Raphael Holoman-Franklin's Blog

American Bishops' backing may get bill to 218

EsquireUK — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:33:00 EST

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29262.html

House leaders have won the backing of the nation’s Catholic bishops for health reform, a critical last-minute boost that could give the bill enough momentum – and enough votes – for passage as early as Saturday.

As they awaited President Barack Obama's visit before noon, House Democrats held out hopes they could rally the 218 votes to pass a sweeping $1.2 trillion health reform bill, even if it took until late Saturday night.

But they clearly weren't there yet. During the day's first round of votes to corral support for the bill, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made a rare appearance in the Speaker's Lobby, just off the House floor, to look for colleagues. He told a group of reporters, "I'm always gun-shy...At this moment, I'm counting."

Abortion flared up as a last-minute obstacle to passage, as anti-abortion members pressed for – and won – a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions.

That prompted the letter of support from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29262.html

Bishops To House: Keep Abortion Funding Out Of Health Care Reform, Make Health Care Available To Vulnerable

Washington—The U.S. bishops sent an urgent message to the U.S. House of Representatives November 6, as House members steeped themselves in debate over procedures related to abortion and the health care reform bill.

Moments before meeting to discuss proposed amendments to the bill, the bishops called for “a fair process” that would permit discussion of “an amendment to keep in place current federal law on abortion funding and conscience protections.” Some in the House seek a “closed rule,” a procedure banning amendments from the bill.

The letter was signed by Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, Chairman of the bishops’ Domestic Justice Committee, Cardinal Justin Rigali, chair of the Committee on pro-life Activities; and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chair of the Committee on Migration.

The letter follows.

Dear Representative:

On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we write to strongly urge you to vote for essential changes and a fair process in the House of Representatives to ensure that needed health care reform legislation truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all. Unfortunately, the legislation moving to the House floor falls fundamentally short of this essential goal. We urge members of the House to:

support an amendment to keep in place current federal law on abortion funding and conscience protections and to oppose a closed rule that would prevent the House from voting on this crucial matter;

oppose measures that would leave immigrants, especially legal immigrants, worse off as a result of health reform;

support access for immigrants to the health-insurance exchange, regardless of legal status, and support removal of the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing Medicaid and other federal health-care programs; and

support strong provisions that would make health care more affordable and accessible, especially for the poor and vulnerable, by expanding Medicaid to adults who are living at 150 percent or lower of the Federal Poverty Level and offering adequate affordability credits for households up to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.

The Catholic Bishops of the United States have long supported adequate and affordable health care for all. We believe universal coverage should be truly universal, not denying health care to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here.

Protecting Human Life and Conscience
We are concerned because the current legislation before the House of Representatives fails to keep in place the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortion or for plans that include elective abortion – a policy upheld by the Hyde Amendment, Children’s Health Insurance Program, Federal Employee Health Benefits Program and other federal health initiatives. Without such protection we will have to oppose the current legislation until this fundamental flaw is remedied.

For this reason, we ask you to vote for an amendment that will keep in place the longstanding and widely supported federal policy against government funding for elective abortions or for plans which include elective abortions. To accomplish this we also urge you to support efforts to guarantee that the House will have a clear and fair opportunity to vote on this essential matter. Please vote against a “closed rule” if necessary so the amendment can be considered.
Currently, H.R. 3962 allows the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to mandate that any “public option” will include unlimited abortions. The Congressional Research Service has confirmed that all money paid out by this plan for medical procedures will be federal outlays. Federal subsidies will also be used to pay the overall costs of establishing and maintaining private health plans that cover elective abortions. Millions of purchasers will be forced to use their premium dollars for abortion coverage they do not want, through a new mandatory fee. The creation of this “abortion surcharge,” a mandatory payment requiring pro-life purchasers of many plans to pay directly and explicitly for abortion coverage, is unprecedented in federal law. Such a proposal runs counter to the principles of the longstanding “Hyde amendment.” Affirming the Hyde Amendment continues the government’s long standing policy without affecting coverage of abortion in non-subsidized health plans, and without barring anyone from purchasing a supplemental abortion policy that is funded solely by the private funds of those who choose it.

Thus far, H.R. 3962 does not meet President Obama’s commitment of barring use of federal dollars for abortion and maintaining current conscience laws. While Section 259 of the bill maintains essential nondiscrimination protections for providers who decline involvement in abortion, the legislation also requires each region of the insurance exchange to include at least one health plan with unlimited abortion, contrary to the policy of all other federal health programs; and conscience protection on issues beyond abortion have yet to be included in this bill.

Immigrants in Health Care Coverage
We support the inclusion of all immigrants, regardless of status, in the health-care exchange. Regardless of status, immigrants living in our country need to have access to health care just as any other human being. Finding ways to provide them with health care is preferable to compelling them to have access only to emergency room care which is an unfair burden on hospitals in urban and other high immigrant areas of our country.

We also support the removal on the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing federal health benefit programs, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Medicare. Legal immigrants, who work and pay taxes, should have access to such programs, if needed. Removing the ban would help ensure that legal immigrants, who were widely praised in past immigration debates for their many contributions and for playing by the rules, will still have access to health-care.

Accessible and Affordable Health Care
Because we support and advocate in favor of affordable and accessible health care for all, especially the poor and marginalized, we want legislation that expands Medicaid eligibility for adults living at 150 percent or lower of the federal poverty level. This will help lower-income families purchase insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange. Provisions in Title I (Immediate Reforms) should be helpful in providing relief to the uninsured and underinsured. The House legislation provides reforms that will strengthen families and protect low-income and vulnerable people by eliminating denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions including pregnancy; eliminating life time caps; offering long-term disability services; and extending dependant coverage to uninsured young adults.

These are not marginal issues or special interest concerns. They are at the heart of the health care debate. Our concerns outlined in this letter reflects our longstanding commitment to health care and our centuries old experience as providers of health care to all, especially the poor and the vulnerable. In that spirit we reiterate our Catholic tradition that teaches that health care is a basic human right, essential to protecting human life and dignity.

