My Beauty Best Teacher

Pivoting away from other issues like the environment ("Bombshell" Experiment: Global Climate Change Caused by Cloud Cover) or education (More Than 200 D.C. Teachers Fired! Progress?), let's return back to jobs and the role that the government plays in job creation.

In my post Coming To Grips With a Political Economy I wrote about a class that I took in college called 'Political Economy.' The class was an attempt to indoctrinate students with the idea that government could create jobs through its actions and could create wealth through proper regulation and control over free markets. I struggled through this class, mostly because I rejected entirely the idea that government can create wealth and jobs through its actions, and today I still believe that.

Government does not create jobs. It takes wealth from those who are productive and creating wealth, cycles it through many layers of bureaucracy and 'management', and then gives that wealth to those people who are favored by the government. Some of those who are favored by the government should be- the Constitution identified those who the government can give 'jobs' to and states further have identified those who the government should give 'jobs' to. But many others who the government gives 'jobs' today in America are simply those who benefit from the kind of crony capitalism and banana republic policies that are more common to two-bit dictatorships and tyrannies.

And the 'jobs' that are created by government are inefficiently created- much wealth and property is squandered and lost and burned by having government provide these jobs because of the many layers of 'management' and bureaucracy that mark the government. This is an acceptable price to pay for fire, police, and military jobs, but for most other 'jobs' the government creates the cost to create these jobs far exceeds the useful good that these jobs provide to society.

For example, many liberals claim that Obamacare will 'create jobs'- agencies and regulatory bodies that will hire overlords and masters who supervise a once-free and vibrant economic sector and regulate, tax, and control it. But the cost of these jobs was demonstrated graphically by the reaction that businesses had to it- after the passage of this law businesses dramatically dropped their hiring of workers. The Heritage report explained why this happened:

Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty; Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

Yet President Obama and the modern-day Democratic Party continues to think that regulations, spending, taxes, and control over free people can 'create jobs'. They take wealth from those who have it- either through taxes or fees or by simply sucking up savings by selling debt- and give it to those who they favor and try to pretend that they have made society better. But they haven't- they have killed legitimate jobs that millions of people through their free actions wanted and needed (the unseen hand of the market) and made society less because of their actions that took away freedom and property.

In Latest EPA Rules to Cost 1.4 Million Jobs and a 12% Increase in Utility Bills I wrote about how the Washington Post reported that the new EPA rules that were recently published will cause electric bills will jump 12 percent nationally by 2016 to comply with these new policies, with residents in areas such as Kentucky and Tennessee seeing a 24 percent increase in their utility bills. These policies are project to eliminate 1.4 million jobs- real jobs that will be destroyed by the actions of government, creating people who will no longer be paying taxes any more and will now be sucking down government benefits, all thanks to these policies pushed by Democratic bureaucrats employed by a Democratic President supervised by Democrats in the House and the Senate and supported by Democratic unions and a Democratic media.

And now Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso has put together a report that showed that the executive actions of the Democrat President have put in place in July alone an additional $9.5 billion in new regulatory costs by proposing 229 new rules and finalizing 379 rules. Among those rules that are going to add to the cost of doing business, kill jobs, and make our society less productive and wealthy are rules regarding the fake issues of global warming, healthcare reform, and financial regulatory reform rules.

IN JULY ALONE A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT PUT IN PLACE $9.5 BILLION IN NEW COSTS! I don't care how many times Obama 'pivots' to talk about jobs, the heart of the matter is that he is wrong about the government being able to create jobs and wealth through its actions- government is best that governs least because when people are free and free to live their lives and free to make their own decisions and free to do with their wealth and labor as they see fit, then jobs are created and wealth is created.

Make the choice in 2012 to turn America away from tyranny and 'government-created jobs' and to freedom and 'people-created jobs'.

For more reading, try Productivity versus OSHA and EPA regulations (Research for business decisions).

One of the problems with the current Democratic proposal for healthcare reform is the process. I know liberals believe that the ends justify the means, and they are willing to do anything to make America have a government-run healthcare system, but some of the means that Democrats are engaging in are the sort of dirty and disgusting stuff that should cause voters to throw them out of office next election.

One such dirty and disgusting tactic that Democrats are engaging in is hiring interns in their county offices to write letters to lawmakers pretending to be distressed individuals who are unable to get healthcare under the current system.

These interns write letters and emails pretending to be people who are very poor, have a severe disability, are faced with extreme situations, or otherwise have really bad problems, and urge lawmakers to vote to pass the healthcare reform that Democrats are proposing based on this evidence. The interns are not these things- they are instead being paid to lie to lawmakers by Democrats. This type of tactic is insulting on many levels, but is happening all over the nation now, being employed openly by Democrats to win the healthcare debate.

This disgusting Democrat tactic was easily discovered by Republican lawmakers. Whenever they received these letters and emails, they would try to contact the sender to let them know that our government already provides extensive healthcare coverage that almost certainly covered their problems. You see, we already have government provided healthcare to a large segment of our population, paid for by taxpayer dollars from you and me. And Republican lawmakers care, so when they track down the senders of these sad letters to tell them that they are already covered, they discover that the senders are not sad individuals at all, but paid Democratic interns.

Commissioner Shelley Taub exposed this tactic at a recent county commissioner meeting, which I covered in a blog post here. Although she exposed just a single example, the person she discovered who wrote a sad letter to her had as a full time job sending out letters such as these, and so although she exposed just one example of Democratic slime, a good amount of it is now flowing in the system (and it's the bad slime, like in Ghostbusters II).

You can contact Taub to obtain the evidence yourself by going to her page here- at the meeting she read us the evidence and and told us the full story of how she spent her weekend trying to track down the poor unwed mother who was on death's door in order to put her in touch with government help, only to discover that it was deception perpetrated by the Democratic party.

When Taub exposed this local piece of fraud, she was told that it was only "an overzealous individual from the county party’s office stepped outside of the realm of acceptable conduct and encouraged county party interns to follow suit," and that this person was "officially reprimanded them for their unacceptable actions." The email Taub received closed by encouraging Taub to ignore "these distractions"- the phony emails and letters that are flooding the system lying about the situation and encouraging public officials to vote a certain way based on deception and lies- because "there is a very real need... for improved health care coverage." The ends justify the means, in other words, and Democrats are sorry they were caught this time, but they will strike again.

Life, liberty, and property are being taken from us by deception and lies. Don't vote for this party, whether they be blue, black, or green.

