Trying to shove an unwanted health care plan down the citizens' throats may have serious repercussions.
For Obama.
For Pelosi.
For All the Dems.
Obama's Push for Health Care Reform May Use Up His Political Capital
The shift in public tone toward President Obama and his agenda raises fresh questions about the political capital he is expending to push through his top domestic priority, especially after he scored a hard-fought victory to get his $787 billion stimulus package passed.
Barack Obama promised on the campaign trail to change Washington if elected president, and he rode a wave of support based partly on that pledge all the way to the White House.
But change doesn't come cheap, and securing health care reform may wind up costing him much of that support -- known in Washington as political capital.
There already are signs that Obama's support is waning -- notably in his approval rating -- as he and Democratic leaders push to pass an overhaul of the nation's heath care system. And many of the people attending legislators' town hall events this month are voicing outrage and skepticism.
"That's really a big problem for a president that's persuasive but suddenly half the country says I just don't trust you," Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst, told FOX News.
Oddly, I see no mention here of the 8 years Barack Obama spent in the most exclusive (read expensive) private school in Honolulu. Although this experience must have played an important part in his education. JC
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's environmental adviser Van Jones, who became embroiled in a controversy over past inflammatory statements, has resigned his White House job after what he calls a "vicious smear campaign against me."
The resignation, disclosed without advance notice by the White House in an e-mail minutes into Sunday on a holiday weekend, came as Obama is working to regain his footing in the contentious health care debate.
Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs" with the White House Council on Environmental Quality was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.
After the resignation, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama did not endorse Van Jones' comments but thanked him for his service.
"What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," said Gibbs. The president thanks Jones for his work and accepted his resignation, Gibbs said, adding that Jones "understood he was going to get in the way," by becoming a liability to the administration. Gibbs spoke Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
Jones issued an apology on Thursday for his past statements.
The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones's name appearing on a petition connected to the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That 2004 petition had asked for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether high-level government officials had allowed the attacks to occur.
"On the eve of historic fights for healthcare and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones said in his resignation statement. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."
Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" that he thought Jones "was brought down" and that his resignation was "a loss to the country."
Jones said he has been "inundated with calls from across the political spectrum urging me to stay and fight."
But he said he cannot in good conscience ask his colleagues to spend time and energy defending or explaining his past.
Jones flatly said in an earlier statement that he did not agree with the petition's stand on the Sept. 11 attacks and that "it certainly does not reflect my views, now or ever."
As for his other comments he made before joining Obama's team, Jones said, "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."
Despite his apologies, Republicans demanded Jones quit.
Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana said in a statement, "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate." Missouri Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond said Congress should investigate Jones's fitness for the job.
Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck repeatedly denounced Jones after a group the adviser co-founded, ColorofChange.org, led an advertising boycott against Beck's show to protest his claim that Obama is a racist.
School districts from Maryland to Texas are fielding angry complaints from parents opposed to President Barack Obama’s back-to-school address Tuesday – forcing districts to find ways to shield students from the speech as conservative opposition to Obama spills into the nation’s classrooms.
The White House says Obama’s address is a sort of pep talk for the nation’s schoolchildren. But conservative commentators have criticized Obama for trying to “indoctrinate” students to his liberal beliefs, and some parents call it an improper mix of politics and education.
“The gist is, ‘I want to see what the president has to say before you expose it to my child.’ Another said, ‘This is Marxist propaganda.’ They are very hostile,” said Patricia O’Neill, a Democrat who is vice president
of the Montgomery County School Board, in a district that borders Washington, D.C. “I think it’s disturbing that people don’t want to hear the president, but we live in a diverse society.”
The White House moved Thursday to quell the controversy. First it revised an Education Department lesson plan that drew the ire of conservatives because it called for students to write letters about how they can help the president.
Then Obama aides said they would release the text of Obama’s address on Monday, a day before his speech is to be beamed into the classrooms – an apparent attempt to show skeptical parents ahead of time what he plans to say.