For many months, our Bishops’ conference has been working with members of Congress, the Administration and others to fashion health care reform legislation that truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all. Our message has been clear and consistent throughout. We urge the House of Representatives to permit a vote and to adopt essential changes so that, as long time advocates of health care for all, we are not compelled to oppose this flawed legislation. We hope and pray that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine reform.

http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2009/09-228.shtml

Countdown to the House Vote

EsquireUK — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:21:36 EST

The House is poised to vote Saturday on comprehensive health reform legislation — and we expect it to be very close. But with less than one day before the vote, the insurance industry and their allies are putting extraordinary pressure on every representative to defeat it.

There are only a few hours left to contact your representative before the historic House vote on health reform.

So we need to make sure representatives' phones are ringing off the hook with constituents supporting reform.

http://advocacy.barackobama.com/healthcare/campaigns/13/call_scripts/36/call_sessions/new?source=feature

Countdown to the House Vote

EsquireUK — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:16:17 EST

http://advocacy.barackobama.com/healthcare/campaigns/13/call_scripts/36/call_sessions/new?source=feature

There are only a few hours left to contact your representative before the historic House vote on health reform.

So we need to make sure representatives' phones are ringing off the hook with constituents supporting reform.

http://advocacy.barackobama.com/healthcare/campaigns/13/call_scripts/36/call_sessions/new?source=feature

Setting The Record Straight: Health Reform

EsquireUK — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:59:27 EST

Former Governor Sarah Palin's Outrageous "Death Panel" Comments

Former Governor Sarah Palin falsely claimed that under proposed health reform legislation, a "death panel" of bureaucrats would "decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether [patients] are worthy of health care." The truth is, there's no such panel mentioned anywhere in the bill.

False Republican Attacks on Health Insurance Reform

In an attempt to stall or even derail health insurance reform, many Republican officials have continually made false and outlandish claims that distort the truth about the reforms that are actually being proposed.

Special Interest Groups' Misinformation Campaign

Special interest groups continue to rely on scare tactics and mistruths to create confusion and distort the debate. In many cases, they’ve attacked provisions that don’t even appear in any of the health-care measures under consideration.

Viral Chain Emails Filled with Blatantly False Claims

Many people have received anti-health-reform chain emails filled with blatantly false claims.

Staged Disruptions Organized by Right-Wing Groups

These disruptions are being organized and funded by special interest groups who are trying desperately to preserve the status quo. One of the groups behind these disruptions – Conservatives for Patients' Rights – is being helped by some of the same people behind the notorious 'Swift Boat' ads of 2004.

Health Reform: Set The Record Straight

EsquireUK — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:53:43 EST

Former Governor Sarah Palin's Outrageous "Death Panel" Comments

False Republican Attacks on Health Insurance Reform

Special Interest Groups' Misinformation Campaign

Viral Chain Emails Filled with Blatantly False Claims

Many people have received anti-health-reform chain emails filled with blatantly false claims.

Staged Disruptions Organized by Right-Wing Groups

Share Your Election Day Memories

EsquireUK — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:37:32 EST

The Audacity To Win

EsquireUK — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:25:55 EST

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/03/david-plouffe-weighs-in-o_n_343424.html

I had arranged to meet David Plouffe on Saturday afternoon at a Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington. The night before, a copy of his new book, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory, was waiting for me when I checked into my hotel at midnight. I flipped it open, read a few lines and was hooked. I spent the rest of the night reading it.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/obama-one-year-later-the_b_343209.html

As voters in a number of states head to the polls today, many long-time supporters are back on the phones, making calls to help get out the vote. In New Jersey, Jersey Girl reports:

Turn out is slow like any other non Presidential election no surprises there. This afternoon I volunteered to take people to the polls for now to the phones. Let's go NJ, NY and VA GOTV.

From Cookemon, in Illinois:

I'm making calls to Virginia, reminding folks to vote and let them know how important their vote is... I'll be calling off and on today.

And from Sharon, in Maryland:

Just finished 50 calls to New Jersey. Felt like old times. Time to stretch my legs and go back for more.

No matter where you are, you can help out in the final stretch by making GOTV calls from home using our online tools:

Click here to call voters in New Jersey.

Click here to call voters in New York's 23rd District.

Click here to call voters in Virginia.

The Audacity To Win

EsquireUK — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:23:33 EST

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/03/david-plouffe-weighs-in-o_n_343424.html

As voters in a number of states head to the polls today, many long-time supporters are back on the phones, making calls to help get out the vote. In New Jersey, Jersey Girl reports:

Turn out is slow like any other non Presidential election no surprises there. This afternoon I volunteered to take people to the polls for now to the phones. Let's go NJ, NY and VA GOTV.

From Cookemon, in Illinois:

I'm making calls to Virginia, reminding folks to vote and let them know how important their vote is... I'll be calling off and on today.

And from Sharon, in Maryland:

Just finished 50 calls to New Jersey. Felt like old times. Time to stretch my legs and go back for more.

No matter where you are, you can help out in the final stretch by making GOTV calls from home using our online tools:

Click here to call voters in New Jersey.

Click here to call voters in New York's 23rd District.

Click here to call voters in Virginia.

Help Get Out The Vote...Call Voters

EsquireUK — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:45:43 EST

In many places across the country, today is election day. There are governor races in Virgina and New Jersey, Congressional races in New York's 23rd District and California's 10th District, as well as countless other important local races.

Voters in New Jersey can find their polling location here.

Voters in New York's 23rd District can find their polling location here.

Voters in Virginia can find their polling location here.

No matter where you are, you can help get out the vote in these key states by making phone calls from home using our online tools. Turnout is key in off-year races, and just a few minutes on the phone can make a huge difference in a tight race.

Click here to call voters in New Jersey.

Click here to call voters in New York's 23rd District.

Click here to call voters in Virginia.

One year ago, we saw firsthand the impact that these phone calls and conversations can have. It's election day, and you know what to do.