UPDATE: If you would like to email someone your disgust with this, Mike McGuinness, Chairman of the Oakland County Democratic Party, was the guy who ran this shop of deception and lies. His email address is chair@ocdp.org.

UPDATE II: Looks like I am generating the news cycle again. Today in the Oakland Press there is a story about this very issue- Commissioner: Dems sent falsified letters. The author of this story must be a reader on my blog. Check it out!

UPDATE III: This story has some legs- big blogs around the country are picking it up and running with it, including the very good blog Atlas Shrugs. Here is their thoughts on this story.

Mired in grinding poverty and social destitution, Africa cries for help. A cacophonous galaxy of rock stars, anti-poverty activists, and heads of state are calling on the G-8 countries to cancel Africa’s $350 billion crippling foreign debt and double aid to the continent. British Prime Minister Tony Blair will make aid to Africa the centerpiece in Britain's presidency of the G-8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland in July. Live 8 is planned for July 2. After meeting with President Bush on June 10, modalities are being worked out to cancel at least $34 billion in debt of 27 of the world’s poorest nations, mostly African. Will this African Marshall Aid Plan work?

Africa’s plight follows a ten-year attention deficit cycle. Every decade or so, mega-plans are drawn up and rock concerts held to whip up international rescue mission for Africa. Acrimonious wrangling over financing modalities ensues. Years slip by, then a decade later, another grand Africa initiative is unveiled. Back in 1985, there was Live Aid and a “Special Session on Africa” held by the United Nations to boost aid to Africa. Then in March 1996, the U.N. launched a $25 billion Special Initiative for Africa. In September 2005, the plight of Africa will again take center-stage at a U.N. conference with clockwork precision. Expect another major initiative for Africa in 2015.

Helping Africa of course is noble but has now become a theater of the absurd – the blind leading the clueless. A recent IMF study estimated that Africans in the diaspora remit $32 billion annually back to Africa, with the main destinations being Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya. About $7 billion is sent to southern Africa (Ghana News Agency, Accra, May 31, 2005). The amount Africans abroad remit back exceeds the $25 billion Tony Blair seeks to raise.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion (£95 billion) from their people since independence. The World Bank estimates that 40 per cent of wealth created in Africa is invested outside the continent. Even the African Union, in a stunning report last August, claimed that Africa loses an estimated $148 billion annually to corruption – or 25 percent of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Rather than plug the huge hemorrhage, African leaders prefer to badger the West for more money. And the West, blinded by its own racial over-sensitivity and guilt over the iniquities of the slave trade and colonialism, obliges. This is the real tragedy of Africa.

Between 1960 and 1997, the West pumped more than $450 billion in foreign aid – the equivalent of four Marshall Aid Plans – into Africa with nothing to show for it. Contrary to popular misconception, foreign aid is not free but a soft loan. Outright debt relief and massive inflow of aid without any conditionalities, safeguards or monitoring mechanisms is absurd. It is akin to writing off the credit card debt of a drunken sailor and allowing him to keep the same credit cards. No African government has been called upon to give a full public accounting of who took what loan and for what purpose since many of Africa’s foreign loans taken in the past were misused and squandered. No government official has been held accountable; instead, irresponsible past borrowing behavior is being rewarded.

More distressing, much of the new aid money will flow directly into an African government budget – a huge black maze of vanishing tax receipts, extra-budgetary expenditure items, perks and off-budget “presidential privy accounts,” redolent with graft, patronage and waste. Over the past few decades, African budgets have careened out of control. State bureaucracies have swollen, packed with political supporters. Back in 1996, 20 percent of Ghana's public sector workforce was declared redundant by the Secretary of Finance and Guinea’s 50,000 civil servants were consuming 51 percent of the nation's wealth. In Kenya, civil service salaries take up half the budget; in Uganda, it is 40 percent. Zimbabwe has 54 ministers; Uganda with a population of 35 million has 70, while Ghana, with a population of 22 million, has 88 ministers and deputy ministers. With bloated bureaucracies, soaring expenditures and narrow tax bases, budget deficits have soared.

They are covered with World Bank loans and foreign aid (Ghana’s budget is 50 percent aid-financed and Uganda’s is 60 percent). If the aid is insufficient, the rest of the budget shortfall is financed by printing money. Even when is aid available for “budgetary support”, there is no guarantee that it will be used productively to generate a return to repay the soft loan. It could well be “consumed” when it pays for the salaries of civil servants. Writing off Uganda’s debt does not eliminate the aid dependency. In fact, when the World Bank canceled $650 million of Uganda’s debt in 1999, the first item President Yoweri Museveni purchased was a new presidential jet!


British Prime Minister thinks he can cajole or browbeat African leaders into curbing corruption and ensuring that resources released by debt relief are put to some good use – such as increased spending on education and health care. But the push for good governance and reform must come from within – from African civil society groups, organizations and the people. However, in country after country, chastened by diabolical restrictions, these groups have no freedom or political space to operate.

Carlos Cardoso, an investigative journalist, was murdered in November 2000 for uncovering a bank scandal in which about $14 million was looted from Mozambique's largest bank, BCM, on the eve of its privatization. The official in charge of banking supervision, Antonio Siba Siba, was also murdered while investigating the banking scandals. Such was also the fate of Norbert Zongo, a popular journalist in Burkina Faso, who was gunned down on Dec 13, 1998, while investigating official corruption. In September 2001, President Isaias Afwerki closed down all the independent media and arrested its staff, quashing calls for democratic reforms. In all, the government shut down eight private newspapers and arrested its journalists, picking them up in their newsrooms and homes and from the streets. They were held in a central jail until April, 2002, when they threatened to begin a hunger strike to protest their detention. They were then transferred to an undisclosed location.

In neighboring Ethiopia, President Meles Zenawi, a member of Tony Blair’s Africa Commission, just held fraudulent elections. Anticipating public outrage, he banned street demonstrations for one month and assumed full control of the country’s security forces. When the opposition rallied to protest the results dribbling in, the police opened fire, killing 26; opposition leaders have been placed under house arrest. Witness the election machinations in Egypt.

The paucity of good leadership has left a garish stain on the continent. Worse, the caliber of leadership has distressingly deteriorated over the decades to execrable depths. The likes of Charles Taylor of Liberia and Sani Abacha of Nigeria even make Mobutu Sese Seko of formerly Zaire look like a saint. In an unusual editorial, The Independent newspaper in Ghana wrote: "Most of the leaders in Africa are power-loving politicians, who in uniform or out of uniform, represent no good for the welfare of our people. These are harsh words to use on men and women who may mean well but lack the necessary vision and direction to uplift the status of their people (The Independent, Ghana, July 20, 2000; p.2).

