http://wcbstv.com/local/charles.rangel.race.2.1162895.html#
It will be nice when he is gone. He has done nothing but play the race card whenever he doesn’t get his way.
03 September 2009
Obama seeks to quell healthcare revolt - This revolt is within the Democratic Party.
Obama seeks to quell healthcare revolt
By Edward Luce in Washington
Published: September 3 2009 19:18 | Last updated: September 4 2009 01:13
Barack Obama faces a steep challenge in his address to the joint houses of Congress next Wednesday to get his healthcare reforms back on track without provoking revolt from the Democratic party’s moderate or liberal wings, say lawmakers.
The US president, who has seen sharply declining public support for healthcare reform and falling personal approval ratings, will set out his plans in “understandable, clear terms”, Joe Biden, the vice-president, said on Thursday.
But Democratic lawmakers on Thursday made clear that there were still unbridgeable differences between the party’s centrist and progressive wings. In August a group of 60 Democratic lawmakers wrote to Mr Obama to say they would vote against a healthcare bill that excluded the public insurance option on which he had campaigned.
But centrist Democratic senators, including Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh, whose support will be essential, continued to say they would vote against a bill with a public option.
“I see two endings,” Mr Nelson told the Journal Star newspaper on Thursday. “One is we find areas we can agree upon and begin to do things incrementally taking more of an insurance approach, not a government approach. The other is that it [the bill] implodes.”
Meanwhile, Jan Schakowsky, a leading progressive Democratic lawmaker, said liberals were not prepared to climb down. “I will support nothing short of a robust public health insurance plan upon implementation – no triggers,” she said. “I believe Congress will pass and the president will sign such a bill.”
The dismissive reference to “triggers” would augur badly for plans to woo Olympia Snowe, the Republican senator for Maine, who has signalled that inclusion of a public option trigger would be enough to secure her support.
A public option trigger would specify that a public insurance plan could be created several years on if private insurers failed to meet the conditions of the reforms. Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s chief of staff, and Ms Snowe were said to be “deep in conversations” on Thursday about the possible compromise.
The flurry of divergent comments by lawmakers makes it clear how difficult it will be for Mr Obama to bring his party together. “The more specific the president is on what he supports for healthcare reform, the more people he will alienate – so he’s damned if he does,” says Jim Morone, whose book, The Heart of Power: Healthcare and Politics in the Oval Office, is out this month.
The White House indicated on Thursday that the president had yet to decide on the contents of his address. But senior administration officials made clear he is thinking of junking the public option and would agree a scaled-back reform package, in order to get something passed.
The stakes for Mr Obama are high. Opinion polls show most Americans see the state of the economy as their main concern – with worries about jobs and rising fiscal deficits. Healthcare does not register high on their list of concerns.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
via ft.com
The fissures within the Democratic party are widening. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Obama speech to students draws conservative ire- So we will attempt to make them look like nuts.
Obama speech to students draws conservative ireBy LIBBY QUAID and LINDA STEWART BALL (AP) – 1 hour ago
DALLAS — President Barack Obama's back-to-school address next week was supposed to be a feel-good story for an administration battered over its health care agenda. Now Republican critics are calling it an effort to foist a political agenda on children, creating yet another confrontation with the White House.
Obama plans to speak directly to students Tuesday about the need to work hard and stay in school. His address will be shown live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN at noon EDT, a time when classrooms across the country will be able to tune in.
Schools don't have to show it. But districts across the country have been inundated with phone calls from parents and are struggling to address the controversy that broke out after Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals urging schools to watch.
Districts in states including Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin have decided not to show the speech to students. Others are still thinking it over or are letting parents have their kids opt out.
Some conservatives, driven by radio pundits and bloggers, are urging schools and parents to boycott the address. They say Obama is using the opportunity to promote a political agenda and is overstepping the boundaries of federal involvement in schools.
"As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality," said Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell. "This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
Arizona state schools superintendent Tom Horne, a Republican, said lesson plans for teachers created by Obama's Education Department "call for a worshipful rather than critical approach."
The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it. He will deliver the speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.
"I think it's really unfortunate that politics has been brought into this," White House deputy policy director Heather Higginbottom said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"It's simply a plea to students to really take their learning seriously. Find out what they're good at. Set goals. And take the school year seriously."
She noted that President George H.W. Bush made a similar address to schools in 1991. Like Obama, Bush drew criticism, with Democrats accusing the Republican president of making the event into a campaign commercial.
Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president."
The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could "write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."
"That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it," Higginbottom said.
In the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, the 54,000-student school district is not showing the 15- to 20-minute address but will make the video available later.
PTA council president Cara Mendelsohn said Obama is "cutting out the parent" by speaking to kids during school hours.