As voters in a number of states head to the polls today, many long-time supporters are back on the phones, making calls to help get out the vote. In New Jersey, Jersey Girl reports:

Turn out is slow like any other non Presidential election no surprises there. This afternoon I volunteered to take people to the polls for now to the phones. Let's go NJ, NY and VA GOTV.

From Cookemon, in Illinois:

I'm making calls to Virginia, reminding folks to vote and let them know how important their vote is... I'll be calling off and on today.

And from Sharon, in Maryland:

Just finished 50 calls to New Jersey. Felt like old times. Time to stretch my legs and go back for more.

No matter where you are, you can help out in the final stretch by making GOTV calls from home using our online tools:

Click here to call voters in New Jersey.

Click here to call voters in New York's 23rd District.

Click here to call voters in Virginia.

Recovery in Action: Powering up America

EsquireUK — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:30:22 EST

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/31/recovery-action-powering-america

Earlier in the week, President Obama announced the largest-ever investment in the nation’s electric grid—more than $3.4 billion in grants distributed among 100 grantees. Though the immense scale of the investment was clear during the President’s announcement, the flood of reports from news outlets across the country has been overwhelming. A sample of those stories are linked below, detailing new projects in South Dakota, Vermont, California, and several other states:

Arizona, Arizona Republic, 10/27/09SRP gets $56.9M boost from feds for customer 'smart meters’: Salt River Project will receive a $56.9 million grant from the federal Recovery Act to speed up the installation of "smart meters" for customers, the Energy Department announced Tuesday.

California, Sacramento Business Journal, 10/28/09SMUD receives $128M in smart-grid funds: The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has been awarded $127.5 million in federal economic stimulus funds that will go toward a $308 million smart-grid infrastructure investment.

Florida, Orlando Sentinel, 10/28/097 Florida utilities and tech firm to receive $264 million: Energy grants announced Tuesday by President Obama include $264 million for seven Florida utilities and an Orlando technology company, with each grant requiring final negotiations and matching contributions.

Georgia, Atlanta Journal Constitution, 10/27/09$200 million in stimulus funds flows to Georgia to update power grid: More than $200 million in federal stimulus money is expected to flow into projects in Georgia as part of the Obama Administration's plans to upgrade the nation's aging electric grid.

Massachusetts, Journal of New England Technology, 10/29/09Five New England states land $226M for smart meters: At least 832,000 smart meters will be installed across New England as a part of smart grid projects receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant funding.

Maryland, Daily Record, 10/27/09Federal funds granted for BGE’s smart grid: Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. expects customer costs for its smart grid projects to decrease after winning a $200 million grant from the federal government Tuesday, the company said.

Michigan, Detroit Free Press, 10/27/09Edison, Whirlpool to get stimulus money: Detroit Edison and the Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor will receive $103 million in federal stimulus money to make investments in green technology.

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/27/09Peco Energy gets $200M ‘smart-grid’ grant: Peco Energy Co. was awarded a $200 million federal stimulus grant today that will allow it to speed up deployment of "smart-grid" technology, including 600,000 advanced electric meters in the next three years.

South Dakota, Argus Leader, 10/27/09Two S.D. power companies to share $9M in federal funds to install smart meters (video): Black Hills Power and Sioux Valley Southwestern Electric Cooperative will share in more than $9 million in federal funding to help modernize the nation’s electric system.

Vermont, Bennington Banner, 10/27/09Powerful energy Vermont plan for ‘smart’ meters getting $69M: A Vermont plan to install electricity smart meters and other technologies to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy costs will receive nearly $70 million in stimulus money.

Wyoming, Star Tribune, 10/27/09Smart' grid stimulus funds come to Wyoming: Two Wyoming electric utilities will receive more than $7.5 million combined in federal grants to help modernize their infrastructure.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/31/recovery-action-powering-america

Recovery in Action: Powering up America

EsquireUK — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:22:59 EST

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/31/recovery-action-powering-america

Arizona, Arizona Republic, 10/27/09SRP gets $56.9M boost from feds for customer 'smart meters’: Salt River Project will receive a $56.9 million grant from the federal Recovery Act to speed up the installation of "smart meters" for customers, the Energy Department announced Tuesday.

California, Sacramento Business Journal, 10/28/09SMUD receives $128M in smart-grid funds: The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has been awarded $127.5 million in federal economic stimulus funds that will go toward a $308 million smart-grid infrastructure investment.

Florida, Orlando Sentinel, 10/28/097 Florida utilities and tech firm to receive $264 million: Energy grants announced Tuesday by President Obama include $264 million for seven Florida utilities and an Orlando technology company, with each grant requiring final negotiations and matching contributions.

Georgia, Atlanta Journal Constitution, 10/27/09$200 million in stimulus funds flows to Georgia to update power grid: More than $200 million in federal stimulus money is expected to flow into projects in Georgia as part of the Obama Administration's plans to upgrade the nation's aging electric grid.

Massachusetts, Journal of New England Technology, 10/29/09Five New England states land $226M for smart meters: At least 832,000 smart meters will be installed across New England as a part of smart grid projects receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant funding.

Maryland, Daily Record, 10/27/09Federal funds granted for BGE’s smart grid: Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. expects customer costs for its smart grid projects to decrease after winning a $200 million grant from the federal government Tuesday, the company said.

Michigan, Detroit Free Press, 10/27/09Edison, Whirlpool to get stimulus money: Detroit Edison and the Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor will receive $103 million in federal stimulus money to make investments in green technology.

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/27/09Peco Energy gets $200M ‘smart-grid’ grant: Peco Energy Co. was awarded a $200 million federal stimulus grant today that will allow it to speed up deployment of "smart-grid" technology, including 600,000 advanced electric meters in the next three years.

South Dakota, Argus Leader, 10/27/09Two S.D. power companies to share $9M in federal funds to install smart meters (video): Black Hills Power and Sioux Valley Southwestern Electric Cooperative will share in more than $9 million in federal funding to help modernize the nation’s electric system.

Vermont, Bennington Banner, 10/27/09Powerful energy Vermont plan for ‘smart’ meters getting $69M: A Vermont plan to install electricity smart meters and other technologies to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy costs will receive nearly $70 million in stimulus money.