The crisis in leadership remains a major obstacle to poverty reduction and has many manifestations. It is characterized, among others, by the following dispositions and failings: The "Big Man" syndrome, subordination of national interests to personal aggrandizement, super-inflated egos, misplaced priorities, poor judgment, reluctance to take responsibility for personal failures, and total lack of vision and understanding of even such basic and elementary concepts as "democracy," "fairness," "rule of law," "accountability," and "freedom" -- among other deficiencies. In some instances, the leadership is given to vituperative utterances, outright buffoonery, stubborn refusal to learn from past mistakes, and complete absence of cognitive pragmatism.

Believing that their countries belong to them and only them only, they cling to power at all costs. Their promises are worth less than Al Cappone’s. They stipulate constitutional term limits and then break them: Angola, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, and Uganda. African leaders themselves drew up a New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in 2001, in which they inserted a Peer Review Mechanism (PRM), by which they were to evaluate the performance of fellow African leaders in terms of democratic governance. What happened? To be fair, they acted in reversing the “military coup” in Togo in February but went on vacation when elections were stolen in Zimbabwe and Togo.

Ask them to cut bloated state bureaucracies or government spending and they will set up a “Ministry of Less Government Spending.” Then there is the “Ministry of Good Governance” (Tanzania). They set up “Anti-Corruption Commissions” with no teeth and then sack the Commissioner if he gets too close to the fat cats (Kenya) or issue a Government White Paper to exonerate corrupt ministers (Ghana in 1996). To be sure, multi-party elections have been held in recent years in many African countries but the electoral process was so contumaciously manipulated to return incumbents to power. Four such “coconut elections” have so far been held this year: Zimbabwe, Togo, Congo (Brazzaville), and Ethiopia.

Ask them to place more reliance on the private sector and they will create a Ministry of Private Enterprise (Ghana). Ask them to privatize inefficient state-owned enterprises and they will sell them off at fire-sale prices to their cronies (Uganda). Or ask them to move a foot and they will demand foreign aid in order to do so. In 2003, some 30,000 ghost names were discovered on the payroll of the Ministry of Education, costing the government $1.2 million a month in salaries heisted by living workers. When Ghana demanded foreign aid to purge the payroll of these ghost names, Japan coughed up $5 million.

The reform process has stalled through vexatious chicanery, willful deception, and vaunted acrobatics. Only 16 out of the 54 African countries are democratic, fewer than 8 are “economic success stories,” only 8 have a free and independent media.

No amount of debt relief and increased aid will help Africa until Africa cleans up its own house. But the leadership is not interested in reform. Thus, without new leadership and genuine reform, debt relief and increased aid would compound Africa’s problems and more African countries will implode. The continent is stuck in a veritable conundrum. What can Western donors do?

Smart aid would do one of two things. One, bypass the vampire state and target the people, who produce Africa’s real wealth. An African economy consists of three sectors: the traditional, informal, and the modern sector. The people who produce Africa’s real wealth – cash crops, diamonds, gold and other minerals – live in the traditional and informal sectors. Meaningful development and poverty reduction cannot occur by ignoring these two sectors. But in the 1960s and 1970s, much Western development aid was channeled into the modern sector or the urban area, the abode of the parasitic elite minority. Industrialization was the rage and the two other sectors – especially agriculture – were neglected. Huge foreign loans were contracted to set up a dizzying array of state enterprises, which became towering edifices of gross inefficiency, waste and graft. Economic crises emerged in the 1980s and billions in foreign aid money were spent in an attempt to reform the dysfunctional modern sector. Between 1981 and 1994, for example, the World Bank spent more than $25 billion in Structural Adjustment loans to reform Africa’s dilapidated statist economic system. Only 6 out of the 29 “adjusting” African countries were adjudged to be “economic success stories” in 1994. Even then, the success list was phantasmagoric. Ghana, declared a “success story” in 1994, is now on HIPC life-support system.

At some point, even the most recklessly optimistic donor must come to terms with the law of diminishing returns: That pouring in more money to reform the modern sector is futile. Greater returns can be achieved elsewhere – by focusing on the traditional and informal sectors.

Second, smart aid would empower the African people (African civil society groups) to monitor how the aid money is being spent and to instigate reform from within. Empowerment requires arming the African people with information, the freedom and the institutional means to unchain themselves from the vicious grip of poverty and oppression.

Africa already has its own Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights (the 1981 Banjul Charter), which recognizes the right to liberty and to the security of his person (Article 6); to receive information, to express and disseminate his opinions (Article 9); to free association (Article 10); to assemble freely with others (Article 11); and to participate freely in the government of his country, either directly or through freely chosen representatives in accordance with the provisions of the law (Article 13). Though the Charter enjoins African states to recognize these rights, few do so. When President Thabo Mbeki called on June 3, President Bush should have handed him a signed copy of this Charter to be delivered to President Robert Mugabe of ‘Zimbabwe.

The institutional tools Africans need are an independent central bank (to assure monetary stability and stanch capital flight), an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), a free and independent media (to ensure free flow of information), an independent Electoral Commission, an efficient and professional civil service, and a neutral and professional armed and security forces.

Recent events in Ukraine (November), Ghana (December), Zimbabwe (March), Lebanon (April), and Togo (April) unerringly underscore the critical importance of these institutions. Without them, President Bush’s plan to spread democracy may stall. Democracies are not built in a vacuum but in a “political space” in which the people can air their opinion, petition their government without being fired on by security forces and can choose who should rule them in elections that are rigged by electoral commissions packed with government goons.

On May 13, thousands of Egyptian judges, frustrated by government control over the judiciary, agitated for full independence from the executive in their oversight of the electoral process. “The institutions are presenting Mr. Mubarak with an unexpected challenge from within, one that will be difficult to dismiss. The fact is, major changes in this country are going to come out of those institutions, not from the streets," said Abdel Monem Said, director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo.

In the past 24 years, Egypt has received more than $55 billion in U.S. aid in direct government-to-government transfers. Smart aid would assist civil society in instigating institutional reform. Since this approach carries some risks, the same objective can be achieved by funneling aid through diaspora Africans and their organizations, as was the case with Soviet dissidents during the Cold War.

