I have read several more education articles in the past couple days.  Each is worth a look and some consideration:

The first, a news story in the Washington Times, discusses “the latest installment of [President Obama’s] ‘we can’t wait’ campaign against Congress” in which the president issued new executive orders dealing with the Head Start program;

The second article by Michael G. Morris, CEO of American Electric Power, makes note of a looming worker shortage needed to fill millions of skilled jobs being vacated by retiring baby boomers that, in many cases, might not require debt-inflicting college degrees;

Finally, Michael Barone has a thought-provoking column about student debt and an Occupy Wall Street protester who acquired $35,000 in debt to study puppetry.  Yes, puppetry.  Barone defends his choice and considers him to be something of an entrepreneur.  Read it.

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Over the past several days some interesting articles have been published on specific education topics.  Each is worth reading:

• The first, an editorial in the Washington Examiner, focuses on the impact charter schools are having on education in theDistrict of Columbia.

• The second article focuses on the difficulties being experienced in reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind law. (Rightly or wrongly, the author believes that: “Failure to update the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, despite considerable support from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, would have the practical effect of giving President Obama a much freer hand in setting federal education policy and pushing his favored reforms.”)

• The third article, by former congresswoman Melissa Hart, describes some unusual circumstances surrounding a federal False Claims Act lawsuit against Education Management Corporation (a for-profit) that was joined by the Dep’t of Justice in May 2011.  (Here is a New York Times piece with some background information and a different point of view.)

All in all, these articles lead one to conclude that the size of the D.C.-based education-industrial-complex is so massive that it needs to be drastically reduced or eliminated.

Coincidentally, in a speech given today at the Family Research Council, Representative Michelle Bachmann, stated that, if elected president, she would repeal all federal education laws (i.e., policy authority).  She added that she would eliminate the Department of Education.  The key step, however, would be eliminating the education laws because erasing the Dep’t of Education alone would do nothing to end the programs, activities, and spending that are required under all these federal statutes.  Only statutory repeal will do that.  It was interesting to hear Rep. Bachmann make this distinction.

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Diana Furchtgott-Roth, economist and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, concluded a recent column on Obamacare: “Yes, health care will be affordable for low-income Americans – but only if they’re unmarried.”  Her column doesn’t appear to have received a great deal of attention, but Furchtgott-Roth was describing one line of analysis from an October 27^th hearing conducted by the House Committee on Government Reform.  The hearing was entitled “Examining Obamacare’s Hidden Marriage Penalty and Its Impact on the Deficit.”  The details are a bit complicated, so I recommend reading the Furchtgott-Roth article.  (A committee staff report is also available.)  Suffice it to say that there is much to learn about Obamacare as Mrs. Pelosi once told us.

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Doug Schoen, the former pollster for President Bill Clinton, has written an interesting article for the Wall Street Journal on the world view of the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters now sitting in Manhattan’s Zucotti Park.  A senior researcher at his polling firm, Arielle Alter Confino, interviewed nearly 200 of the OWS occupiers on October 10^th and 11^th.   She found that they “have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies.”

Schoen describes their thinking in more detail:

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn’t represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

He adds that the OWS is bound by a “a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.”  Schoen goes on to express his opinion that alignment with those who hold such opinions would be electorally destructive.

That said, Repair_Man_Jack on RedState has a nice blog post discussing the skyrocketing cost of college tuition and its impact on young adults.  Stories had run indicating that some of the OWSers were protesting about the burden of student loans.  Given Schoen’s interview results this might have been a story line intended to make the protesters more sympathetic.  On the other hand, a bunch of Marxists might just want their debts repudiated.

Whatever they believe the RedState article recognizes this dissatisfaction.  The underlying problem is real and FRChas expressed its concern with the existence of the higher education racket.  (Paul Peterson of Harvard accurately called it the “Education Industrial Complex“ in 2008.)  American education is defective at the primary and secondary levels, but higher education is also deeply in need of reform.  Price competition and alternative forms of professional credentialing are needed badly.  An astute politician could garner great support from young voters merely by recognizing that a problem exists.

(Stephanie Guttman also discusses the OWS/education link on October 7 in a post on NRO’s Corner.  However, she attributes “E-I-C” to Michael Medved and raises the desirability of a return to vocational schools.)