Wyoming, Star Tribune, 10/27/09Smart' grid stimulus funds come to Wyoming: Two Wyoming electric utilities will receive more than $7.5 million combined in federal grants to help modernize their infrastructure.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/31/recovery-action-powering-america

President Obama Signed HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act

EsquireUK — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:48:50 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/30/honoring-legacy-ryan-white

President Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. It represents our ongoing commitment to ensuring access to needed HIV/AIDS care and treatment. The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) worked very closely with Congress on this bipartisan legislation, and the consensus document developed by the HIV/AIDS advocacy community was an important part of the process. We were so pleased that Jeanne White-Ginder, Ryan White’s mother, was here at the bill signing.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/30/honoring-legacy-ryan-white

Recovery Act: Saving Over A Million Jobs

EsquireUK — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:10:00 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/30/weekly-address-milestones-economy-and-recovery-act

Read the Transcript | Download Video: mp4 | mp3 (5MB)

While there is nothing to celebrate until job numbers turn around, the President cites the recent dramatic turnaround in gross domestic product as a sign of better things to come. He also applauds the fact that the Recovery Act has now created or saved more than a million jobs.

Yesterday we learned that GDP had grown at an annual rate of 3.5 percent during the third quarter, the first time the economy had grown in more than a year.

Today new reports confirm that the Recovery Act is responsible for more than 1 million jobs so far – and is on-track to create and save a total of at least 3.5 million jobs by next fall. The reports (which are required by Congress) were submitted by state and local governments, private companies, community organizations and other recipients of Recovery funds. The reports indicate 640,329 jobs have been created or saved, on a little less than half of stimulus spending to-date.

The majority of the jobs reported today were in the construction and education sectors -- about 325,000 of the jobs reported were in education and more than 80,000 of the jobs are in construction.

Jared Bernstein, Vice President Biden’s Chief Economist and the Executive Director of the Middle Class Task Force, has a great post on the White House blog about today's news. You can access the reports at Recovery.gov.

President Obama's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:04:17 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/30/weekly-address-milestones-economy-and-recovery-act

Read the Transcript | Download Video: mp4 | mp3 (5MB)

Yesterday we learned that GDP had grown at an annual rate of 3.5 percent during the third quarter, the first time the economy had grown in more than a year.

The majority of the jobs reported today were in the construction and education sectors -- about 325,000 of the jobs reported were in education and more than 80,000 of the jobs are in construction.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Unveils The Affordable Health Care for America Act

EsquireUK — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:25:30 EDT

Speaker Pelosi unveiled the House’s final version of health insurance reform legislation – The Affordable Health Care For America Act - in front of the U.S. Capitol this morning, marking another historic step in the on-going effort to pass reform this year.

The bill delivers on President Obama’s goals for reform: increased security and stability for those who have insurance; quality, affordable choices for those who don’t; and lowering the skyrocketing costs of health care for American families, businesses and our government itself.

Here’s an excerpt from the President's statement this morning:

“I congratulate the House of Representatives on the introduction of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, another critical milestone in the effort to reform our health care system…
“The House legislation includes critical reforms to the insurance industry, so that Americans will no longer have to worry that they will be denied coverage, or that their coverage will be dropped or watered down when they need it most. I’m also pleased that the bill includes a public option offered in an exchange. As I’ve said throughout this process, a public option that competes with private insurers is the best way to ensure choice and competition that are so badly needed in today’s market. And the House bill clearly meets two of the fundamental criteria I have set out: it is fully paid for and will reduce the deficit in the long term.”

The New York Times reported:

The bill would require nearly everyone by 2013 to sign up for health coverage either through their employer, a government program or a new kind of purchasing pool called an exchange. Tax credits would be available for most of those buying coverage through the exchange. They would have the option of picking a new government plan or private insurance.
During the transition years from 2010-2013, a temporary government program would help people turned down by private insurers because of medical problems, lawmakers said. After that, insurers no longer could refuse to provide coverage to the sick, nor could they charge more because of poor health of the insured.
The plan also calls for a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income people. And it would impose a requirement on employers to offer insurance to their workers or face penalties.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House bill would cost $894 billion over 10 years and extend insurance coverage to 36 million, covering 96 percent of Americans. It is expected to cut the deficit by $30 billion in the first 10 years.

Speaker Pelosi has said she expects to send the bill to the floor for a vote before November 11.

President Obama Signs Inclusive Hate Crimes Legislation

EsquireUK — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:47:23 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/28/about-whether-we-value-one-another

Today President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, legislation that will extend new federal protections to people who are victims of violent crime because of their sex or sexual orientation. It is an update to the federal hate crimes statute that Congress first passed in 1968. For the first time, the law that previously protected people from attacks motivated by race, religion or ethnicity will also protect gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people.

The President will host a reception commemorating the enactment of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in the East Room of the White House this evening. This afternoon, before signing the bill, he said:

"...After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we've passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray, or who they are.
"I promised Judy Shepard, when she saw me in the Oval Office, that this day would come, and I'm glad that she and her husband Dennis could join us for this event. I'm also honored to have the family of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought so hard for this legislation. And Vicki and Patrick, Kara, everybody who's here, I just want you all to know how proud we are of the work that Ted did to help this day -- make this day possible..."

Here’s an excerpt from an editorial in the Washington Post this morning:

PRESIDENT OBAMA is scheduled to sign Wednesday what is being described as the nation's first significant pro-gay rights legislation. Attached to the defense authorization act, the measure would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability to the list of protected classes under the 1969 federal hate-crimes law…
The law doesn't outlaw bigotry or "thought crimes." It applies only to "violent acts motivated by" the characteristics of the victim -- acts, not thoughts or speech. But crimes that target someone because of race or sexual orientation are more than offenses against that individual. They can terrorize whole communities.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/28/about-whether-we-value-one-another

Vaccinations for the First Family

EsquireUK — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:35:43 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/27/vaccinations-first-family

We've been asked about whether the President, Mrs. Obama, and Sasha and Malia have received their H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines. All four members of the Obama family have received their seasonal flu vaccine. Malia and Sasha were both vaccinated for H1N1 last week, after the vaccine became available to Washington, DC schoolchildren. President and Mrs. Obama have not yet been vaccinated for H1N1, and they will wait until the needs of the priority groups identified by the CDC – including young people under the age of 24, pregnant women, and people with underlying conditions – have been met. The girls' H1N1 vaccine was administered by a White House physician, who applied for and received the vaccine from the DC Department of Health using the same process as every other vaccination site in the District.

