Sgt. Friday Educates Obama

Instant classic with Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, and Barack Obama:

via Attack Machine and Instapundit to bulletpeople at You Tube who uploaded this video Sept 5, 2009.




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Buster Obama Goes to Sesame Street

House Majority leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO.), said "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students." That was 1991, when President George H. W. Bush hired a production company and paid $26,750 in taxpayer funds to address the nation's school kids from an 8th grade classroom.

Newsbusters reported as much four days ago and Hot Air today-

House Democrats criticized President Bush yesterday for using Education Department funds to produce and broadcast a speech that he made Tuesday at a Northwest Washington junior high school.

The Democratic critics accused Bush of turning government money for education to his own political use, namely, an ongoing effort to inoculate himself against their charges of inattention to domestic issues. The speech at Alice Deal Junior High School, broadcast live on radio and television, urged students to study hard, avoid drugs and turn in troublemakers.

“The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’ ”

Democrats and the public were right to question the motives of Bush, Sr. just as Republicans are right to question Obama now. As Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." In 1991, Bush was not Internet live streamed into every school, but rather telecast requiring much collaboration from out side the White House. Today, Obama has access to an entire production company on any laptop loaded with any number of applicable programs and he can do the whole thing himself in the Oval Office toilet.

Even at that, it wasn't the content of the speech that caused the furor. Given Obama's educational associations and his positions favoring a more socialist approach to, oh, everything, the problem was with the teaching materials that were to accompany the speech. The first objection I had (and I don't have children) was in the first sentence of the lesson plan for PreK-6: "Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama." Obama is referenced twice in this sentence. I would not object if the sentence read simply, "Teachers can build background knowledge about the President[s] of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama." Democrats called for congressional hearings to investigate the expenditure of scarce funds in 1991. Obama's advisers have revised the suggested lesson plans to be more compliant with expressed public sentiment: read - conservative parents went ballistic and Obama caved. Again, the O-man and staff were too far out of touch with America.

The run-up to the speech tomorrow morning, was handled in the clumsy and ham fisted manner we've early-on come to expect from this administration. Even the White House response has been predictable: totally mystified at all the fuss and feathers. Epictetus, a long dead Greek smart guy, wrote, "Do not write so that you can be understood, write so that you cannot be misunderstood." An educational lesson Obama and his writers need to learn sooner than later.

The speech presented below in its entirety, is far more innocuous than administration aides led anyone to believe. It may be so innocuous as to be a total waste of class time. Anyway, the speech as prepared by the White House -

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009


The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

My last objection is to the last line of the speech. Not because I'm an Atheist, but because Obama refused to use the same political benedictions as a candidate. In his retaking of the Oath of Office after being messed-up by the Chief Justice, Obama behind closed doors didn't add the traditional "So help me God". He has since added the religious political language, but only after public recriminations.

Obama doesn't get it. Just a little disingenuousness goes a long way to promote him as a phony, a liar, and con man. Dr Martin Luther King admonished to judge by the content of character not by the color of skin. Character has been described as what we do when no one is looking. Obama's character still leaves much to be desired, as a president and an Irish-American.

And if threats of keeping children home from school is all it takes for Obama to give-in, how safe are we against real screwballs in Iran, N. Korea, France, and California?




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Obama's Health Care Mushroom Cloud

Among the dozens of new Executive Branch agencies to be created by Obama and the 1,018 pages of the Democrat's health reform bill, H.R. 3200, are sections that would greatly expand the information gathering and enforcement power of the IRS, Internal Revenue Service.

Declan McCullagh of CBS News wrote on Aug 26, 2009:

Under the various proposals now on the table, the IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an "acceptable" health insurance plan; for finding and punishing those who don't have such a plan; for subsidizing individual health insurance costs through the issuance of a tax credits; and for enforcing the rules on those who attempt to opt out, abuse, or game the system. A substantial portion of H.R. 3200, the House health care bill, is devoted to amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to give the IRS the authority to perform these new duties.

The Democrats' plan would require all Americans to have "acceptable" insurance coverage (the legislation includes long and complex definitions of "acceptable") and would designate the IRS as the agency charged with enforcing that requirement. On your yearly 1040 tax return, you would be required to attest that you have "acceptable" coverage. Of course, you might be lying, or simply confused about whether or not you are covered, so the IRS would need a way to check your claim for accuracy. Under current plans, insurers would be required to submit to the IRS something like the 1099 form in which taxpayers report outside income. The IRS would then check the information it receives from the insurers against what you have submitted on your tax form.