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Peggy Noonan’s most recent column in the Wall Street Journal (Friday, October 14), “It’s No Time for Moderation,” had some keen insights on recent developments in public opinion.  She is thinking about the coming of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and other manifestations of discontent and asks:

Why is this happening now, and not two years ago? Because at some point in the past year or six months, people started to realize: The economy really isn’t going to get better for a long time. Everyone seems to know in their gut that unemployment is going to stay bad or get worse. Everyone knows the jobless rate is higher than the government says, because they look around and see that more than 9% of their friends and family are un- or underemployed. People put on the news and hear aboutEuropeand bankruptcy, and worry that it’s going to spread here. Eighteen months ago smart people could talk on TV about how we’re on a growth path and recovery will begin by fall of 2010. Nobody talks like that now.

And people have a sense that nothing’s going to get better unless something big is done, some fundamental change is made in our financial structures. It won’t be small-time rejiggering—a 5% cut in this tax, a 3% reduction in that program—that will get us out of this.

She also comments perceptively on the demise of President Obama’s job’s proposal and why it lacked any momentum:

President Obama’s jobs bill failed in the Senate this week, and the headline is not that it lost, it’s that it lost and nobody noticed. Polls actually showed support for various parts of it. You know why it failed? Because he was for it. Because he said, “Pass this bill.” So weak is public faith in his economic leadership that people figure if he’s behind it, it must be a bad idea.

In conclusion, it appears that the political energy that characterized 2010 lies ready to be tapped by candidates with good, BIG ideas in 2012.

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Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post has written a powerful article  (“The Forgotten Christians of the East”) describing the growing danger to Christians living in Muslim countries – and most recently in Egypt:

On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt’s state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February.

According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo.

Maggie Michael of Associated Press wrote an analysis piece from Cairo that was carried in the Washington Times.  Michael noted that Mubarak’s fall and the subsequent “fading of authoritarian rule [in Egypt] empowered Islamist fundamentalists, known here as Salafis, who have special resentment for Christians.”  This appears to be the general pattern in the countries that have experienced the “Arab Spring.”  As old power structures toppled, the political replacement in contemporary Arab politics tends toward Islamist extremism.  It is a dangerous trend for religious minorities that needs to be opposed by the United States government.

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Bill Gertz has an alarming story in his “Inside the Ring” column in today’s (10/6/2011; p. A9) Washington Times entitled “Anti-Terror Trainers Blocked.  According to Gertz, theCIA and the Department of Homeland security “abruptly canceled” an August conference on “homegrown U.S. radical extremism in what officials close to the issue say was an effort to block two conservative anti-terrorism experts from presenting their views.”

Gertz claims the event was canceled “after Muslim advocacy groups contact the Department of Homeland Security and the White House about scheduled speakers, who included Stephen Caughlin and Steven Emerson, both specialists on the Islamist terror threat.” According to Gertz, “Mr. Caughlin, a former Pentagon Joint Staff analyst, is one of the most knowledgeable counterterrorism experts specializing in the relationship between Islamic law and terrorism.”  Emerson heads “the Investigative Project on Terrorism” and “is a leading expert on Islamic violent extremism, financing and operations.”

Apparently stopping the conference wasn’t enough for the White House.  Gertz was told by one official “that to prevent the two experts from taking part in future conferences,  the administration is drafting new guidelines designed to prohibit all U.S.government personnel from teaching classes on Islamic history or doctrine.”  These rules will also “seek to prohibit the use of federal funds to pay contractors for such training.”

These actions bears closer examination, but they fit within the growing pattern of attacks from the Left on those – also including Frank Gaffney – who oppose Islamist extremism.

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Some writers on technology and law argue that there is no shortage of the electromagnetic spectrum through which television, radio, and broadband can be broadcast.  One Supreme Court case, Red Lion, points to spectrum scarcity as a basis for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) jurisdiction to regulate broadcasting – including the promulgation of its indecency rules.

Of relevance to this debate, the Washington Times recently published two articles on the FCC’s proposal to reallocate spectrum from broadcasting to broadband.  The first article contains an interview with former-senator Gordon H. Smith, president of the National Association of Broadcasters.  The second story contains more details about the potential impact of the spectrum swap (grab?) on broadcasters.

