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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (322764)	9/5/2009 8:27:23 AM
From: skinowski	4 Recommendations Respond to of 793964

A comment from the funny man Penn: youtube.com

To: unclewest who wrote (322764)	9/5/2009 8:37:16 AM
From: skinowski	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

LOL!... After seeing the clip, my wife offers a simpler comment - Why don't they pledge to learn about the American revolution and to read the Constitution? (But that's, probably, asking too much. She does that, sometimes)

To: unclewest who wrote (322764)	9/5/2009 8:46:35 AM
From: skinowski	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

Another comment - about the "pledge" and about Van Jones: Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff] From last night's Fox News All-Stars. On the lesson plan issued by the Department of Education for use with Obama’s address to schoolchildren: Look, this was never about content. We were not going to have the president urging eight-year-olds to come out in favor of high taxes as patriotic. And anything he said would be perfectly OK, it will be “tie your shoelaces and be nice to your neighbor.” What is odd and creepy is the conception of government that underlay whoever it was in the Education Department — and it could have been a plural — to have a question [for the kids to write about]: "How can you help your president?" That is not innocuous. Look, it is not going to do any real damage. We're not going to have people chanting poems about their Dear Leader. The question is that that kind of thing — about a relationship between the child and the president — is extremely odd. A child has a relationship with a parent or with a teacher, later a mentor or a coach, but not a president. A child swears allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands, but not the man who happens to be sitting in the White House. That's the difference between a "popular democracy" (which is really a dictatorship) and a constitutional democracy. And the idea that you would want a child to have any relationship with a president is odd. He shouldn't have any at all. On Obama’s Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones: Well, I'm not terribly disturbed about the expletive he used about Republicans. I have said worse about Democrats. Hell, I've said worse about Republicans. I have said worse about cousins of mine. On one side of the family, anyway. And I'm not even disturbed that this guy is a communist. It is not the first time we had a communist in the U.S. government. And anyway, with the death of communism, it is a kind of a pathetic intellectual anachronism to remain a communist. However, the stuff that we learned this afternoon is devastating. Here is a man who signed on to a petition demanding several investigations of the collaboration of the Bush administration with the worst massacre of Americans ever committed on American soil. Now, that is beyond extremism and radicalism. That is psychotic paranoia. It is a malignant kind of politics. And you have to ask yourselves: In the White House, if you didn't know he is a "truther," then you have got to ask him to politely resign. And if you did [know], is that acceptable in the government of the United States?

To: unclewest who wrote (322764)	9/5/2009 1:25:09 PM
From: MrLucky	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

VIEWPOINT: Leave Medal of Honor Alone On Sept. 17, President Barack Obama will present the Medal of Honor to the parents of Army Staff Sgt. Jared C. Monti for “conspicuous gallantry.” Monti, 30, was serving with the 10th Mountain Division when he was killed in a battle at Gowardesh, Afghanistan. By: Ed Hooper, Knoxville, Tenn. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — On Sept. 17, President Barack Obama will present the Medal of Honor to the parents of Army Staff Sgt. Jared C. Monti for “conspicuous gallantry.” Monti, 30, was serving with the 10th Mountain Division when he was killed in a battle at Gowardesh, Afghanistan. This will be the sixth occasion since Sept. 11, 2001, that the nation’s highest award has been presented. Some believe the number is too low. In the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010, the Department of Defense came under fire for setting decoration standards too high. Still, regardless of political pressure and changing definitions in popular media, the department has held fast to its own definition of the word “hero,” which has stood the test of time. More than a dozen groups at present are lobbying the department to upgrade other decorations that soldiers have received in action upgraded to the Medal of Honor. They argue that there aren’t enough living recipients. The “low numbers” led Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., to insert a conference report in the authorization act “to review the current trends in awarding the Medal of Honor to identify whether there is an inadvertent subjective bias among commanders that has contributed to the low numbers of awards of the Medal of Honor.” It directs Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to report back to the House and Senate Armed Services committees in March. The standards for this nation’s highest award are meant to be strict. In 1916, a committee under the leadership of a medal recipient, Gen. Nelson Miles, reviewed each case to that date, set up investigative standards and rules and strengthened the requirements. The “Purge of 1917” stripped away 911 Medals of Honor from those not deemed worthy of having received them, including 864 awarded during the Civil War to the soldiers of the 27th Maine, who received the medal simply for re-enlisting. Sadly, the Medal of Honor is the least understood U.S. military decoration. While it is presented ceremoniously by the president in the name of Congress, the candidates are chosen exclusively by the Department of Defense. Most people now calling for the medal to be pinned on soldiers can’t tell you the names of any of the 96 recipients now living or the actions that led to their awards. These remarkable stories remain largely unknown among Americans and are not recorded in school or college history textbooks. The Department of Defense is historically stingy with this award for justifiable reasons. The Medal of Honor is a combat decoration and is not only about the present or the past; it is also about the future and how succeeding generations will look back upon the individuals on whom it was bestowed and the reasons why. The U.S. is not alone in keeping the integrity of its highest combat decoration intact. More than 50,000 British troops have served on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 360 have been killed in combat. But the Secretary of State for Defence in the United Kingdom has awarded only two of that nation’s highest decoration, the Victoria Cross, for actions under fire. The U.S. has fielded three times as many troops and awarded three times the number of our highest decoration. Most Medals of Honor have been awarded posthumously, and the citations justifying its presentation are Homeric stories of bravery that can be read centuries from now by students of our nation’s past and, for the most part, will stand unrivaled beside the stories of great warriors and citizen-soldiers throughout history. The Medal of Honor isn’t about quotas based on statistics, nor does the alleged lack of presentations today speak badly of the modern soldier’s valiant service on the battlefield. Medals such as the Bronze Star, Silver Star and Distinguished Service Cross are prestigious decorations of valor, not to be taken lightly or dismissed. But the strict rules and standards set for the Medal of Honor are in place to keep it credible. It is wrong to attempt to pressure the Department of Defense to lower its standards of individual courage, human nobility and self-sacrifice performed on a battlefield to appease outside pressure. The department has never fallen short of the mark and should be left to make the call on who gets the Medal of Honor so we, as Americans, can rest assured there still is one corner in this nation where we may hear the word “hero” spoken and take notice. Hooper is an author and journalist from Knoxville, recognized for his reporting of military affairs and for his educational programs on the Medal of Honor. He is a writer for the History News Service.