Section 431(a):

The IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits."

Section 245(b)(2)(A):

The IRS must divulge tax return details -- there's no specified limit on what's available or unavailable -- to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify "affordability credits."

Section 1801(a):

The Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a "low-income prescription drug subsidy" but has not applied for it.

A previous bill, HR 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, signed into law by Obama Feb. 17, 2009 contains a 140 page section of the 800 page law that, according to CNET, "is intended to radically reshape the nation's medical system by having the government establish computerized medical records that would follow each American from birth to death." The government recognizes many citizens do not want their medical records electronically stored and shared "with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health records network," said Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, a nonprofit group that advocates health care privacy." There is, however, no method provided for opting out.

Congressional Democrat leaders have in mind long time-frame-goals. The already voted and signed law puts into the hands of a

"still-to-be-named health care bureaucrat the "goal of utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014." Selecting official standards will be left to the Department of Health and Human Services (page 265).

The databases will, "at a minimum," include information on every American's race and ethnicity. They will be used for "biosurveillance and public health" and "medical and clinical research," both of which raise privacy questions. They will become part of a "nationwide system for the electronic use and exchange of health information."

Add the power of a nearly unfettered IRS, and the government will have total control of the financial, physical, and psychological health of every American from cradle to grave to be implemented by 2014. Physicians not using the Federal electronic records system will be punished with declining reimbursements beginning 2015, the resulting loss of income almost guaranteeing compliance or retirement.

In many versions of health care reform winding through Congress, says the Washington Examiner yesterday,

the IRS would be the key to making the system work. Before you could receive any subsidy, whether through the IRS or not, the Health Choices Administration would have to determine whether you are eligible for it. To do so, the bills under consideration would give the Health Choices Commissioner the authority to demand sensitive, confidential information from the IRS about individual taxpayers. The IRS would have to provide it.

Under current law, it is a felony for a government official to release taxpayer information in all but the most limited of circumstances. One such exception is for law enforcement; the IRS is allowed to give taxpayer information to prosecutors in criminal cases. The information can also, in some instances, be released to the Social Security Administration and the Veterans' Administration for the determination of benefits. The health care bills would change the Internal Revenue Code to permit the IRS to give similar information to the vast, new health care bureaucracy.

That means the personal tax information of millions of Americans would enter the system whether they want it to or not. "There's a mandate to buy insurance," says one Republican House aide. "You have to buy it. You have millions of people who can't buy it without a subsidy, so they will have no choice but to accept the subsidy in order to buy insurance, and then the Health Choices Commissioner will have access to their tax records."

The majority of the public debate has focused on the "Public Option". Obama has indicated he is willing to abandon the public option, but with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 already law plus HR 3200 minus the public option sections, government mandated and controlled health care is still a near inevitability, but only if the entire redesign of America project isn't stopped. The reform pushers know the public option can be added later after the bulk of the current health care system has been dismantled.

Many involved in the debate have considerable concerns about IRS involvement in health care. The first concern is whether the IRS is capable of managing the new duties.

"There is a sense at the IRS that their purpose is to collect revenue and not to implement all sorts of other programs," says a second Senate GOP aide. "Also, the IRS isn't necessarily great at doing what it does already. How is it going to determine whether 300 million people have health insurance?"

Second, fraud and abuse are endemic to any government program.

"You're going to have lots of fraud," says the House source. "People claiming lots of affordability credits or refundable tax credits. The IRS is not going to have the resources and expertise to police this stuff."

Third is the question of whether the IRS should be involved in health care at all.

As seen in the town halls across the country in August, many Americans are concerned about the coercive nature of the proposed national health care system. Handing the IRS the power to monitor every American's place in the system worries them even more.

A new word has recently come into the government control debate in relation to the Presidential Address to School Children next week. The word is "innocuous." It means "1. Having no adverse effect; harmless. 2. Not likely to offend or provoke to strong emotion; insipid."

The various parts of a nuclear armed ballistic missile may seem innocuous to a layperson when seen individually. Put the parts together and they are anything but innocuous. Obama's vision for America seems innocent enough when viewed one at a time and described very benignly. Assemble the various pieces of legislation and, like the constructed nuclear ballistic missile, massive destruction ensues without warning leaving only shadows of freedom on our memories.




