The so-called "mainstream media" (I rather like Glenn Beck's new term "fringe media") is finding out the hard way that ignoring a story doesn't make it go away. It only serves to reveal just how out-of-touch they are with what's going on in America and to hasten their rapid descent into irrelevance.

It's a little hard to ignore things like systemic corruption at an organization that receives billions in taxpayer funds and just happens to have close ties to the president.

You know it's bad when Jon Stewart actually calls them out on it. This is hilarious:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

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Joseph Maffeo, age 30, was a firefighter with Brooklyn’s Ladder 101. The day before 9/11, he chose to work a 24-hour overtime shift. He was still on duty when the call came in regarding the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center. He was one of 343 firefighters who lost their lives that day in the line of duty.

But this is not about Joseph Maffeo’s death, it’s about his life.

Known as “Joey Pockets” because he sewed so many pockets onto his gear to make room for gadgets, Joseph was a resourceful handyman who always seemed to have just what he needed for a job or project.

Growing up, he had two close friends – T.J. Beinert and Bobby Melloy – who spent so much time together that they became known as “the Three Musketeers.” As teenagers, his friend Bobby got an old Cadillac and the three of them sawed off the top to make it into a convertible.

Joseph met his wife Linda while she was working as a bank teller. He sold his share of a fishing boat he owned with his friends to buy an engagement ring.

Recalling the day he asked her out, Linda said, "I never gave my number out to customers, but he had the gentlest eyes I had ever seen."

He and his wife have a son named Christopher Joseph, who was just 1 year old at the time. He loved his family and is remembered as a devoted husband and father. He spent countless hours playing blocks with his son and was known to leave fresh daisies in his wife’s car.

Joseph stayed busy – he worked a second job building houses with his brother-in-law and was studying to become a lieutenant in the Fire Department.

Joseph’s legacy of kindness and giving of himself lives on through the Joseph Maffeo Foundation, a charitable organization started by his family to help their community.

My thoughts and prayers are with Joseph's family and friends today. We will never forget.


To read more remembrances of the lives of those America lost on 9/11, please visit Project 2,996.

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It's a bit long (especially for young children) but here it is in its entirety. My comments are below.

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 thoughts

Well, let's start with the positive. There are some really good lines in this speech. For example:

"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."

This is exactly what we tell our kids all the time, it's absolutely true and something all children need to understand. No matter what your challenges may be, everyone has strengths and something to offer.

And then there's this, also a good message in my opinion:

"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."

There are other positive messages. Learning from our failures rather than letting them discourage us, and not giving up. Recognizing that learning takes time and persevering in our efforts. Not being afraid to ask questions. The importance of setting goals. All good things, of course. Not necessarily the president's job to tell our children these things, but nonetheless things it doesn't hurt to hear from multiple sources in addition to parents.

However, peppered throughout the speech was a recurring theme of not just studying and working hard, but doing it "for your country." Huh? Who thinks to themselves, "it's for the good of the country" when they sit down to study for a test, or ponder whether to stay in school or not? Here are a few examples:

"If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country."
...

"Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country."
...

"who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best."
...

"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?"

Am I the only one who finds those statements more than a little creepy? A bit too "you will be assimilated, resistance is futile" collectivist thinking for my liking.

And then there's this:

"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."

"I expect"?! As a parent I just find the tone there a little insulting. Kind of like his reference to "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 don't need the president telling me how to raise my children any more than I need him telling my children to work hard in school. It's not his place. Now, it's possible his intention there was to back up the message from parents, so I can give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

But did you notice that reference to "country" stuck in there yet again? What's with that?

Study hard... for your country. Stay in school... for your country. Do your best... for your country. Don't let your country down.

Don't get me wrong, there are times when it's appropriate to do things for the sake of our country. I was raised in a military family, and have friends and family members who have made sacrifices for this great nation. But that seems to me a rather "adult" concept. Does it really apply to school attendance and studying?

I studied hard in school because it was necessary to meet personal goals I had set for myself, and because I knew it was important to my future. Had I dropped out of school, I would have disappointed myself, my parents, and probably many of my teachers. But the whole country? Really? That's quite a responsibility to place on children, especially young children.

