Honoring Service

My grandfather was a World War II veteran.  He was married and actually too old for the draft when the war started, but he enlisted and served honorably.  My father is an Air Force vet, and I have friends who served in the military, including one who was a Korean War veteran.  I am grateful for their service.

In high school and college I was truly ignorant of the importance place our veterans hold in our country’s history.  I wasn’t taught these things in school, if anything it was the opposite.  I came into adulthood at a low ebb for our military, and believed it wasn’t for me.  Now I understand better, and I wish…

The Last American President

This item about President and Mrs. Bush’s secret visit with the families and the wounded at Fort Hood just came across my desk.  A great picture, and one more bit of evidence of the Bush family’s true legacy:  When the elder President Bush once said that he was seeking a “kindler, gentler America” he really meant it with all of his heart – and he taught his children the same sort of quiet compassion.

President Obama – Cure for Bush Derangement Syndrome?

Well, one good thing

about President Barack Hussein Obama

is that those who suffered for eight years from

“Bush Derangement Syndrome” (BDS)

have now been…

Happy Anniversary!

We designated conservatives must be a light in the darkness, wherever we may be.

I live in a one-party neighborhood in a one-party community. All local elections are settled in the Democratic Party primary, not in the general election.  The last Republican to hold local elective office here was booted out more than 20 years ago.

Am I discouraged?

These are NOT Your Parents’ Public Schools

Public schools today are not the same places American children attended in the 1940s or 50s.  They are alien environments to those that went through school in the 1960s and 70s.  While vaguely familiar, they are still quite mutated from the educational environment of even the 1980s. …And not for the better!

A Conservative Teacher offers an insider’s view of public education with a pair of excellent, in-depth articles on how public schools work today, and how public education policy is created in Michigan. With our recent election battle over school funding in Washtenaw County, this Designated Conservative thought that A Conservative Teacher’s comments were right on point.  Here are some excerpts (click here or on the headlines to read the entire articles):

Send a Message: Vote “No!” on the proposed Washtenaw County Intermediate School District’s “Enhancement” Millage

VICTORY UPDATE: Washtenaw County’s Taxation without Representation

To our liberal, teachers union friends who spouted gloom and doom if this WISD millage failed:

24,114 residents of Washtenaw County voted for the WISD millage for public schools yesterday.  Now, this designated conservative suspects that they were voting for a tax hike on the assumption that other “rich people” would pay the bill, but in the hope that they were willing to put up their share I offer the following suggestion:

If all 24,114 “yes” voters each donated just the $200 per year that they said the tax would cost the average county homeowner, they alone would provide over 80% of the $30,000,000 that this new tax was projected to provide to the schools.  Considering that this voluntary method would minimize collection/administration costs associated with the tax process, I suspect that their voluntary contributions would actually provide MORE funds to the schools than any tax.  Come on “yes” voters – it’s time to get your checkbooks out and support the schools!

THANK YOU!

To all our designated conservative friends in Washtenaw County, thank you for coming out yesterday in overwhelming numbers to say “NO!” to the flawed WISD “enhancement millage!  Thank you to all those that spearheaded the “Vote No” campaign!  Great job.

Now comes the hard part:  It’s time for designated conservatives to step in and lead our local public schools away out of the slow-death spiral the Michigan Education Association (MEA)-sponsored “leaders” have created for our children and grandchildren.

This Designated Conservative encourages like-minded folks to write to your school board members, district superintendents, and elected state representatives and tell them the unaccountable tax-and-spend, “this is the way we’ve always done things” mentality is no longer acceptable if we are to have a strong and vibrant public school system in Michigan:

10,000

The Designated Conservative would like to thank our loyal readers for carrying this blog up and over a significant threshold: 10,000 pageviews.

For a young blog born less than a year ago in the disheartening aftermath of a disastrous Presidential campaign, it’s great to have garnered so much interest.

I would also like to thank President Obama for helping to keep our material fresh and interesting.

Some of the best Obamanation posts can be found…

From The Onion? VIDEO UPDATE: Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize and More!

UPDATE 4:  MORE BREAKING NOBELOBAMA NEWS!

Obama fails to win Nobel prize in economics

An excerpt from Marketwatch.com:

LONDON (MarketWatch) — In a decision as shocking as Friday’s surprise peace prize win, President Obama failed to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Monday.

While few observers think Obama has done anything for world peace in the nearly nine months he’s been in office, the same clearly can’t be said for economics.

The president has worked tirelessly since even before his inauguration to wrest control of the U.S. economy from failed free markets, and the evil CEOs who profit from them, and to turn it over to wise, fair and benevolent bureaucrats.

From his $787 billion stimulus package, to the cap-and-trade bill, to the seizures of General Motors and Chrysler, to the undead health-care “reform” act, Obama has dominated the U.S., and therefore the global, economy as few figures have in recent years.

ORIGINAL POST:

From Reuters:

Obama is surprise winner of Nobel Peace Prize

Fri Oct 9, 2009 11:45am EDT

By Matt Spetalnick and Wojciech Moskwa

WASHINGTON/OSLO (Reuters) – Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision that honored the first-year U.S. president more for promise than achievement and drew both praise and skepticism around the world.

The bestowal of one of the world’s top accolades on a president less than nine months in office, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo.

Obama said he felt humbled and unworthy of being counted in the company of the “transformative figures” of history who had won the prize.

“I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership,” he said, speaking in the White House Rose Garden. “I will accept this award as a call to action.”

If it looks, feels, and smells like a piece from The Onion, it must be so, right?

Sadly, it’s really true….