While the initial distribution of vaccine is being administered to priority target groups, there are steps every family can take to help protect against H1N1 and seasonal flu. Remember to check Flu.gov for the latest on vaccine availability near you, steps you can take to protect your family, and what to do if you or a loved one gets the flu.

Catherine Mccormick-Lelyveld is Press Secretary for the First Lady

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/27/vaccinations-first-family

Health Insurance Reform This Year?

EsquireUK — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:13:35 EDT

Driving the Conversation:

http://www.politico.com/arena/

Ross Baker Political scientist, Rutgers :
For nervous Senate Democrats, opt-out is like a handful of Xanax. It shifts the burden to the states and puts GOP governors and state legislators in a sticky position of having to go on record in opposition to the public option.
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Michael F. Cannon Cato, Dir. of Health Policy Studies :
Including a Fannie Med with a “state opt-out” provision in the Senate Democrats’ health care bill accomplishes only this: it helps Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) survive as majority leader by appeasing his left wing. It doesn’t make it any more (or less) likely that Fannie Med will survive. (Cross posted at Cato@Liberty)
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Bradley A. Blakeman Republican strategist, consultant, entrepreneur :
Health Care: Typical of the Democrats motis operandi, there is nothing on paper with regard to Reid’s Opt-out Public Option. The Democrats who promised to be the most open and transparent have been the most secretive and clandestine.

More...
It is hard to evaluate a plan when you are told what it is as opposed to seeing it and evaluating it in the context of a comprehensive bill. The “holy grail” for the Democrats with regard to health care reform has been the public option in some form. The idea is to get it introduced as part of mega health care bill now and then expand on it over time. Their ultimate goal down the road is a socialized medicine program akin to Canada and Europe. The final health care bill will be in excess of 1500 pages and will again come out close to a vote thereby preventing Members the time to digest and understand what they are voting for. Reid and Schumer are racing around the Senate office buildings telling colleagues what to be for and what the Opt-out really means.
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David Orentlicher Professor, co-dir., Center for Law and Health, Ind. University Schools of Law and Medicine :
Adding a public option increases the chances for a health care bill this year. Senator Reid avoids a serious divide with his more liberal colleagues by giving the public option a real chance at passage. Even if the option succumbs to amendment, people will see that Reid made a genuine effort to include it in the legislation, and public option proponents will be more inclined to support a compromise. Moreover, if the Reid version of the public option reduces the projected cost of the health care bill, it can help mollify the budgetary concerns of more moderate Senators and the broader public, thereby taking some of the wind out of the opposition's sails.
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Victor Kamber Carmen Group :
The Democrats finally got there act together and listened to their base. They realized they had a President, a house of Representatives and 60 votes in the Senate. They finally realized they govern. There is still much to be done, and the conference will be difficult. Republicans have let the 'noise makers' set the tone. You can't govern from talk radio or cable TV, There has be no clear leadership with ideas or a true alternative for the Republicans to rally around. Their only alternative has been NO and that's not good enough. Whether planned or by luck Senator Reid comes out a hero. He can deliver.
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Tom Korologos Former ambassador, consultant and Republican strategist :
Senator Reid's announcement about including the public option surely implies he has run the numbers and has 60 votes to get it to the floor for debate and THEN 60 votes (which may or may not be the same 60) to get it to where the Senate can go to final passage. Given the recent oh-for-two record of trying to get 60--for Commerce State Justice appropriations and for the Medicare so-called "Doc Fix"--the odds are about as good as the Redskins winning all their remaining games.
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Darrell M. West Vice President, Governance Studies, Brookings :
In political terms, the opt-out makes it easier to sell a public option to recalcitrant moderates. But in policy terms, it opens up great uncertainty over implementation. If this was 1965 and there were a Medicare opt-out, we might have ended up with two-thirds of the states having Medicare while one-third opted out. In addition, the opt-out leads to a worrisome precedent for other policy areas. If states don’t like future congressional decisions on gun control or climate change, look for state legislators to demand an opt-out.
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Dana Perino Former White House Press Secretary :
I think the fact that we're even asking that question today shows that it hurts the chances for a bill. His press conference yesterday was a rather sad affair - all by himself, back to square one, with a twinge of maybe-this-helps-me-in-Nevada politics.

Reading the press last week, one would have thought this was all a done deal, that consensus had won the day and all we were waiting for was a signing ceremony. I found those stories a bit over the top, especially as many were based on polling questions that were, to be charitable, skewed.

This development proves again that legislative reform efforts go in cycles - one week you're up, the next your back on your heels.

Remember when they said they'd have it done by Columbus Day? Then it was Thanksgiving. Now it's Christmas. Or, for the Senator from Nevada, maybe he prefers...Boxing Day.
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Dean Baker Co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research :
Reid has to navigate between the reality that many progressive Democrats in the House will not vote for a bill that doesn't have a public option and that several Democrats in the Senate may not support a bill with a public option. His proposal with a state opt out may be the best middle course. The option should limit the extent of the hostility from those with the strongest objections. This may not get Reid to 60 votes for the bill, but he doesn't need 60 votes for the bill, he just needs 60 senators who will let the president have a vote on his number 1 domestic priority. This is doable.
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Timothy Stoltzfus Jost Law Professor at the Washington and Lee University :
Public plan choice seems the perfect compromise between those who favor the cost control and access expansion potential of a public plan and those who oppose it. It not only allows uninsured individuals the choice of participating in a public plan or not (which has been the proposal all along), the opt out also allows states who want to deny their residents that choice a chance to do so. Opponents, however, are so terrified of a public plan that they not only want to deny Americans the choice of a public plan, they are also not satisfied with letting the states choose whether or not to allow their residents this choice. The irony, of course, is that many of these opponents are those who trumpet most loudly individual freedom of choice and states’ rights in other contexts.