Africa’s long term growth prospects do not lie in rock concerts and increased dependency on Western aid but on the ability of the African people or civil society groups to instigate reform from within. Assistance to such groups – both at home and abroad – constitutes much smarter aid to Africa than all the LIVE AID concerts Bob Geldof can organize.
______________

The writer, a native of Ghana, is a Distinguished Economist at American University and President of the Free Africa Foundation. His new book is Africa Unchained (Palgrave/MacMillan). This article is culled from his May 10 testimony before the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate of Canada.

Democrats Host Union-Bashers
by Candi Peterson
published in Labor Notes Magazine , No. 355 October 2008

Here in Washington, DC schools chief Michelle Rhee contends that her education reform plan will be done either with teachers - or to teachers. She argues that urban schools do poorly due to union contracts that prevent schools from firing bad teachers. Teachers' seniority rights, she says, stand in the way of the best education for our children.

Odd Bedfellows
Rhee and DC Mayor Adrian Fenty were invited to a forum before the Democratic National Convention in Denver last August to sell their management scam. They appeared with N.Y. Chancellor Joel Klein and Reverend Al Sharpton for a panel discussion that bashed teachers unions.

These self-styled education reformers can't document a case where slashing teacher seniority and tenure has led to higher student achievement. The platform presented at the Denver forum clashes with the Democrats' historical alliance with teachers union and stated commitment to workers' rights.

In Rhee's typical style, she vowed to impose her educational reform if contract talks with the union continue to stall. This doesn't fit the Democrats, which claim support for teachers unions and public education.

These anti-union plans support more privatization and outsourcing of public education while gutting hard-earned job protections. In exchange, teachers would be bought off with hefty raises and bonuses.

Fight Under-Funding, Not Teachers
Rhee and the people who invited her to speak before a crowd of Democrats, whose convention delegates were 25 percent union members, need to refocus. If half of the energy they spend fighting teachers went to fighting the under-funding of public education and budget cuts, our children would be much better off.

The nationwide assault on teachers unions from corporations and conservatives has intensified in recent years. N.Y. public schools have doled out millions of dollars to private contractors. DC is following suit, and millions more will be spent on hefty contracts with groups such as Teach for America and New Teacher Project - an approach that encourages a teaching force that will have a high turnover rate and an equally high number of novice teachers.

Without teachers unions and experienced teachers who are willing to speak out against budget cuts, understaffed schools, high-stakes testing and unsound educational practices, schools may become the personal plantations of principals beholden to corporate forces.

Our union allows us to pool our resources, knowledge and lobbying power to ensure better working conditions and better schools, and fight off attacks like the one we face in DC.

A Political Battle
The major party alternative to the Denver forum is certainly no better. Senator McCain regularly bashes teachers and public education. He supports private vouchers with no proven track record for raising student achievement. Obama meanwhile supports a compensation package developed with teachers, not imposed on them, and has said he would close failing charter schools. Rather than blaming teachers for the ills of our education system, he pledges more funding for public education.

For a long time, the obstacle to school reform has been political. We know how to make schools better. But we simply have not had political backing to separate education funding from local property taxes, which guarantees abundance for some schools and poverty for others. Seeing Rhee's deeply misguided ideas trumpeted in front of Democratic audiences makes one wonder which direction the party is heading. Posted by The Washington Teacher.

This opinion article appeared in the Cornell Daily Sun and explains why students from Cornell University protested Rhee's speech.  

It has been a struggle for me to write about the financial reform bill, and I haven't commented before on it yet. But yesterday I came across an excellent article in the Washington Independent called A Guide to the Tangled Financial Reform Bill which breaks down each important provision of the proposed financial reform bill and attempts to give a balanced analysis of it. I urge you all to read this article before making any further thoughts or opinions on the bill- whether you are Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, it is important to look at the world around you with good information and analysis, which this article provides.

Here are the best pieces (edited and shortened by me) of the article A Guide to the Tangled Financial Reform Bill:

Audit the Fed. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is more than double its size before the financial crisis — swollen with $1.1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities purchased from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plus toxic assets from failed companies like Bear Sterns — and a bipartisan group of senators want to force a thorough independent audit of the Fed’s books. A strong provision did not make it into the final Senate legislation.

End too big to fail by capping bank size. Dodd’s bill as currently written gives the Federal Reserve and other regulators the ability to seize and break up financial firms it deems systemically important and systemically dangerous. But that is meant only as a “last resort,” and members of both parties consider the language too wan. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) last week introduced the Safe Banking Act, which they plan to offer as an amendment to the Dodd bill. It mandates hard leverage and size caps on banks and other financial firms; limits commercial banks’ assets to 2 percent of GDP and non-banks’ assets to 3 percent; and imposes a 16-to-1 leverage cap, among other provisions.

Reinstitute Glass-Steagall provisions. Another popular way to effectively limit bank size is to return to the Depression-era Glass-Steagall rules. The Glass-Steagall Act, mostly repealed in 1999, prevented banks from having both commercial and investment banking arms — as, for instance, J.P. Morgan Chase does today. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plan to introduce an amendment reintroducing the rule and thus requiring big, diversified banks to split themselves up. Shelby, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) also support the measure.

An effectively similar, if functionally different, way of breaking up banks or limiting their size is by instituting the Volcker Rule — which bars banks from speculating with their own money by “prop trading” or investing in hedge funds. The current Dodd bill promises to institute something like the Volcker Rule, creating a commission to look at how to institute it down the road. But Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have ready a measure introducing a more-stringent version immediately.

Fix the ratings agencies. The Dodd bill does little to fix the credit ratings agencies, whose profligate stamping of AAA ratings on collapsing subprime mortgage-backed securities helped to stoke the crisis. (The companies have a conflict of interest at the core of their business, in that they are paid by the companies whose securities they rate.) The Dodd bill creates a new office at the Securities and Exchange Commission to look closely at credit ratings agencies — but does little more to further reform them. Numerous Democratic senators have cited the issue as a major weakness in the bill, and Senate staffers say it is unlikely to go unchanged. Sanders has said he will introduce new language to strengthen oversight over and regulation of the agencies.

Guarantee no taxpayer money will go to bank bailouts. Republicans have derided the Dodd bill’s resolution authority fund — wherein the government will tax $50 billion from the banks, creating a pool of cash to be used by the Federal Reserve to shut down failing firms — as creating “permanent bailouts.” GOP politicians including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have cited it as a major point of contention. But Senate staffers say that rather than killing the resolution-authority fund, Republicans want language explicitly guaranteeing taxpayers will not be on the hook for future bailouts.

