving our masters like serfs, than our nation will be strong. He said 'common' several times at the end- but private property, liberty, and protection of life wasn't mentioned.

UPDATE III: Thank you for linking to this article The Western Experience, The Bitter Americans, and others!

In recent months, Obama has been compared to the likes of Jimmy Carter (recent Democrat who lectured to us as our nation dropped into malaise and high interest rates), Herbert Hoover (progressive Republican who thought active government and debts would stop a recession), and Woodrow Wilson (progressive Democrat professor who lectured to nation and strengthened unions while nation went into recession). These are all fair comparisons and each has its merits, but for some time now, I keep coming back to the idea that Barack Obama's Presidency is in reality a Michael Dukakis Presidency.

In Whatever Happened to the Massachusetts Miracle? I first wandered my way on to this idea when I realized that soon after Democratic Presidential-nominee Dukakis lost in 1988, the so-called 'Massachusetts Miracle' of prosperity also went bust, and his high-regulation, managed-growth, high-taxes, generous-welfare policies left a state that was mired deeply in debt, facing budget shortfalls, and not growing.

As the years have gone on, it has become increasing clear that Obama is Dukakis, as was written in my post Obama is Dukakis?:

...Both creatures of the liberal Northeast and of Harvard, with no sense at all of most of the rest of the country; both rationalists who impose legalistic criteria on emotion-rich subjects; both with fixed ideas of who society’s victims are, which do not accord with the views of the public; and both with a tin ear for the culture and a genius for creating wedge issues that split their own party...

In that post, I was highly critical of John McCain's campaign, which failed to capitalize on all of the weaknesses that Obama brought as a candidate, and contrasted it with George H.W. Bush, who was able to capitalize on all the weaknesses that Dukakis brought as a candidate:

...GHWB capitalized on the fact that Dukakis wasn't 'American', didn't like saluting the flag, blamed America for everything (later on Dukakis blames America for 9/11), and didn't reflect the values that made America great. GWB hammered away at how Dukakis was simply an elitist, no-nothing, Harvard-educated liberal who was purely smoke-and-mirrors and who, if put in charge of our nation, would never make the hard tough choices that have to be made. If you don't believe me, watch some of the ads yourself- check out at the website the ads "Tank Ride," "Revolving Door," and "Willie Horton." There is no coming back from those body blows that GWB inflicted on Dukakis.

On the other hand, for some reason John McCain didn't run a brutal, hard-hitting campaign that called Obama's policies, judgement, and character into question. He didn't go after Obama for his church, he didn't attack him for his terrorist friends, he didn't call into question his 'Americanism', he didn't question his patriotism, he didn't attack his naive views, he steered away from questioning his lack of experience, and he didn't attack Obama for his elitist schooling. On every major important point that McCain could have capitalized on, he pulled back, and only gently batted Obama around a bit. Oh, he hints here and there about stuff, but nothing smacks you in the gut with the full brutal face of a real battle that Obama could have brought against Obama. If you don't believe me, watch the ads yourself, and lick at the kitty milk that JSM poured playfully on Obama- see the ads "Celeb," "Education," and "Storm" for examples of how weak and unfocused the attack on Obama by JSM was.

So, I guess we have whoever ran GWB's campaign in 1988 to thank from saving us from the mess that we find ourselves in today, and we have whoever ran JSM's campaign in 2008 to thank for us finding ourselves in the mess that we are in today (may that person be smacked around by milk jugs)...

Months after I wrote these posts, it turns out that Dukakis actually visited the White House to give Obama advice- it was written in my post Dukakis Gives Advice to Obama: Obama Gets it?:

...Former Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, the failed 1988 presidential nominee, recently visited the White House and delivered his strategy for the midterm elections: pound key precincts across the country with the message that Republicans want to implement the same policies that led to the Great Recession. Asked if the White House aides were receptive, he said, "I think they certainly get it." He declined to name the aides he met at the White House...

...Obama gets it- the Democrats in general are now all running on the 'blame Bush' strategy, even though they controlled (House for 4 years and Senate for over 6) and the White House for (3)....

Apparently, as usual, my instincts were right, because today my favorite numbers guy Jay Cost broke down the latest polling data, and Obama does not track like Clinton or Carter, but tracks most closely to Michael Dukakis:

...Accordingly, I think that at this point the Democrat that Obama most closely resembles is Michael Dukakis. To appreciate what I mean, let’s compare Obama’s current standing among different political groups with the 1988 exit poll results.

(see graph)

These are some very eerie similarities – Dukakis, unlike Carter, was able to hold together his party coalition. He lost the 1988 election because Republicans were firmly united behind George Bush, and independents broke decisively toward the GOP.

This is roughly how the current political landscape appears, which leads me to conclude if the election were held today, and the GOP nominated a reasonably attractive candidate, Obama would do about as well in the popular vote as Dukakis did. Given the geographical polarization of the electorate (i.e. the red state-blue state divide), Obama would surely capture more than the 111 electoral votes Dukakis carried. Even so, it would be a sizeable Republican victory. Not quite as smashing as Reagan’s victory in 1980, but still substantial.

Moving forward, I think that is the best way to compare Obama. Not so much to Carter, who was hampered by internal divisions that did not plague Obama, but more to Dukakis, whose final vote share is roughly consistent with Obama’s job approval rating over the last 18 months.

This is all good news- not good news that Democratic policies are destroying our nation, but good that we have been shown the way in the past by hard-campaigner George HW Bush how to defeat someone like Dukakis/Obama (new nickname for the list- Duke Bama?). One can only hope that the next Republican nominee will follow the path and defeat Obama, whether it is an establishment moderate like Romney or an outsider conservative like Bachman.

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever read anything Dukakis has written? Leader-Manager in the Public Sector: Managing for Results or Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story.