Of course, the opponents of reform will do everything they can to slow reform down. They will insist on weeks of debate, even though they have no new ideas to offer. But movement toward reform continues inexorably. Hopefully the House and Senate can deliver reform as a Christmas present to the American people (if they can’t get the job done sooner).
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James Carafano Heritage Foundation, Defense and Homeland Security :
Stupidity is an Option Too: Healthcare “reform” is dead, dead, dead. The White House and the leadership in the Congress had their chance. They failed. They failed to craft a plan that Americans want or need.

More...
Reid is rearranging the corpse.

Meanwhile, in the House the majority leader is “rebranding” the government option as the “consumer” or “competitive” option. Apparently, this will resurrect the dead…convincing Americans that this is not the government option that they don’t want.

Look, I am the security guy…and frankly its just my job to worry about how we keep the country safe and let other worry about what to do with the country…but healthcare has created a national security crisis because it has sucked up all the energy of the White House.

The president would have had plenty of time to make a deliberate decision on Afghanistan if he had spent the last nine months acting like a commander-in-chief and worrying about Afghanistan. Now we know he squandered almost the whole first year of his presidency to produce a healthcare plan that is a mess….where the goal has now become get anything passed.

And, we still have zero leadership on Afghanistan.
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Comment On This Article :
Josh Gerstein in POLITICO: A four-hour stop in New Orleans, on his way to a $3 million fundraiser. Snubbing the Dalai Lama. Signing off on a secret deal with drug makers.Freezing out a TV network. Doing more fundraisers than the last president. More golf, too.

President Barack Obama has done all of those things — and more.

What’s remarkable is what hasn’t happened. These episodes haven’t become metaphors for Obama’s personal and political character — or consuming controversies that sidetracked the rest of his agenda.
Read the whole story
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- Christine Pelosi Attorney, author and Democratic activist :
  The public's outrage - not the pundit's - is what makes or breaks a Presidency.
  The public's outrage is at the kitchen table when people open their bills; on the phone when fighting insurance companies over coverage; in the pharmacies when the drug costs soar. That is the outrage President Obama must address; that is the anxiety that demands the change Democrats are about to deliver.
  
  More...
  The pundit's outrage is all over cable news where there is enough hot air to send a balloon 50 miles across Colorado. Both sides offer talkers who claim to be more besieged and belittled by the sensationalist media than the other. Take New Orleans for example - who exactly ordered the live coverage of President Obama's town hall meeting suspended in favor of a balloon boy hoax? The media didn't even bother with a split screen like the OJ white Bronco chase - it was goodbye Katrina hello balloon boy.
  
  So what's a President to do? Never forget whose outrage matters more - the public's not the pundit's. The White House gets this. That is why the President continues to methodically work to address the public's outrage. Not fast enough for his supporters, to be sure. But steady enough that the American people still like and trust President Obama to do his job, respond to the public's outrage, and deliver meaningful healthcare reform.
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- Bill Bishop Author and editor :
  This is the oldest social psychology experiment on earth. In 1951, students at Princeton and Dartmouth watched a film of a football game between the two schools. The students were asked to take note of foul play. Dartmouth students saw offenses committed by Princeton players. Princeton students saw Dartmouth’s fouls.
  
  Israelis and Palestinians come to totally different conclusions after watching the same news spot. Francis Bacon wrote in 1620 that “human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.”
  
  This is what happens when politics (and news and religion and neighborhoods) go tribal.
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- Bradley A. Blakeman Republican strategist, consultant, entrepreneur :
  The media is still in the tank for Obama. The Politico article was right on in pointing to the double standard of coverage between Bush and Obama. There is no doubt that our current president is getting a pass on activities that would be fodder had Bush done the same things. The bottom-line for Republicans is this, do not be consumed with what the skewed coverage is and don’t harp on it. The way to regain parody with Democrats is through ideas and pointing to the deficiencies in their governance. Next week Republicans will pick up at least one governors race and may be two that are currently held by Democrats. Then will come in short order the mid-term elections where historically the party not in power picks up seats in the House and Senate. Republicans should be focused on 2010. The Democrats majority on the House and Senate could be short lived or dramatically curtailed.
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- Greg Dworkin Contributing Editor, Daily Kos :
  Republicans ask where's the outrage" over complaints (many superficial, some not) about the Obama WH? Even now, I don’t think Republicans are introspective enough about the damage Katrina did to the Bush Presidency, and the damage Bush did to the Republican party. One major reason is that these are more sober times, with Americans aware that there are more important things to worry about, but another is that the Bush legacy was set in stone when Katrina was mismanaged. It wasn’t simply an error of judgment by someone who could be replaced (mistakes happen, yea, even in Washington), it was the deliberate and intrinsic dismantling of FEMA and the replacement of disaster management professionals with political appointees like Michael Brown, and 20-something political minders assigned to prevent science from occurring at NOAA and other agencies if it didn’t fit a conservative agenda (and that included muzzling the Surgeon General, Richard Carmona.) We have a different approach now, one that's widely known to be more grounded in science (thank goodness) and policy (agree or disagree) than politics. For that reason, charges that “the Obama WH is too political” have fallen on deaf ears.
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- Bradley A. Smith Professor, election law and campaign finance :
  As to "where's the outrage" and the coverage of President Obama, we can all, I hope, at least get a good morning chuckle out of this line: " Obama’s aides say the positive coverage simply reflects the fact that their efforts are succeeding."
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- Charles W. Calomiris Professor of Financial Institutions, Columbia :
  I am shocked -- SHOCKED!! -- to discover that the media favor President Obama, give him constant free passes for things they would criticize about President Bush, and often neglect to focus on his foibles. My main reaction to the "Where's the Outrage?" article is "Where's the News?" My other reaction is that it might not be so bad that the media have decided not to report on the President's golf or basketball games or how many hours he spent on a recent trip to New Orleans if the media used the space to delve deeper into substantive matters about policy.
  