Whatever the pluses and minuses of the idea of a swap, it is pretty clear that there isn’t enough spectrum to go around.  Furthermore, as the number of wireless applications grows, the demand for spectrum will only increase until some completely superseding technology arises.

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According to a Washington Times editorial (9/30/11), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed papers in a court proceeding earlier in September in which EPA discusses the scope of the greenhouse-gas regulations it would like to impose on the nation.  Here are the amazing figures:

The agency is defending sweeping greenhouse-gas emissions rules that if fully implemented would require 10,000 new state-level employees to process permits. At the federal level, it would take 230,000 new officials and a $21 billion budget expansion – quite a boost for an outfit that currently has 17,417 bureaucrats and $10.3 billion to spend. EPA admits it would be “absurd or impossible to administer” the rules all at once, but “that does not mean that the agency is not moving toward the statutory thresholds.”

These facts reinforce why conservatives have to focus their attention on the regulatory tsunami that is now hitting America.

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Last Friday, September 23^rd, Congressman Chris Smith, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights (Committee on Foreign Affairs) held a hearing on China’s One-Child Policy.  The same day the Washington Times carried an article by Louise Watt (Associate Press) talking about whyChina’s “moneymakers” are interested in leavingChina.  The story contained the amazing statistic of the 20,000 Chinese with at least $15 million in individual assets, 27% have already emigrated and 47% are considering it.  The source of this statistic was a “report by China Merchants Bank and U.S. Consultants Bain & Co. published in April.”  Shouldn’t these people want to stay given their success?

There were a number of reasons given for this lack of enthusiasm for remaining in China.  They included the following:  1) the test-centric Chinese educational system; 2) the desire to live in a place with better health care; and, 3) the objective of preserving their assets and preparing for retirement.  Also of interest to these Chinese was “having more children and making it easier to develop overseas business.”  (emphasis added)

This is fascinating: the communist state cannot even relax the rules suppressing family size to accommodate the business leaders who are making the economy grow.

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Thanks need to go to the Washington Examiner’s editorial page (Monday, 9/19/11) for bringing our attention to a significant report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), examining the “regulatory tsunami” unleashed by the Obama Administration.  Entitled “Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President Obama’s Promise of Regulatory Reform,” the committee report argues that the regulatory burden on the American economy is now so great that “it has stifled productivity, wages, job creation and economic growth” and it “has caused job creators to lock down at a time when we need them to expand.”  The report also argues that federal agencies are “avoiding meaningful scrutiny by employing numerous gimmicks” including: “1) refusing to perform accurate cost-benefit analysis; 2) overturning decades of precedent without justification; 3) entering into sue and settle agreements; 4) enacting policy changes through guidance documents; 5) improperly issuing emergency rulemakings.”

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Fortunately, last week’s earthquake near Richmond was incapable of producing a damaging tidal wave.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Washington’s massive bureaucracies and, most specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency.

According to House Speaker John Boehner, the Obama Administration has a regulatory agenda that includes at least 219 new rules that could each impose a regulatory burden of 100 million dollars or more. Such rules are called “major” rules.  (See David Boyer’s article in the 8/31/11 Washington Times.)  Also, EPA is going ahead with seven rulemakings that the agency estimates will together cost over $125 billion (with a “b”) annually – yes that is annually.  (See Conn Carroll’s story in the 8/30/11 Washington Examiner.)

According to an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal (behind its pay firewall), Speaker Boehner asked the administration for a list of rules it had in the works with potential costs exceeding one billion dollars per year.  The administration responded providing a list of seven rulemakings – four from EPA and three from the Department of Transportation.

Speaker Boehner’s overarching point was that the “economy cannot withstand the barrage of major new federal regulations planned by the administration.”  Of course, the Obamacare and financial industry regulations are also on the drawing board somewhere.

Mark Levin had an excellent commentary on our state affairs at the beginning of his 8/30 broadcast.  He believes that we no longer have a “representative republic.”  This condition exists in large measure, Levin argues, due to unchecked regulation.  He also thinks that we now have an “Imperial Presidency.”

That said, Levin later gave a boldface example.