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

Finally, The Cavalry Arrives

... with the help we need. Mass. Senator John Kerry* will pick up the Kennedy mantle as socialist health care champion.












* He received three Purple Hearts in the Vietnam War.












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Obama Invites Himself to Congress

Obama told the media he will talk to a Joint Session of Congress Sept 9th in prime time again interfering with the TV network's ability to turn a profit. He then informed Congress he was showing up. Politico says Reid and Pelosi immediately issued an invitation to Obama.

After plans for the session had been reported, Reid and Pelosi released a letter of invitation to the president: "Our nation is closer than ever to achieving health insurance reform that will lower costs, retain choice, improve quality and expand coverage. We are committed to reaching this goal. We would like to invite you to address a Joint Session of the Congress on Wednesday, September 9 on health insurance reform. Thank you for considering this invitation to speak to the Congress and the nation."

That was rude. These people don't seem to like one another.




The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.

BO KO's PO

After being battered and bruised all through August on every issue before the voting public and his overall approval rating down to 46% on Sept 1st, the sharpest decline of any president since Clinton, Barack Obama is giving up on the health care public option - for now.

Perhaps as early as next week, Obama intends to outline his demands to Congress, dictating what he wants and will accept in a health care bill. More than likely this maneuver will alienate Congress as much, or more, as previous tacks alienated the public. "On health care," Politico informs us,

Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.

Although this is only the ninth month of the new administration's four year run, David Axelrod is making no bones that time is running out.

“We’re entering a new season,” senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview. “It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done.
(...)

“I’m not going to put a date on any of this,” Axelrod said. “But I think it’s fairly obvious that we’re not in the second inning. We’re not in the fourth inning. We’re in the eighth or ninth inning here, and so there’s not a lot of time to waste.”

Make no mistake, however. Obama intends to pursue single payer universal health care coverage. His principles remain the same, the ideas remain the same, and goal has not changed. There is a in Washington D.C., an adage that says failure begets failure. Obama cannot afford to lose an issue as large as UHC with a public option that he has made the centerpiece of his administration. This is a strategic and tactical retreat to regroup his forces and refocus American attention on the villains of Wall Street who will be cast as the ne'er do wells of Obama's melodrama, letting health company CEOs off the hook for a time. And best of all, it doesn't cost anything. Scarlet letters for the Wall Streeters and new regulations and Americans will be happy as clams.

"His goal is to create the best possible situation for consumers, create competition and choice," Axelrod said. "We want to bring a measure of security to people who have health insurance today. We want to help those who don't have coverage today, because they can't afford it, get insurance they can afford. And we want to do it in a way that reduces the overall cost of the system as a whole."

Also this fall, Obama wants to slap new regulations on Wall Street firms, a goal that is now considered a higher priority than cap-and-trade energy legislation in the West Wing. White House officials think the legislation will show voters, especially wavering independents, that he is serious about making the culprits of the economic crisis pay. It also helps that it doesn't carry a big price tag, like other Obama priorities.

Obama will attempt to take control of the debate and the issues, much of which he ceded to Congressional leaders. His relationship with Congressional leadership, especially Senate Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is considerably strained after the long hot summer. Attempting to wrest control from those two control freaks may fracture the Democratic leadership from the executive beyond repair.

White House officials say they are looking forward to "a break from the August break" -- a chance to take back control of the debate after a grim month where news coverage of the issue was dominated by vocal, emotional opponents at lawmakers’ town meetings, railing against the cost and complexity of the plans being debated.

So Obama and Democrats will return from vacation wounded, divided and uncertain of the best way to turn things around. Many Democrats, especially in the House, were spooked over break by the rowdy town hall meetings and flurry of polls showing independent voters skeptical of their leadership and spending plans.

The mood swing is hitting some top leaders hard: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), for instance, is trailing little-known GOP contenders in his re-election race now. The news swing has been no less brutal. There has been saturation coverage of the town halls and rising casualties in Afghanistan -- the latter leading to a big drop in support for the war.

We can only hope for fractious change within the Progressive wing in the party of the left. Without it, things will just get worse. This has all the makings of a very graceless fall for the Democrats and Obama.






The life of Indigo Red is full of adventure. Tune in next time for the Further Adventures of Indigo Red.