Killing Homeschooling in Michigan – The Other Shoe to Drop in 2010?

This Designated Conservative received word last week from a legislative staffer in Lansing that the recently fast-tracked public school reform legislation will very likely be followed up in 2010 with bills aimed at significantly tightening homeschooling regulations in Michigan. No details are available, but…

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?

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….

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:

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:

Video Object Lesson for President Obama

Being President of the United States is a heady experience, and it can be very hard to stay humble and grounded – especially when a President comes into office with an excessively positive opinion of himself to start with…. Hopefully this video, once Homeland Security alerts him to it, will help our President stay more grounded in reality.

Please stay with it – the payoff is at the end:

You are here, Mr. President (on Earth that is – not the Moon!)

Barack Obama – Reducing Pennies from the Budget

Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor – Super Legislator?

The most important and lasting civil rights-related changes in the U.S. have come through either direct votes of the people, or through their representatives in state legislatures or the U.S. Congress. Examples include the Civil War-era constitutional amendments and Civil Rights Act of 1871, women’s sufferage (19th amendment), Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc.

What offends me as an American and a voter is when unelected judges short-circuit democracy by legislating from the bench.  When judges legislate from the bench we are as likely to get a Dred Scott-like decision as we are a Brown v. Board of Education one.  Anything that has to go through the scrutiny of a public vote or legislative action is more likely to stand the test of time.

I trust the people and our elected representatives far more than I trust our Supreme Court to make good law and public policy.  It is for this reason that I fear for my country and Constitution if…

The White House Issues Order Repealing the First Amendment

Another one bites the dust.  Yes, it’s time for President Obama to “explaniate” and “re-interpretate” the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the Obamanation.  As this Designated Conservative read the official White House blog posting below, I could almost hear the President saying: “It’s necessary in this period of national emergency to take bold action against the forces who would oppose me and what I know to be best for you.…”

Hot Air and Lost

WorldNetDaily posted this bit of Age of Obama/Bush Derangement Syndrome humor on their website this week (excerpt below):

It’s Your Fault, Republicans!

A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. She reduces her altitude and spots a man fishing from a boat below. She shouts to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consults his portable GPS and replies, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.”

She rolls her eyes and says, “You must be a Republican!”

“I am,” replies the man. “How did you know?”

Letter from a Dodge Dealer

This “letter to the editor” has been making it’s way around the blogosphere from a (soon to be ex-) Dodge dealer (thanks to President Obama’s “change”) .

Click on the picture to see the faces of 50 more fully employed people who will likely soon lose their jobs and associated health benefits, savings, and possibly homes because of the sort of “change” President Obama believes that our country deserves:

My name is George C. Joseph. I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.

We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people. We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month. All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community. We have strong local presence and stability.

I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees. Sunshine Dodge is my life.

On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that…

Bailout Nation ][: A Rise in Points Lifts All Students

This had the Designated Conservative rolling on the floor laughing this afternoon (excerpt below -click here to read the whole thing):

The Great Grade Bailout

Posted by Huston

There is a great inequity in justice in our public school systems.  I refer, of course, to the fact that some students have higher grades than others. This can only be the result of institutional disenfranchisement, and must be corrected by government intervention.  Besides, our nation’s future faces catastrophic academic failure if we don’t artificially prop it up now.

By which I mean,…

WND Tax-Dungeon Humor – New IRS ‘Short Form’

WorldNetDaily posted this bit of tax-dungeon humor on their website this week (excerpt below):

Paperwork reduction provision

New short form for Americans to file their tax documents

This is a new short form IRS document designed to simplify tax filing for anyone making up to $200,000 a year. 

DIRECTIONS:

Fill out Section A completely by truthfully answering the questions.  Fill out Section B completely by filling in the spaces.

SECTION A:

1. How much money do you have?________________

2. When can we come and pick it up? ______________

(click here to read the rest of the form)

Is THIS Why Obama is so Enamored with Lincoln?

The following is an extended excerpt from an item that crossed the Designated Conservative’s RSS Feed this afternoon from Connor’s Conundrums (click here to read the whole piece).  I disagree with his conclusion about Mr. Lincoln, but he makes a compelling argument about the origins of our Obamiforous federal government (emphasis and bullet points are mine).

When one considers that President Obama styles himself as a more hip student of Lincoln, it raises the question: 

President Obama vs. Somali Pirates – Point to the Pirates

The real story of Obama’s decisionmaking with the hostages off Somalia

UPDATE:  …and our first confirmation of the accuracy of the excerpt below comes from Joseph Farah at WorldNetDaily.  Click here to read his story entitled “How Obama actually delayed pirate rescue:  SEAL team deployment stalled 36 hours, hampered by limited rules of engagement.”

ORIGINAL POSTING:

The following stuff came across this designated conservative’s RSS feed this morning, courtesy of Atlas Shrugs, floppingaces.net, something called baylorfans, and exlibhollywood.  