Listen to the absolutely chilling interview Levin conducts with the CEO of Gibson Guitar who was raided on 8/24/11 by federal agents. (Start at minute 92:00.)  Here is John Hayward’s Human Events background article.  The federal government claims that Gibson is illegally importing wood to make its guitars from India and Madagascar.  Gibson claims that officials from those countries have certified the legality of these exports from their nations.  Additionally, Gibson’s competitors apparently use the same woods from the same sources and have not been raided.  Only time will tell how this will turn out, but this iconic company may not be able to survive the legal costs of fighting a criminal investigation while its productive activities are interrupted.

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 According to an AP story by Tom Coyne,Indiana’s new educational reform law appears to be producing good effects in only its first year:

Weeks after Indiana began the nation’s broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were only recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils.

In this, the first year under the new law, more than 3,200 students are receiving vouchers to attend private schools.  

The article gives some interesting facts about Our Lady of Hungary Catholic School in South Bend.  It was being considered for closure, but is now being revived as some parents flee the local public schools and the school’s enrollment swells.

Of course, the unions and the religionphobes are apoplectic.  Hopefully, as the program expands in future years, as set forth in the statute, Indiana voters and the rest of the nation will understand why voting by “exiting” a bad school is much more potent than voting in a school board election in which there is really only one choice.

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The Washington Times published an important op-ed about national security today by Brig. Gen. Thomas C. Pinckney (USAF, Ret.) who argued that mandatory budget cuts from a supercommittee deadlock would excessively cut spending on America’s next generation fighter, the F-35.  Pinckney makes the correct point that American military success since Vietnam has depended greatly on air superiority and fighter dominance in our diverse wars.  He talks about how our fighter fleet is aging and many countries are beginning to catch up.  Here are two stunning paragraphs:

Today, countries including Iran, North Korea and Pakistan have fighter jets that match the capabilities of the workhorses of the U.S. fighter fleet, which were designed during the 1970s. The Indian air force surprised many by defeating American fighters during recent war games. Russia and China are developing fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft that will rival our most advanced fighter jets.

Even small countries can create a formidable air force on the cheap by buying Soviet-made MiG-21s on the global weapons market for the low cost of $100,000 each, upgrading the engines and avionics and outfitting them with self-guided missiles. Coupled with ever-more sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries, determined despots the world over could soon be capable of shooting down any American fighter jet that dares enter their airspace.

I hadn’t heard about the war games with India.  I find it alarming that we would lose war games to any nation, but India is not known for being a military titan.  I guess it is changing with China so close, but this is not an encouraging sign.

America’s military families give us their best, and they deserve our best.   We are spending nothing like the share of GDP that we did on defense during the Cold War, we can afford to purchase air superiority for our air, sea, and land forces.  And, while we are at it let’s bring the F-22.

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It seems that many observers have come to the conclusion that the regulatory state is wildly out of control.  Today, Senator John Barrasso pointed out in a Washington Times column that President Obama’s regulatory review has only caused one regulation to nullified.  It was an EPA rule that “treated spilled milk like an oil spill.”  Barrasso also noted that “since the start of the year, the administration has proposed 340 regulations at a cost of more than $65 billion to job creators.”  He then points to two rulemakings that will be incredibly costly: 1) the first is an EPA rule targeting utility companies; 2) the second is “literally unprecedented” and “regulates mileage for medium- and heavy-duty trucks.”  Looming in the distance is EPA’s ozone rule which will be “the single most environmental regulation in history.”  Needless, to say jobs will be lost, businesses destroyed, wealth annihilated, and families crushed economically as no jobs are created.

Next to Barrasso’s is a column by Richard Rahn who offers a suggestion for a statutory change that might help.  He argues that “before any regulation (not just major ones) is promulgated by any government department (including theIRS) or independent agency, the department or agency must have done a competent, complete and independent cost-benefit study.”  His proposal also contains an innovative proposal for allowing the public to sue and stop a regulation if they can show that its costs exceed its benefits.

If we are going to curb the excesses of the regulatory state we are going to have to many more ideas like Rahn’s (i.e., aggressive, non-deferential to agencies), but the most important steps we can take are to repeal the statutes that give sweeping regulation-making powers to government.