  More...
  The bigger problem is that the media aren't focusing on the litany of mistakes that matter. The list is a long one, enough to make Jimmy Carter jealous. In foreign policy: dithering over Afghanistan, betrayal of allies in eastern Europe to cowtow to Russia, ineffectual strategies on Iran and North Korea, and support for leftist blowhards in Latin America. In economic policy: anti-free trade policy visible in the failure to complete any bilateral trade deals and the imposition of a 35% tire tariff, intrusion into the GM and Chrylser bankruptcies to protect the unions from making sacrifices which will make it impossible for these firms to compete, huge proposed tax increases on income and carbon that will stunt growth, wasteful government spending masquerading as "stimulus," disastrous healthcare "reform" proposals that would increase costs and destroy competition among private healthcare providers, a poorly designed carbon tax policy that despite its costs will accomplish virtually nothing for the environment. And as for inappropriate White House actions that should be drawing attention, the press has said little about the use of a "pay czar" to micromanage the pay of individuals at seven government-assisted firms, deciding on a case-by-case basis who deserves a high salary and who does not, without oversight or accountability, and openly in pursuit of political expediency (as the "czar" put it when explaining some of his actions: “to avoid another public uproar over pay packages at the bailed-out company”). The pay cuts are also part of the President's "show them the instruments" campaign to intimidate Wall Street so that they will stop "opposing change" on financial reform. And that is not an isolated incident. The President seems not to have much respect for concepts like due process and accountability when they get in the way of what he wants. Yes, the press is giving President Obama a free pass, but it's not what they aren't saying about his time on the golf course that worries me, it's the things he does when he is not playing golf that deserve attention and criticism. But I guess (as noted in the "Where's the Outrage?" article) that wouldn't fit the "story line."
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Senator Reid Announces ‘Opt-Out’ Public Plan

EsquireUK — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:32:36 EDT

Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid announced his intention to include a government-run insurance plan with an “opt out” provision in the Senate version of health care legislation. The New York Times reported:

“I’ve concluded, with the support of the White House, Senators Dodd and Baucus, that the best way to move forward is to include a public option with the opt-out provision for states,” Mr. Reid said at a news conference.

“Under this concept, states will be able to determine whether the public option works well for them and will have the ability to opt out if they so choose. I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system.”

Shorty after Senator Reid's announcment, the White House released the following statement in support of the work that Congressional leaders have done so far:

“The President congratulates Senator Reid and Chairmen Baucus and Dodd for their hard work on health insurance reform. Thanks to their efforts, we’re closer than we’ve ever been to solving this decades-old problem. And while much work remains, the President is pleased that at the progress that Congress has made. He’s also pleased that the Senate has decided to include a public option for health coverage, in this case with an allowance for states to opt out. As he said to Congress and the nation in September, he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition.”

Final Week: GreenGov Challenge

EsquireUK — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:22:48 EDT

This is the final week of the GreenGov Challenge, and I urge everyone to view some of the remarkable sustainability ideas submitted thus far by government and military employees.

And for those readers who are government or military employees, I urge you to share your suggestions. Though nearly 6,000 have been submitted thus far, that good idea in your mind right now could rewrite the way the Federal government reduces energy use, conserves water, reduces waste, and supports clean technology.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/26/good-ideas-good-people-greengov-challenge-rounds-final-turn-with-nearly-6000-sustain

President Barack Obama

To view the webcast of President Obama's speech from Kresge Auditorium on October 23, 2009, click on the appropriate link below. Closed Captioning is available only through the Windows Media Video links.

Flash Video
On-Demand Stream Windows Media Video
On-Demand

Final Week: GreenGov Challenge

EsquireUK — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:19:00 EDT

This is the final week of the GreenGov Challenge, and I urge everyone to view some of the remarkable sustainability ideas submitted thus far by government and military employees.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/26/good-ideas-good-people-greengov-challenge-rounds-final-turn-with-nearly-6000-sustain

President Barack Obama

Flash Video
On-Demand Stream Windows Media Video
On-Demand

President Obama's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:42:45 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Working-with-Small-Business-to-Drive-Recovery/

The President restates his commitment to small business as key to economic recovery -- from the Recovery Act to Financial Stability to Health Reform -- and pledges more to come.

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (125 MB) | read the transcript

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Working-with-Small-Business-to-Drive-Recovery/

Green Economy Means Green Jobs at Home

EsquireUK — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:03:29 EDT

Building a green economy isn't going to be easy, but if government and businesses work together, America can and will be a world leader in clean energy.

On Monday, October 5th, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on Federal Sustainability – and in doing so, committed the Federal government to lead by example, practice what we preach and help build a clean energy economy through how we operate.

To harness the collective wisdom of the more than 1.8 million civilian employees and our men and women in uniform, we’re launching the GreenGov Challenge, an online participatory way for Federal employees to suggest clean energy ideas and vote on others.

Some of the top ideas will be presented to the Steering Committee on Federal Sustainability – a group comprised of a senior official from each agency who is responsible for delivering among other things, each agency’s sustainability plan.

Though anyone can see your ideas, only Federal employees can participate – so this is your chance to positively impact how your agency will meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.

Be part of the GreenGov Challenge and help green our government!

The GreenGov challenge runs from Oct. 19th — 31st

http://www.whitehouse.gov/GreenGov/

GreenGov Challenge:19th October -31st October

EsquireUK — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:22:38 EDT

On Monday, October 5th, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on Federal Sustainability – and in doing so, committed the Federal government to lead by example, practice what we preach and help build a clean energy economy through how we operate.

Though anyone can see your ideas, only Federal employees can participate – so this is your chance to positively impact how your agency will meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.

Be part of the GreenGov Challenge and help green our government!

The GreenGov challenge runs from Oct. 19th — 31st

http://www.whitehouse.gov/GreenGov/

President Obama:Taking on the Insurance Companies

EsquireUK — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:27:54 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Taking-the-Insurance-Companies-on-Down-the-Stretch/

As the health insurance reform debate enters into its final stages in Congress, the President denounces the desperate and deceptive last-ditch efforts of the health insurance companies to derail it.