"Why can't a parent be watching this with their kid in the evening?" Mendelsohn said. "Because that's what makes a powerful statement, when a parent is sitting there saying, 'This is what I dream for you. This is what I want you to achieve.'"
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, said in an interview with the AP that he's "certainly not going to advise anybody not to send their kids to school that day."
"Hearing the president speak is always a memorable moment," he said.
But he also said he understood where the criticism was coming from.
"Nobody seems to know what he's going to be talking about," Perry said. "Why didn't he spend more time talking to the local districts and superintendents, at least give them a heads-up about it?"
Several other Texas districts have decided not to show the speech, although the district in Houston is leaving the decision up to individual school principals. In suburban Houston, the Cypress-Fairbanks district planned to show the address and has had its social studies teachers assemble a curriculum and activities for students.
"If someone objected, we would not force them to listen to the speech," spokeswoman Kelli Durham said.
In Wisconsin, the Green Bay school district decided not to show the speech live and to let teachers decide individually whether to show it later.
In Florida, GOP chairman Jim Greer released a statement that he was "absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology."
Despite his rhetoric, two of the larger Florida districts, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough, plan to have classes watch the speech. Students whose parents object will not have to watch.
"We're extending the same courtesy to the president as we do with any elected official that wants to enter our schools," said Linda Cobbe, a Hillsborough schools spokeswoman. Cobbe said the district, which includes Tampa, has gotten calls from upset parents but said officials don't think the White House is trying to force politics on kids.
The Minnesota Association of School Administrators is recommending against disrupting the first day of school to show the speech, but Minnesota's biggest teachers' union is urging schools to show it.
Quincy, Ill., schools decided Thursday not to show the speech. Superintendent Lonny Lemon said phone calls "hit like a load of bricks" on Wednesday.
One Idaho school superintendent, Murray Dalgleish of Council, urged people not to rush to judgment.
"Is the president dictating to these kids? I don't think so," Dalgleish said. "He's trying to get out the same message we're trying to get out, which is, `You are in charge of your education.'"
Libby Quaid reported from Washington. Associated Press Writers April Castro, Monica Rhor, Zinie Chen Sampson, Christine Armario, Jessie Bonner, Scott Bauer, Tim Talley, Martiga Lohn, Tammy Webber and Alan Zagier contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
via google.com
One would think that this AP article is all about Conservatives flipping out about the DEAR LEADER'S speech to children on Sept. 8th. In reality it is about how parents are not happy about this occurring.
This is further proof that there is no need for an Obama propaganda wing as the mainstream media are filling the role quite well themselves.
I Pledge! - This is just a bunch of Hollywood banana republic propaganda for Obama!! Give me a break!
via youtube.com
This is the type of propaganda that is used in banana republic, 3rd world socialst/communist dictatorships. No wonder it is from Hollywood types. Pledging to be a servant of Obama??? I thought he was the servant of the people. Free 1 million people from slavery?? From where??
Imagine if something like this came out in favor of Bush. The media and the left would have been going ballistic and rightfully so. But when it is in support of their DEAR LEADER OBAMA, there can be no wrong done in spreading his word.
01 September 2009
School Sues State for Banning Bible Use as Textbook - Who cares what the US Supreme Court had to say about it.
School Sues State for Banning Bible Use as Textbook
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
BOISE, Idaho — A public charter school is suing Idaho officials, saying the state illegally barred use of the Bible as an instructional text.
The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boise
on behalf of Nampa Classical Academy in Idaho.
The charter school is scheduled to open Sept. 8 and had planned to use the Bible as a primary source of teaching material, but not to teach religion.
The Idaho Public Charter School Commission said last month that the school couldn't use the Bible because the state constitution
"expressly" limits use of religious texts.
The Alliance Defense Fund says the school has a statutory right to choose its own curriculum and the Bible shouldn't be singled out for censorship.
PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ALSO READ
via foxnews.com
A BIG problem that the Commission made in its decision was to single out Nampa Classical Academy and then threatened to revoke their charter if it was used anyway which is a big Constitutional no-no. The Commission would still have been wrong if it banned it from all public charter schools because the standard public schools could still use it causing Constitutional issues as well. the Commission stated that NCA cannot use ANY religious document in its classrooms. I don't know how someone studies Western Civilization without a discussion of the Bible, the Reformation, etc.; or Eastern Civilization without the Koran or Torah.
Besides that the US Supreme Court has ruled that the Bible can be used in public schools as a text as long as it was not used for a religious purpose which the school was not intending to do.
One point of interest is that NCA has a 16 or so page policy regarding religious discussion and use of religious materials in the classroom that takes care of any issues regarding the use of the Bible or other religious text in a religious manner.
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