Keep the Fed the regulator of little banks. Under the Dodd bill, the Federal Reserve would have oversight only of banks with more than $50 billion in assets. But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) oppose this measure and want the Fed to have oversight of small banks as well — ensuring that the Fed does not become overly concerned with the business of big banks and ensuring that it keeps an eye on the small financial companies that can be the bellwether of bad economic times. Hutchison has said she plans to “certainly have an amendment that assures that state banks and community banks will be able to have access to be members of the Federal Reserve.”

Make the Consumer Financial Protection Agency truly independent. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) has promised to introduce amendment moving the Consumer Financial Protection Agency outside of the Fed.

Improve hedge fund reporting. Reed also plans to introduce an amendment closing a loophole in the Dodd bill that might let some private equity firms, venture capital firms, and hedge funds avoid registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This is a reminder that whatever the original bill that the Democrats brought to the floor, what matters is the bill that is passed at the end (and I don't mean by 'the end' when it passes the House and Senate and is signed by the President- now that Democrats run things in DC, that outdated model of passing legislation isn't followed and instead they deem things passed and then our dear leader runs things, and that is what I men by 'the end').

Democrat President Barack Obama's economic programs can be best called "The Inside Deal." There is a long history of 'deals' in our nation, where the government expands unconstitutionally into areas where it is not supposed to be and crowds out human freedom and industry. These deals all have cool names- Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society- and as Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have jammed through considerable changes in our nation over the last year, it is appropriate that we give a name to Obama's economic policies. I hearby submit to the world that we call Obama's economic programs "The Inside Deal."

The Inside Deal is Democratic President Barack Obama's domestic economic program and is characterized by extensive government spending for politically connected groups within American society. It is aimed to reward those groups that supported Obama's campaign for the Presidency in 2010, such as labor unions, public employee unions, teachers unions, environmentalists, anti-war protesters, Wall Street, and big businesses. Some of the programs that were passed by the Democratic Congress at the time to reward these groups include the stimulus bill, the healthcare bill, and massive annual budgets.

Increasingly during the height of the Inside Deal, there is a link between who receives taxpayer money from the federal government and their political connections. Called by some crony capitalism, it is increasingly unpopular, and in the face of continuing recession in spite of (or because of) the massive deficits that marked the Inside Deal, this program was largely overturned by Republican Congressional majorities and Presidents from 2010-2020 (hopefully).

Hopefully someone will soon create a wikipedia article on this, describing Obama's Inside Deal in more depth.

The first 'deal' that was made between government and America where citizens traded their rights and liberties for the promise of 'progress' was the Square Deal. The Square Deal was Republican President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking the plutocracy and trusts through rhetoric and expansions of federal power while at the same time protecting business from the extreme demands of the rising communists.

Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had The New Deal. This was a series of economic programs passed by Congress from 1933 to his reelection in 1936. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform. That is, relief for the unemployed and poor; recovery of the economy to normal levels; and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. To see a list of some of the programs that comprise FDR's New Deal, see my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong.

The next 'deal' was offered by Democrat President Harry Truman, who presented a 21 point program of domestic legislation outlining a series of proposed actions in the fields of economic development and social welfare, including the call for universal health care. But in the face of peace and rising prosperity, the country decided that it didn't want to accept this deal, and the boom times of the 1950's and 1960's followed.

But Democrat Lyndon Johnson was inspired by the Fair Deal, and when he became President, he tried once again to make a deal between government and society whereby people would trade their individual rights and freedoms and liberties for some sense of 'fairness' in society. He called his 'deal' the Great Society. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The federal government has since spent trillions of dollars on these issues, and education, healthcare, urban areas, and transportation systems are now much worse today then they would have been if the federal government would not have stuck its nose into those areas and let human ingenuity and freedom and industry work unchained and untaxed.

Obama's Inside Deal represents then just the latest in a long line of usurpation's that have the goal of reducing our rights to life, liberty, and protection of property. Like our forefathers before, it is up to us to fight and overturn these injustices, least we be reduced to a state of tyranny.

Look at this group- is this an angry mob of hateful racist people, as some liberals liken these groups to be? No- this is America- waving flags, loving liberty and freedom, and opposing Obama's government takeover of healthcare.
I've got more pictures- I will update a little later showing you some of the for and against posters, and also record some of my thoughts and impressions, as I frequently engaged supporters of Obamacare in debate and discussion. Enjoy for now!

UPDATE I: As some of you might have picked up on from my earlier posts about going to protests, I enjoy talking to supporters of Obamacare. My hope is that through discussion and conversation, I can introduce doubt into their belief system and put that little bug of freedom and liberty in their brains and hearts. Some people who support Obama are too far gone to even try- one guy told me to go back to torturing innocent people and invading law-abiding countries- I assume that he was referring to the enhanced interrogation techniques of terrorists and the War on Iraq, but regardless, he is too far gone down the path for me to talk to.

One of the frequent arguments that liberals trotted out was that healthcare was a right. I've already blogged about my thoughts on this, and tried to bring them up to Obamacare supporters- that healthcare is not a right. Several told me that my ideas about rights were outdated and no longer correct- that rights come from government and are the same thing as entitlements. That they believe this makes me sad.

Another argument that was frequently advanced (and the good thing about liberals is that they are all working off of the same playbook and always fall back on the same talking points) was that people accept fire departments, and police, and schools, and libraries, so why not give the government the power over healthcare too? I responded by saying that those were given to local and state government, not national government, and they said that didn't matter, that the federal government now runs everything, as it should- they openly laughed at the principle of federalism. I asked where does it stop then- what do we not give to the government? The supporters of Obamacare said 'somewhere', but I got the feeling that they would be willing to give the government the power over every aspect of your life.

See, this is not a debate about healthcare- this is a debate about the very nature of government- when pressed, liberals fall back on their belief system in government control, and the details no longer matter any more.

UPDATE II: Here are some pictures of some of the posters of those who oppose Obamacare. Notice how almost all are homemade, and they each advance a different and unique argument against national socialized control of healthcare.