Nanny State Update: Michigan Dept. of Human Services Runs Amok

This is yet another embarrassment for Governor Granholm’s “nanny state” nannies at the Michigan Department of Human Services:

Michigan’s (R)-Lite Campaigners on Display

MidlandRepublican has posted video evidence on RightMichigan.com of candidate Rick Snyder’s blatant move to buy votes and manipulate the results of the straw poll at the Michigan Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island (click here to view the video).

It appears that Mr. Snyder’s own handlers are acting like he is a bit too (R)-lite of a candidate right now. Why bother going to the Republican Leadership Conference if you need to hire a bunch of college kids, pay for them to attend the conference, AND hold their room keys hostage to get their votes in the straw poll for MI Governor?

The Detroit News has weighed in on this topic with an article entitled, “Students’ Behavior at GOP Event Questioned.” Here’s an excerpt:

Questions continue to be raised about the behavior of college students at the state Republicans’ leadership conference on Mackinac Island with some asked to vow to vote for their candidates or risk losing their rooms and others charging that underage drinking was rampant.

Gubernatorial hopeful Rick Snyder has been accused of capturing the top spot in an exclusive Detroit News/WJR NewsTalk 760 AM straw poll during the Sept. 25-27 gathering by having students sign a letter vowing to vote for the Ann Arbor businessman in the poll or risk losing the free hotel rooms and island ferry rides.

Some of the hundreds of bright-green clad students who Snyder brought to the island were asked to sign a “contract” which reads, in part: “I have read the above and understand that my staying in a Rick for Michigan sponsored hotel room and traveling on a Rick for Michigan ferry is contingent upon voting for Rick Snyder in the straw poll.”

Snyder campaign spokesman Jake Suski said the form was created to help ferret out “infiltrators” from other campaigns who were trying to get a free trip and didn’t support Snyder.  He also noted the island was swarming with volunteers sent by other candidates, lobbying firms and the Republican Party.

“To come up with our group and not to support Rick or to support other candidates would have been…

The Next Attack on America

The Old Jarhead has posted an essay describing a hypothetical next attack by Al Qaeda on America.  I encourage every American to read this post.  Here is an excerpt:

Essay: The Next Terrorist Attack on America

The House that Americans Built

These are the rules that inspired the man who lives in the house that Americans built:

GM to Public: Mercury Switches in GM Clunkers ‘Not Our Problem’ Anymore

I understand that bankruptcy laws provide strong protections for the “new” GM against obligations incurred by the “old” GM, but this is ludicrous and short-sighted.

Perhaps the folks collecting “old” GM-manufactured mercury switches from these “cash-for-clunkers” cars should simply deliver the switches to the “new” GM HQ at the Renaissance Center in Detroit…. Either that or drop them off at local GM dealerships.

A little adverse publicity, and I suspect that it wouldn’t take long for the “new” GM to reverse course and be a good corporate citizen again!

A “new” GM spokesperson is quoted below as saying that GM (the “new” one) “has never produced vehicles with mercury switches and has no mercury switch responsibility under the terms of the bankruptcy court order.” That’s a statement only a lawyer or a government bureaucrat could love.  Unfortunately for the future of the Motor City (and the “new” GM), General Motors is now owned by the federal government and run by lawyers….

UPDATED: Healthcare is a Right? Since When?

“Rights” were once something retained by an educated citizenry, and the government was restrained by the Constitution from infringing upon those rights. Now, apparently, “rights” are things that the someone has and someone else wants, and the enraged citizenry demands that the federal government secure those “rights” for them.

Well, I want my…

UPDATED: Summarizing the ObamaCare Bill for Rep. John Conyers

UPDATE:

John Stossel and 20/20 explains CanadaCare (in words and images even a Congressman can understand), and why America’s private, profit-based, individual choice healthcare system breeds inovation and attracts people from Canada and around the world who can’t get care under their government-run, “free healthcare” systems:

Certain members of our Demcrat Congressional leadership seem to be having great difficulty distinguishing between paid union thugs and actual constituents. Some have taken to calling citizen participants in our democratic process (i.e. protesters at congressional town hall events) “mobs.” To help Rep. Conyers and others reacquaint themselves with their voters, here is a great post with lots of annotated pictures of the “mob.” (http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/meet-the-mob/)

ORIGINAL POST:

Muslim Principal vs. Christian Wrestling Coach

Disturbing news from the Thomas More Law Center:

Lawsuit Filed Against Dearborn Schools and Muslim Principal Over Firing of Legendary Christian Wrestling Coach

ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan announced today that a federal lawsuit has been filed against a Dearborn, Michigan high school, Fordson High School, and its Muslim principal, Imad Fadlallah, over the firing of Gerald Marszalek because of Marszalek’s connection to a Christian volunteer coach.

Marszalek, who had coached wrestling for 35 years, had achieved a legendary status in the wrestling community. Earning more that 450 wins, and sending numerous wrestlers to various collegiate programs, he was elected to the Michigan High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, named “Sportsman of the Year” by the All-American Athletic Association. Marszalek’s contract was not renewed because of his association with a Christian volunteer coach, Trey Hancock, who the principal accused of…

Students Accept Majority Tyranny

The following commentary about the state of learning and teaching of government and political science in our public schools (excerpt below) crossed the Designated Conservative’s digital desk this week.   It is another excellent posting by…

Fairness Doctrine Moment – a liberal perspective on American Independence

UPDATE:

This editorial cartoon came across the Designated Conservative’s digital desktop this afternoon.  More from the liberal left who don’t understand America:

Happy 233rd Birthday, America!

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events,

“I therefore solicit for your co-operation….”

The Designated Conservative received this “Urgent” email today.  After reading it, I must admit that this does sound serious, and the author certainly comes across as a sincere public servant……