Obama’s speech to students was first announced late last month but criticism grew this week, as conservative commentators including Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin said Obama was trying to improperly influence the students. Beck even urged parents to take their children out of school on Tuesday to protest Obama’s speech.
The forum – a presidential address to students, where Obama plans to encourage them to take responsibility for education and do their best – might seem an unlikely forum for conservatives to make a stand. But some of the commentators said it was improper for Obama to insert himself so visibly into a classroom setting.
And it shows that the conservative anger with Obama and his policies is moving beyond the congressional town halls in August, where many members of Congress were loudly criticized by conservatives opposed to Obama’shealth carepolicies.
Republican strategist Rich Galen said he didn’t have a problem with Obama reaching out to schoolchildren because “he is everybody’s president. But you have to be very careful that it is not seen as literally propaganda. The original idea to have them write letters about how to help the president crossed the line and the White House realized that.
by Janet Crain Meg Whitman says she is a huge fan of Van Jones. Van Jones says George Bush was a crackhead, Republicans are A$$holes, minorities have been selectively targeted by polluters, 9/11 was a government plot and espouses many other crackpot theories. That's fine; this is a free country.
But he does not belong in a high position or any position at all in the government he hates.
And by the same token Republicans are free to shun Meg Whitman for any elected office and to shun anyone who seeks her counsel and had her on his campaign committee.
This is really silly. It's more like "Give 'em heck, Barry, that is if Michelle says it's OK". Somehow I don't think that will go down in history like his presidential predecesor, Harry Truman's descriptive line.
The men were not much alike. Truman said; "The buck stops here." And meant it. He certainly did not hide behind 30 thugs czars. And a pansy press secretary who has miraculously never seen anything he is questioned about.
I pledge to never watch any of these creepy pledge givers again!!!
If you live in Texas, you can opt your child out of this.You don't have to keep them home.
Also your school board can call a special session tomorrow for a Labor Day meeting to abolish presentations like this from your child's school. See details below the video.
Call them!
----- Original Message ----- From: "The Peter Morrison Report"
Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 8:27 AM Subject: Obama Using Schoolkids
I'm sending this report out as an urgent alert. As many of you probably already know, Barack Obama is staging a political propaganda event on Tuesday September 8th where he will address the nation's schoolchildren in a live speech. Fox News has the details here:
My State Board of Education member Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, said parents are complaining to her about the speech taking up valuable and precious instruction time.
Even more Orwellian though are the follow-up activities that go along with the speech.
Students are encouraged to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president" and to consider and ask questions such as "Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us?"
Children are young, impressionable, and eager to please. They should be considered off-limits to a politician pushing a socialist agenda.
Thankfully, there are things that can be done.
1. Parents can choose keep their kids at home if their school is going to show the president's propaganda message.
2. Texas parents have the right to opt their kids out of programs to which they object.
3. Principals and superintendents do NOT have to show this program in their schools. It is not a mandate from the federal government (at least not yet) and is optional. Contact your local school and tell the principal and superintendent that you do NOT want this shown at school and taking away from precious instructional time. Remember it's your tax dollars that are paying to show this program! Obama isn't paying for this out of his campaign funds.
4. School boards have the authority to implement a Local Policy that would prevent this from taking place. They would have to work quickly to call a Special Meeting (which requires a 72-hour notice in Texas). This could be done as late as Friday afternoon to allow for a School Board Special Meeting on this coming Monday, Labor Day. At that meeting your school board can implement a revision to one of their Local Policies, such as Policy EMB (Miscellaneous Instructional Policies : Teaching About Controversial Issues), to create a local school district ban on a category of events such as video presentations by politicians. Contact your local school board members and let them know that this is an option that they can excercise. This is an unusual circumstance and most of them will not be aware that this is even possible.
It is unfortunate that so many school districts across our state are treating this as a "news event" and allowing a political speech to displace classroom time. Imagine: millions of our students being propagandized to accept Obama's socialist rhetoric under the authority of their classroom teacher.
This is not "news" nor is it "history," it is simply a political stunt. It is imperative that action be taken to prevent impressionable children from being used as political fodder. Contact your local school and see if this propaganda event is being broadcast. Time is of the essence because if your local school board is going to take action, then it requires a Special Meeting that takes a 72-hour notice here in Texas. This makes Friday the absolute last day to call a meeting in time to prevent this from happening.