The poster in this picture says "Give me Liberty, Not Debt":

The poster in this picture says "Congress is the problem":

This gentleman's sign says "Question Boldly, Demand Answers"- always good advice when the government is trying to nationalized 1/4 of the economy- it's surprising that people were shouting at him and one guy in all black even gave him the finger:


UPDATE III: Anyone who was at this event noticed right away that it was heavily astroturfed by liberal Democrats supporting Obamacare. There were two varieties of posters that they carried. The first that I will show you a picture of was paid for by Health Care for America NOW! This interest group looks like a group that the President of the United States is actively supporting (at least its website claims this), and kind of looks like a Moveon.org/George-Sorus funded clone. Here is the sign they provided for this event- there were about 50 like this- it says "Standing Together for Health Insurance Reform":

The other major variety of sign that was found at this healthcare rally is seen below. There were over 30 of these signs that I counted, and they were all carried by a group standing near the front of the line to get in. They all were on the same posterboard material, the same handwriting in the same colors, and all parroting similar messages. I asked one of the people carrying the sign where he got it- he said he made it himself. I asked if he made all the rest- he said that each one was made my the individual carrying it. I didn't call him a liar then because I wanted to be polite, but I'll say it now- he was an astroturfing liar, as you can see by this picture. No signs were allowed in the townhall, and so here is the pile of them outside. The slogans on these signs say "Equal Care 4 All," "Rich Grannies for Healthcare Reform Now," "Hate Kills and Care Cures," "Republicans Lie," etc.:

Thanks to the Detroit News, I figured out who produced all of these signs. According to the article in the newspaper, these signs were produced by a lady named Karen MacKenzie. According to Open Secrets, she lives in Northville, which is not part of Peter's district. Tsk-tsk- the invite said 'constituents only', Ms. MacKenzie. Oh, I also notice that she is married to an activist judge in Oakland County who is chair of the local Sierra Club. This information was pulled off later versions of the Detroit News story.

Also, speaking about the MSM, they got it all wrong as always. The Detroit News says "about 200 who weren't allowed into the full auditorium milled around outside during the forum"- as you can see from the video and pictures, there was well over 200 people- I estimate that about 800 people didn't get in, and 3 hours after they didn't get in, there was still over 200 people outside. And they weren't 'milling around' any more than our patriot forefathers 'milled around' during their civic protests. Thank you MSM for slighting and miscounting all of those who showed up for this event but couldn't get in.

UPDATE IV: Welcome readers of Pundit & Pundette, Gateway Pundit, Right Michigan, Motor City Times, Vox Popoli, The Other Club, Critical Narrative, and The Blog Prof. This post is simply a journalism-style post- be sure to enjoy while you are here my other posts on education, the environment, and other political issues.

UPDATE V: Here is another picture of an Obamacare supporter. I've talked to this lady previously- see my post The People vs a Person for more on that encounter, but this time I simply took a picture of her with her sign. It reads "Dems Won, GOP Lost, Healthcare NOW." When I asked her what her sign meant, she said that once the Democrats won control of Congress and the President, it gave them the authority to pass any laws that they wanted, without regard to the Constitution or minority rights. I informed her that 'we won and now can do whatever we want to you' is the justification for dictators and bad guys- she said she didn't care, that's the logic she wanted to use. Understand this- the loudest liberal supporters of Obamacare on the front lines of this debate are not really even hiding their support for a fascist dictatorship. Are you hiding your opposition to it? Here is the sign:

In politics, a mandate is the authority granted by a constituency to act as its representative. The concept of a government having a legitimate mandate to govern via the fair winning of a democratic election is a central idea of democracy. New governments who attempt to introduce policies that they did not make public during an election campaign are said to not have a legitimate mandate to implement such policies.

Barack Obama does not have a legitimate mandate to pass health care reform. After announcing this policy initiative, the polling data has revealed that America does not want it. The townhalls that were held to discuss his health care reform proposals turned into angry mobs. In almost every election held since Obama announced his desire to reform health care, his supporters have been shockingly destroyed. Tea parties are held in every district in every state in the nation, each month or week. President Obama does not have the just authority to pass health care reform, and because of this, he should not.

And yet, in spite of this evidence, President Barack Obama is upping the ante on health care. On the eve of sitting down with Republicans to discuss health care and how bipartisan compromises can be reached through discussion and deliberation, he dropped his new health care proposal on the nation, and it is even worse than anything that has come before it. Although it keeps with this administration's policy of not being transparent and having few details, what has been released by Obama is an even larger, more expensive, more insulting version of the Senate version that never was passed before.

More spending, more subsidies, and more taxes. That's not what the American people elected Obama for. Go back and watch his campaign commercials. Read the interviews from people who voted for Obama. Watch the debates again. Obama dodged and ducked and muddled, but people thought he was clear enough when he promised to cut spending, cut subsidies, cut corruption, cut earmarks, cut taxes, engage in bipartisanship, and be transparent with policy creation. Instead though, he has doubled down on everything bad and wrong about American politics- whatever voters didn't like about Bush, Obama has doubled down, and doubled down again, and when told by the American people to stop, he has doubled down again.

The central idea of a democracy and the basis of legitimacy to rule in a democracy is having politicians that listen to the voters and do what they want. But Obama does not like democracy, perhaps because he was not raised in a nation that values it, and Obama is losing his legitimacy to rule. Probably a better word for Obama is tyrannus, meaning illegitimate ruler- Obama increasingly displays the habits and methods of a harsh and cruel ruler who places his or her own interests ahead of those of the American people.