Economic policy has been measured in terms of consumption, government spending, investment, and monetary policy for many years.  We have reached the point where more precise measures of regulatory burden are going to need to be developed and added to this mix if we are to have an accurate idea of the nation’s true level of economic activity and potential for growth.

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Just a quick post – last week I mentioned that the foremost writer on the decline of British society is Theodore Dalrymple (pen name).  Well, he has published a commentary piece, “Barbarians Inside the Gates,” in today’s Wall Street Journal.  It is very good, and I believe it is available to the public (not behind their pay firewall).

Here are a few observations that he makes:

The youth of Britain have long placed a de facto curfew on the old, who in most places would no more think of venturing forth after dark than would peasants in Bram Stoker’s Transylvania. Indeed, well before the riots last week, respectable persons would not venture into the centers of most British cities or towns on Friday and Saturday nights, for fear—and in the certainty—of encountering drunken and aggressive youngsters. In Britain nowadays, the difference between ordinary social life and riot is only a matter of degree, not of type.

And these were among his concluding thoughts:

So several things need to be done, among them the reform and even dismantlement of the educational and social-security systems, the liberalization of the labor laws, and the much firmer repression of crime.

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Over the past three nights, there have been many riots in English cities.  Here is a map for riots in London alone from August 6-9.  The Left is trying to spin the story that budget cuts caused people to burn buildings and steal plasma TVs.  Ridiculous.  Completely on point are the many articles and books by Theodore Dalrymple.  For decades he has been writing about the decline of British civil society and the simultaneous rise of a vicious underclass with little or no moral consciousness.

It is also clear that the British authorities have policies in place to deal with a civilized population that no longer populates that country.  A furniture business started in 1867 survived the Blitz but not the Huns of 2011.  Here was the caption under two photographs: “Croydon: A woman leaps from a burning building in Surrey Street, after flames threaten to engulf her. People stand to catch her as she jumps to safety.”

So, the police will need to use greater levels of force to maintain peace. Rubber bullets are being threatened tonight. Maybe.

Laws without moral inhibitions supporting them usually prove ineffective.  This is what we have seen in London the past few days.  Is it possible that the social conservatives are on to something?  Mike Judge of the U.K.’s Christian Institute had these comments about the riots.

Pray for a peaceful night in the United Kingdom.

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The economic news released by the Commerce Department last Friday was not good at all.  The     Washington Times has a good editorial summarizing it in Monday’s edition (see “Obama’a Economic Collapse”).   The preliminary estimate for second quarter 2011 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was an anemic 1.3%.  More alarming was the revision of first quarter GDP downward from 1.9 percent to 0.4% — essentially flat, no growth at all.  In Politico, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has a noteworthy commentary piece making the point that the current debt/deficit debate has a huge health care component.  It is that component that is exploding government deficits and slowing economic growth and job creation – all being disastrous for family well-being.  Ryan makes one interesting point in passing: currently, about one quarter of all federal government spending goes to health care.

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Jeffrey Kuhner has a powerful commentary piece in the Washington Times today.  The article was prompted by the Obama administration’s recent statement that Obamacare should cover contraceptives including those that many deem to be abortifacients.  Kuhner extends his observations to a wide-ranging assessment of the administration’s wider culture war against traditional Christian values.  It is worth reading.  (I would have reproduced some text but had difficulties with the W.T. website.)

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The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) produces an excellent daily newsgram from Israel.  Today’s report summarizes some data produced by pollster Stanley Greenberg based on questions to Palestinians living in theWest BankandGaza.  It is not encouraging:

“In related news, a recent poll of Palestinians living in theWest Bankand the Gaza Strip completed this week by American pollster Stanley Greenberg, which showed that a large majority of Palestinians have lost faith in the promise of the two state solution and are determined to create a single Palestinian State between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. The same poll showed a majority of Palestinians denied any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, supported the kidnapping of IDF soldiers and holding them hostage and teaching schoolchildren songs about hating Jews.”

Not only is this poll not encouraging, but the results don’t support the hypothesis that the Palestinians are very much interested in achieving Peace with Israel and the Jews who live there.  (Note: “denied any Jewish connection to Jerusalem” – relates to their nutty denial that the Jewish people had an ancient presence in Jerusalem. )

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