As with anything bubbling up from the blogosphere depths, take it for what it is….  

Unfortunately, our mainstream media is as curious as a dead cat to ferret out the details as to why it took 4 days to reduce the Somali pirates to room temperature and restore the Maersk Alabama Captain’s liberty.  The scenario outlined below seems more plausible to me than the one put forward by CNN/Obama Administration/MSNBC:

Having spoken to some SEAL pals here in Virginia Beach yesterday and asking why this thing dragged out for 4 days, I got the following:

President Barack H. Obama, World’s Greatest Orator

This priceless piece crossed the Designated Conservative’s inbox this morning.  Once again, President Obama shows the world the change America voted for….  It almost seems to me that the President (or his Teleprompter One) actually uses an Obama-Matic (TM) Content-Free Euphemism Generator! (hat tip to NRO Online’s The Tank)

Why is it up to the British press to point these things out?  It’s remarkable how peaceful and quiet it is in our U.S. mainstream media – not a peep about Obama’s oratory stylings in Europe:

The question that flummoxed the great orator

by John Crace, The UK Guardian

Barack Obama, the World’s Greatest Orator (™all news organisations), didn’t exactly cover himself in glory when the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson asked him a question about who was to blame for the financial crisis. Normally word perfect, Obama ummed, ahed and waffled for the best part of two and a half minutes.

Here, John Crace decodes what he was really thinking …

Nick Robinson: 

“A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn’t the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?” 

Brown immediately swivels to leave Obama in pole position.

There is a four-second delay before Obama starts speaking [THANKS FOR NOTHING, GORDY BABY. REMIND ME TO HANG YOU OUT TO DRY ONE DAY.] 

Barack Obama: 

“I, I, would say that, er … pause [I HAVEN'T A CLUE] … if you look at … pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] … the, the sources of this crisis … pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] … the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] … a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system … pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF S**T BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that … pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] … here in Great Britain … pause [S**T, GORDY'S THE HOST, DON'T LAND HIM IN IT] … here in continental Europe …pause [DAMN IT, BLAME EVERYONE.] … around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er … pause[I'VE LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AGAIN] … the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged … pause [I'M REALLY WINGING IT NOW]. So at this point, I’m less interested in … pause [YOU] … identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we’ve taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalised, er, dealing with the enormous, er … pause [WHY DIDN'T I QUIT WHILE I WAS AHEAD?] … drop-off in demand and contraction that has taken place. More importantly, for the long term, making sure that we’ve got a set of, er, er, regulations that are up to the task, er, and that includes, er, a number that will be discussed at this summit. I think there’s a lot of convergence between all the parties involved about the need, for example, to focus not on the legal form that a particular financial product takes or the institution it emerges from, but rather what’s the risk involved, what’s the function of this product and how do we regulate that adequately, much more effective coordination, er, between countries so we can, er, anticipate the risks that are involved there. Dealing with the, er, problem of derivatives markets, making sure we have set up systems, er, that can reduce some of the risks there. So, I actually think … pause[FANTASTIC. I'VE LOST EVERYONE, INCLUDING MYSELF] … there’s enormous consensus that has emerged in terms of what we need to do now and, er …pause [I'M OUTTA HERE. TIME FOR THE USUAL CLOSING BOLLOCKS] … I’m a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards.

Obama Seeks Expanded Power to Take Other People’s Stuff

The Designated Conservative just read this headline, hot off the soon-to-be all digital presses.  Even the ultra-liberal Washington Post appears to have some concerns about this notion, as evidenced by the lack of fawning adoration in the article.  

After all, how far is it from seizing insurance companies to seizing newspapers in the name of national necessity?

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms

Goal Is to Limit Risk to Broader Economy
Washington Post

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president’s Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.

The administration plans to send legislation to Capitol Hill this week. Sources cautioned that the details, including the Treasury’s role, are still in flux.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.

The administration’s proposal contains two pieces. First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy. The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed’s other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy.

The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.

Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG’s most troubled unit.

The Treasury secretary could act only after consulting with the president and getting a recommendation from two-thirds of the Federal Reserve Board, according to the plan.

Geithner plans to lay out the administration’s broader strategy for overhauling financial regulation at another hearing on Thursday.

The authority to seize non-bank financial firms has emerged as a priority for the administration after the failure of investment house Lehman Brothers, which was not a traditional bank, and the troubled rescue of AIG.

“We’re very late in doing this, but we’ve got to move quickly to try and do this because, again, it’s a necessary thing for any government to have a broader range of tools for dealing with these kinds of things, so you can protect the economy from the kind of risks posed by institutions that get to the point where they’re systemic,” Geithner said last night at a forum held by the Wall Street Journal.

The powers would parallel the government’s existing authority over banks, which are exercised by banking regulatory agencies in conjunction with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Geithner has cited that structure as the model for the government’s plans.