Africa has long been saddled with poor,even malevolent, leadership: predatory kleptocrats, military-installed autocrats,economic illiterates, and puffed-up posturers. By far the most egregious examples come from Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zimbabwe—countries that have been run into the ground despite their abundant natural resources. But these cases are by no means unrepresentative: by some measures, 90 percent of sub-Saharan African nations have experienced despotic rule in the last three decades. Such leaders use power as an end in itself, rather than for the public good; they are indifferent to the progress of their citizens (although anxious to receive their adulation); they are unswayed by reason and employ poisonous social or racial ideologies; and they are hypocrites, always shifting blame for their countries’ distress. Under the stewardship of these leaders,infrastructure in many African countries has fallen into disrepair, currencies have depreciated, and real prices have inflated dramatically, while job availability,health care, education standards, and life expectancy have declined. Ordinary life has become beleaguered: general security has deteriorated, crime and corruption have increased, much-needed public funds have flowed into hidden bank accounts, and offcially sanctioned ethnic discrimination—sometimes resulting in civil war—has become prevalent. This depressing picture is brought into even sharper relief by the few but striking examples of effective African leadership in recent decades. These leaders stand out because of their strength of character, their adherence to the principles of participatory democracy, and their ability to overcome deep-rooted challenges. The government of Mozambique, for example, brought about economic growth rates of more than ten percent between 1996 and 2003, following the economic catastrophe wrought by that country’s civil war (which ended in 1992). And in Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki has strengthened civil society, invested in education, and removed barriers to economic entrepreneurship instated during the repressive rule of Daniel arap Moi.The best example of good leadership in Africa is Botswana. Long before diamonds were discovered there, this former desert protectorate, which was neglected by the British under colonialism, demonstrated a knack for participatory democracy, integrity, tolerance, entrepreneurship, and the rule of law. The country has remained democratic in spirit as well as form continuously since its independence in 1966—an unmatched record in Africa. It has also defended human rights, encouraged civil liberties, and actively promoted its citizens’ social and economic development.
GOOD APPLES
What has enabled Botswana to succeed where so many other African nations have failed? Some observers point to the relative linguistic homogeneity of the country. But Somalia, which remains unstable despite a similar uniformity, shows that this factor is far from sufficient.Others point to the century-old teachings of the congregational London Missionary Society—the peaceful, pragmatic outlook that is inextricably bound up in the country’s political culture. But this explanation also fails to explain why the same positive effects have not been witnessed in other countries with a history of Christian teaching, such as in neighboring Zambia. Nor are Botswana’s plentiful diamond reserves responsible:Angola, Gabon, and Nigeria all have abundant natural resources, but none has seen comparable returns for its people.It is Botswana’s history of visionary leadership, especially in the years following independence, that best explains its success. Sir Seretse Khama, Botswana’s founding president, came from a family of Bamangwato chiefs well regarded for their benevolence and integrity.
When Khama founded the Botswana Democratic Party in 1961 and led his country to independence, he was already dedicated to the principles of deliberative democracy and market economy that would allow his young country to flourish. Modest, unostentatious as a leader, and a genuine believer in popular rule, Khama forged a participatory and law-respecting political culture that has endured under his successors, Sir Ketumile Masire and Festus Mogae. Although operating in very differerent circumstances, Mauritius’ first leader,Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, held to the same leadership codes as Khama.Ramgoolam gave Mauritius a robust democratic beginning, which has been sustained by a series of wise successors from different backgrounds and parties.Both Khama and Ramgoolam could have emulated many of their contemporaries by establishing strong, single-man, kleptocratic regimes. But they refused to do so.Effective leadership has proved the decisive factor in South Africa, too: without Nelson Mandela’s inclusive and visionary leadership, his adherence to the rule of law, his insistence on broadening the delivery of essential services, and his emphasis on moving from a commandeconomy toward a market-driven one, South Africa would probably have emerged from apartheid as a far more fractured and autocratic state than it did.Too few African leaders have followed the examples of Mandela, Khama, and foreign affairs . Ramgoolam. Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, and Senegal are all showing promise. But in many other African countries,leaders have begun their presidential careers as democrats only to end up, a term or two later, as corrupt autocrats: Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, Moi of Kenya,and, most dramatically of all, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Other leaders, such as Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, may be heading in the same direction.
A BOLD INITIATIVE
To build on the positive leadership examples, a select group of prominent past and present African leaders who met over the last year decided to confront the continent’s pathology of poor leadership with deeds as well as words. At the conclusion of a series of private meetings(the final one of which was held in Mombasa, Kenya), they established the African Leadership Council, promulgated a Code of African Leadership with 23 commandments, issued a Mombasa Declaration promoting better leadership,and proposed a series of courses to train their political successors in the art of good government.Members of the council believe that absolute standards of leadership are both appropriate and attainable. Good leaders deliver security of the state and of the person, the rule of law, good education and health services, and a framework conducive to economic growth. They ensure effective arteries of commerce and enshrine personal and human freedoms. They empower civil society and protect the environmental commons. Crucially, good leaders also provide their citizens with a sense of belonging to a national enterprise. Conscious that Africa’s poor are getting poorer and that good governance is essential for successful economic development, the council sees itself at
the vanguard of fundamental reform in the continent. Its approach certainly goes far beyond the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (nepad) and proposals for the African Union. The Code of African Leadership, for example, says in its first commandment that leaders should “offer a coherent vision of individual growth and national advancement with justice and dignity for all,” implying that most leaders today do not. Other commandments demand that African leaders encourage “broad participation,” adhere to the letter and spirit of their national constitutions (especially term limits), encourage dissent and disagreement, respect human rights and civil liberties, strengthen the rule of law, promote policies that eradicate poverty and improve the wellbeing of their citizens, ensure a strong code of ethics, refuse to use their offices
for personal gain, oppose corruption, and bolster essential personal freedoms. This uncommonly bold agenda seeks to avoid renewed patrimonial leadership debacles, such as those presided over by Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Moi in Kenya, Idi Amin in Uganda, and Jean-Bedel Bokassa in the Central African Republic. The council is highly conscious,too, of the hijacking of Zimbabwe’s government by Mugabe, which has resulted in starvation and drastically reduced living standards.The council is chaired by former President Sir Ketumile Masire of Botswana and includes former Nigerian head of state General Yakubu Gowon,Vice President Moody Awori of Kenya, former Prime Minister Hage Geingob of Namibia, and a dozen other present and former prime ministers and cabinet ministers from Sierra Leone to Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. All are regarded throughout Africa as men of unusual personal probity and esteem and as accomplished proponents of good governance. The council intends to recruit additional members from the ranks of Africa’s outstanding democratic leaders, Francophone and Anglophone, female and male. Together they will serve the continent by advising international organizations, individual countries, and donor agencies on how to improve leadership. The group stands ready to assist civil societies in countries undergoing serious leadership crises. It will also urge greedy national leaders to attack corrupt practices and adhere to term limits (the current presidents of Gabon, Malawi, Namibia,Uganda, and Zambia, for example, have all had pangs of desire for illegal third terms). Next year(2005), it expects to begin holding special seminars for cabinet ministers and others. The council’s curriculum emphasizes constitutionalism, the rule of law, ethics, accountability,diversity, good fiscal management, coalition building, and the fundamentals of modern micro- and macroeconomics. Training courses will soon be launched.Whether the efforts of the African Leadership Council will reduce bloodshed,diminish corruption, and encourage more prosperity for citizens across Africa is by no means certain. But as a unique African response to the continent’s immense needs, this innovative endeavor is a promising, dramatic step forward.