Is it so wrong to do those things because it's what YOU want to do? For the intrinsic value in it - it's meaning to you personally, not because someone else expects it of you? Because it's in your own best interest? Because your future, and that of your future children, hangs in the balance? Isn't that more important than some nebulous "do it for your country" mantra?

Is this not planting a seed in the minds of children that we should make personal decisions based on what is good "for our country"? Is this not subtly suggesting to our children that "do it for your country" is a valid argument for taking a particular action? That the impact on "the state" should enter into our personal decision-making process, even for matters such as studying?

The "it's for the common good" argument raises red flags for me, as it has often been misused to promote actions that are detrimental to individuals (and thus, harmful to the society despite their claims to the contrary).

Today the appeal is benign enough. Who doesn't think it's a good idea to encourage kids to work hard in school?

But what will tomorrow's request / suggestion / call to action be?

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From Jill Stanek:

"I normally like to preview pro-life movies before publicizing them, but the director of Blood Money has made a special request that makes sense. He wrote me:

If abortion is the front line of the healthcare plan, we need to get people to see the trailer, where Dr. Clowes talks about the giant facilities being built by Planned Parenthood.

[Also], we already have 3 distributors interested in seeing it once it is complete. So if we can show there is an interest in the public seeing it in theaters we will have a stronger case to present to them for doing so."

Here's the trailer:



I knew Planned Parenthood was corrupt and lacking a moral compass of any kind, but I had no idea just how insidious this organization is... please take a moment to watch this and share it with others.

You can also click here to show your support for the film.

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From Gateway Pundit:

ABC had no problem showing Obama's infomercial on socialized medicine, broadcast directly from the White House. They refused to air any opposing views at the time to present a balanced view. And now both ABC and NBC are refusing paid advertising that is critical of Congress' proposed healthcare plan.


I've seen the networks airing ads in favor of gov't-run healthcare, so the claim that they don't air "partisan" ads doesn't hold water. Thank goodness the state-run media is not the only source of information in this country (at least for now).

Here's the ad:

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H/T: The Dana Show

A letter from the Dept of Education to school principals reads:

President Obama announced that on September 8 — the first day of school for many children across America — he will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of education. The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.

...

This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation's school children about persisting and succeeding in school. We encourage you to use this historic moment to help your students get focused and begin the school year strong.

Read the whole thing here. Frankly, I don't need the president or anyone from government to tell my children to work hard and study in school. They are already getting that message from me, my husband, and their teachers.



But this is apparently more than just a speech, there are activities outlined for before and after the speech. Exactly how much of our children's educational time do they intend to spend on this little pep rally?

Here are a few of the suggestions for teachers:

Before the Speech:
Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions: Who is the President of the United States? What do you think it takes to be President? To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking? Why do you think he wants to speak to you? What do you think he will say to you?
...

Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

During the Speech:
As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?

Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

After the Speech:
Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.

Students could discuss their responses to the following questions: What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us? What would you like to tell the President?

Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students

Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.

I highlighted a few that I take issue with. Why are they teaching our children that we should listen to elected officials and view them as authority figures? In America, our elected officials work for US, they are supposed to represent us and it is they who should be listening to us, not the other way around.

Perhaps the "ram it down their throats" Congress got tired of hearing "you work for us" at the town halls and the administration thought it would be a great idea to scrub that notion from the minds of today's children?

And perhaps this is all innocent enough... but as American Elephant put it:

...viewing this administration’s track record doesn’t afford such benefit of the doubt. When the President browbeats property owners who want to protect their legal rights… when the President admits he doesn’t know the facts but impugns the integrity of a police force… when the President calls me a liar for reporting what is actually in the health care bills and encourages my neighbors to report me to some enemies list… when the President apologizes to nations around the world and bows to a Saudi king… he loses the benefit of the doubt. As a socialist who has surrounded himself with Marxist and racist radicals all of his life, he loses the benefit of the doubt.

Without benefit of the doubt, the President doesn’t get to speak to my children unchallenged.

Call your child's school, and if they're planning to participate in this, you may want to consider keeping your children home that day.

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