“What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”
U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, chats with a supporter at an Independence Institute fundraiser in Denver on Aug. 31. (Photo/Ernest Luning)
DENVER — In a fiery speech that had her conservative Colorado audience cheering, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann railed against the dangers of health care reform and other Democratic initiatives, warning the proposals “have the strength to destroy this country forever.”
“This cannot pass,” the Minnesota Republican told a crowd at a Denver gathering sponsored by the Independence Institute. “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”
“Something is way crazy out there,” Bachmann said in her remarks, billed as a “personal legislative briefing” by the Golden-based Independence Institute, which bills itself as a “free market think tank.”
“This is slavery,” Bachmann said after claiming many Americans pay half their income to taxes. “It’s nothing more than slavery.”
These young men are so inspiring. I am so glad they were rescued!!! JC
James Phillips, right, one of three fisherman who were rescued after eight days adrift in the Gulf of Mexico hugs his daughter Laney Phillips, 7, as his wife Shane Phillips looks on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009, in Blessing, Texas. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, James Nielsen)
Mon Aug 31, BLESSING, Texas – Three Texas fishermen who spent eight days stranded in the Gulf of Mexico atop their capsized boat endured hunger, blistering heat, scares from sharks and hallucinations, but they never gave up hope they'd be rescued.
"It was on a day-to-day basis that everybody had their breakdown," Tressel Hawkins told NBC's "Today Show" Monday. "The power of prayer had us feeling safe as far as knowing that we were going to make it out of it, but didn't know how long that we were going to have to endure this."
The men were reunited with their families early Sunday after they were found sitting on their 23-foot catamaran 180 miles from land. They were identified as Hawkins, 43, of Markham; James Phillips, 30, of Blessing; and Curtis Hall, 28, of Palacios.
"I knew we were coming home; I never had a doubt," Phillips, the boat owner, told the Houston Chronicle.
The crew of a sport fishing boat spotted the men waving their white T-shirts near Port Aransas and rescued them Saturday. The three were reported missing Aug. 22 after they left Matagorda, about 90 miles southwest of Houston, on a fishing trip and never returned. Port Aransas is about 130 miles from Matagorda.
The three were asleep that Friday night and were awakened by water coming in the boat, Hawkins said.
"Once we were awake and saw what happened, it flipped over in one minute," Phillips told the Chronicle. "Then us country boys went into survival mode. That's all we could do."'
The men rationed their salvaged bubble gum, crackers, beer and chips, and used a hose to suck fresh water out of the internal "washdown" tank. Fishermen often keep such a tank to wash fish slime off their boat when they are out in the salt water.
"We'd eat crackers one day, and then a handful of chips," Phillips said. "Everything tasted like gasoline and saltwater."
Hall and Haskins both said they saw U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and rescue planes fly over. The Coast Guard, which gave up the search after the men had been missing a week, never saw them.
“I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”
~~ Barack Obama, at a rally for State Senator Creigh Deeds, Tysons Corner, Virginia, August 6, 2009
"....all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Obama's Health Plan
...............You
2009 Town Hall Meetings
Democracy Break Down
Best Seller
"I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care coverage." Barack Obama 2003
DO YOU REALLY THINK HE'S CHANGED HIS MIND?
The President, Vice President, Speaker of the House and All Senators and Representatives should receive the same Health Plan they force on other Americans:
Sic 'em!!!
"We in America do not have government by the majority.
We have government by the majority who participate."
"Think as I think," said a man, "Or you are abominably wicked; You are a toad."
And after I had thought of it, I said, "I will, then, be a toad."
--Stephen Crane
Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted
Signs of the Time
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
--French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
'There's no doubt that Lincoln held office during difficult times...But think of poor George Washington...He didn't have a previous administration to blame for his problems.'
I am an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative. I believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
Trying to shove an unwanted health care plan down the citizens' throats may have serious repercussions.
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