By
Robert I. Rotberg

Reprinted with permission
Copyrighted 2004 Council on Foreign relations Inc. All Rights Reserved

Catherine Kuchta-Helbling writes

Emerging democracies and economies are struggling to provide their citizens with better lives marked by political participation and economic prosperity. Yet, excessively high transaction costs hinder such efforts. Making this aspiration a reality hinges on instituting democratic governance in the public and private sectors. Such a change will contribute to more responsive policies and will increase efficiency, transparency, accountability, and growth, as well as reduce corruption. Moreover, if citizens are granted a greater voice in the reform process, they will gain a sense of ownership over reform measures. This will strengthen democracy and help to build a broader pro-reform constituency essential to consolidate political and economic reforms.

via CIPE

Erica Poff writing in CIPE:

...the untold story in Ethiopia is what’s going on outside of Addis Ababa, where a challenged but vibrant private sector is taking the lead in promoting economic sustainability by advocating for democratic reform.
Despite increased restrictions on media, independent radio programs in the rural northern region regularly broadcast programs directed to the business community to provide them access to information on the business environment and how they can effectively advocate for needed reforms in their local government. One such radio program in Mekelle, the Voice of the Mekelle Chamber, inspired the successful advocacy efforts by the Mekelle business community to encourage the local government to develop better, more transparent tax rates.

You're Invited !

Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain presents A Forum on Education Reform. Please join the Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain slate of candidates for the DC Democratic State Committee for an Issue Forum discussing Education Reform in Washington, DC. Hear from experts and local officials, and share your thoughts on how to improve the school system to bolster the chances of success for DC youth.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008
6:00 to 8:30 PM

Location:
Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School
2427 Martin Luther King Ave. SE (across from Anacostia metro station)

Panelists: Nathan A. Saunders, Tanya Kinlow, William Lockridge, Jeffry Richardson, Carl Thomas, Kathy Pearson-West, and a representative from the Office of Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee.

Nathan Saunders is the General Vice President of the Washington Teacher's Union. Tanya Kinlow a former school board member is now an ombudsman for the District of Columbia Public Schools ,William Lockride, a school board member and Kathy Pearson-West, a long time educational advocate and parent.

Endorsed by DC Vote - Posted by Candi

Via RealClearPolitics, Mike Allen broke this disgusting story yesterday:

Phil Schiliro, the White House congressional liaison, has told the Senate to aim to take up an energy bill the week of July 12, after the July 4 break (and after the scheduled final passage of Wall Street reform). Kagan confirmation will follow, ahead of the summer break, scheduled to begin Aug. 9. The plan is to conference the new Senate bill with the already-passed House bill IN A LAME-DUCK SESSION AFTER THE ELECTION, so House members don't ave to take another tough vote ahead of midterms.

A White House aide has the official word: "President Obama reiterated his call for comprehensive energy and climate legislation to break our dependence on oil and fossil fuels. In the coming weeks he will be reaching out to Senators on both sides of the aisle to chart a path forward. A number of proposals have been put forward from Members on both sides of the aisle. We're open to good ideas from all sources, and will be working with Senators on a comprehensive proposal. The tragedy in the Gulf underscores the need to move quickly, and the President is committed to finding the votes for comprehensive energy legislation this year."

Gary Peters, Democrats in Congress, and Democratic President Barack Obama know that the people don't want this cap-and-tax bill passed. They know without a certainty of a doubt that the voters DO NOT want the bill. The will of the people has been clearly expressed to them, and the Democrats totally understand that there is no way that voters want anything to do with this bill. And yet they intend on passing it anyway.

If you tell someone not to do something, you demonstrate through actions (like an election) that you don't want someone to do something, and then they look at you and do it anyways, what are they telling you? Gary Peters, Democratic Congressman from Michigan's 9th District, is telling his constituents "screw you." Barack Obama, Democratic President, is telling the people of the United States "screw you." They know that people don't want the bill passed, and yet are going to pass it anyway, in defiance of the public will, in disregard to the public will, and in disrespect to the public will.

This isn't Bush surging troops in Iraq when the 'public was against it'- polling data was pretty inconclusive on the War in Iraq, and if it was unpopular, it was marginally so (although vocally so in a certain segment of the population). And Bush was proud of the surge- he thought it would work and that voters would reward his party in the coming elections from its success (it did work but voters are idiots and punished him for winning an 'unwinnable' war). The cap and tax bill is different- voters are solidly against it , and have been for a long time, and in a consistent manner, and getting more and more against, and Democrats know it won't work, are not proud of it, and don't want to run on its success because they know it is going to be a failure. And yet they'll pass it anyway.

"Screw you America" is the new slogan of the Democrats. I'm not going to take this any more- everyone in my Congressman's district needs to know that this is how the Democrats think. Throw the bums out.

Michelle A. Rhee is the former chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools system of Washington, D.C. From 2007 to her resignation in October of 2010, she aggressively sought to reform the D.C. school system by closing schools, adding early-childhood programs for the gifted and talented, adding programs for art and music classes, adding special education services to District schools, fired several central district administrators and school principals, and passed a contract with teachers that traded weaker tenure protection for higher bonuses.

The results? In the two years that we have data (2008 and 2009), the graduation rates increased by 6%, reading pass rates had increased by 14 percentage points, math pass rates had increased by 17 percentage points, and enrollment decreased by only one percent (which was a slower decline than prior years).

The results? Rhee's approval ratings decreased from 59% to 43% from 2008-2009, parents began complaining, teachers fought her tooth and nail, the media turned on her, political support fell out from under her, her co-workers increasingly threw her under the bus, and the teachers union even went so far as to demand that Rhee apologize for her actions.

The results? Adrian Fenty, the mayor who had nominated her and stood by her lost his re-election bid in the 2010 Democratic primary election, to Vincent Gray, who was a community activist strongly supported by the teachers union. After this, Michelle Rhee resigned from her position, feeling both that the incoming mayor should be able to appoint a new chancellor and that she was doing more harm than good in her current position.

That's the story of Michelle Rhee, boys and girls, and is a good lesson for the challenges that those who want to reform the system faced. She gave more money to good teachers, got better results, cut out the inefficient and wasteful parasites in the educational system, graduated more students, and shook up a culture- and because of that, she and her supporters were punished. The Democrats, the teachers union, and the media had a chance to continue the progress, to give real reform a chance, but instead decided to support the parasites in the central office, support the bad and lazy and unqualified teachers in the system, and punish success. That's what we are up against as teachers, and that is why I blog.

Check out these books on Michelle Rhee: THE BEE EATER: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation's Worst School DIstrict and American School Administrators: Michelle Rhee.