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (212 MB) | read the transcript

President Obama's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:20:37 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Taking-the-Insurance-Companies-on-Down-the-Stretch/

As the health insurance reform debate enters into its final stages in Congress, the President denounces the desperate and deceptive last-ditch efforts of the health insurance companies to derail it.

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (212 MB) | read the transcript

Call Out The Health Insurance Lobby Today

EsquireUK — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:32:33 EDT

After fighting health reform with lies, deceit, and multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the health insurance lobby -- America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) -- recently released a report on the "effects of health reform." Surprise! It's full of flawed claims that reform would increase costs.

Many journalists and experts called the report "deceptive" and "implausible." Even the firm that wrote it now admits they only looked at parts of the health reform plan -- because that's what the insurance lobby paid them to do. It's exactly what we should expect from an industry that's been fighting tooth and nail to kill reform, and is now preparing an all-out assault.

We're not going to take it sitting down. So this week, we're calling out the health insurance lobby.

The lobby has invested millions trying to convince Congress to oppose reform. So this week, we're not simply debunking lies: The best way to Call 'em Out is to cut through the spin and tell our representatives to say "no" to deceitful lobbyists and "yes" to reform.

Soon, health reform will be taken up by the entire House and Senate, and the insurance lobby will take their attacks to a new level. Their lies will grow more extreme -- and it will be more important than ever that our voices are louder than those of the Washington lobbyists.

Call out the health insurance lobby today: http://www.democrats.org/CallOutAHIP

Call The Lobbyists Out

EsquireUK — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:20:08 EDT

We're not going to take it sitting down. So this week, we're calling out the health insurance lobby.

Call out the health insurance lobby today: http://www.democrats.org/CallOutAHIP

President Obama: We Will Rebuild This Region

EsquireUK — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:30:19 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Down-in-New-Orleans/

New Orleans – President Barack Obama jetted to this hurricane battered city Thursday to deliver a fiery call to action, vowing to rebuild to the Gulf Coast area as a boisterous crowd chanted “yes we can!”

"I promise you this," Obama said during his first visit to the city as president. “Together we will rebuild this region and we will build it stronger than before."

Although the trip was met with criticism from some local officials that his administration hasn’t done enough to help with the ongoing rebuilding effort here, Obama struck an optimistic tone.

“Katrina may have swept through this city, but it did not destroy this community, and that is because of you – the people of New Orleans,” Obama said. “You deserve leaders in Washington who are willing to work as hard as you are.”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Down-in-New-Orleans/

Send A Message To Congress

EsquireUK — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:03:43 EDT

OFA Director Mitch Stewart just sent out the following email:

Despite increasingly desperate attacks from the insurance lobby, the Senate Finance Committee took the historic step of voting reform legislation out of committee with bipartisan support. They're the final committee to do so -- and the negotiations over the final bill will now move to the full House and Senate.

Soon, every senator and representative must decide where they stand. Lobbyists will be racing to each office, trying every trick in the book to derail the President's plan. In fact, just this week, the insurance lobby released a self-serving report falsely claiming that reform would increase costs. Journalists called it "deceptive" and said "something doesn't smell right here." A prominent M.I.T. economist described the study as "deeply flawed."

It's a blatant scare tactic designed to frighten voters and bully Congress -- and it's just the beginning. We need to speak out right away to show Congress that their constituents are watching closely, and we're counting on them to say "no" to the lobbyists and "yes" to reform.

Send a message urging Congress to stand with voters, not D.C. lobbyists, and pass real reform.

It's becoming clear that the insurance companies will do whatever it takes to stop progress: The New York Times is reporting that special interests are spending $1.4 million every day to kill reform -- and even commissioned their own slanted analysis of the Finance Committee's legislation in an effort to defeat it. But today, after widespread criticism, the company that produced the report issued a statement saying that it analyzed only part of the bill because that's exactly what the insurance industry paid them to do!

And we just got word that insurance companies are spending $1 million on a misleading ad to scare seniors out of supporting reform. The ad falsely declares that reform will cause cuts in Medicare, even though reform is crucial to ensuring the long-term survival of the program and preserving the care that millions of seniors depend on.

Now that all five congressional committees have passed reform legislation, we're sure to see attacks that are even more extreme. It's up to us to make sure that ordinary Americans continue to be heard louder than the Washington lobbyists.

Please send a message to Congress today:

http://my.barackobama.com/Fight_Back

The next few weeks are absolutely crucial to our success -- we'll be organizing events, running ads, and doing everything possible to make sure Congress passes real reform. But right now, the most important thing we can do is make our voices heard immediately. Please speak out now.

Thanks,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

Send A Message To Congress

EsquireUK — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:56:44 EDT

OFA Director Mitch Stewart just sent out the following email:

Despite increasingly desperate attacks from the insurance lobby, the Senate Finance Committee took the historic step of voting reform legislation out of committee with bipartisan support. They're the final committee to do so -- and the negotiations over the final bill will now move to the full House and Senate.

Soon, every senator and representative must decide where they stand. Lobbyists will be racing to each office, trying every trick in the book to derail the President's plan. In fact, just this week, the insurance lobby released a self-serving report falsely claiming that reform would increase costs. Journalists called it "deceptive" and said "something doesn't smell right here." A prominent M.I.T. economist described the study as "deeply flawed."

It's a blatant scare tactic designed to frighten voters and bully Congress -- and it's just the beginning. We need to speak out right away to show Congress that their constituents are watching closely, and we're counting on them to say "no" to the lobbyists and "yes" to reform.

Send a message urging Congress to stand with voters, not D.C. lobbyists, and pass real reform.

It's becoming clear that the insurance companies will do whatever it takes to stop progress: The New York Times is reporting that special interests are spending $1.4 million every day to kill reform -- and even commissioned their own slanted analysis of the Finance Committee's legislation in an effort to defeat it. But today, after widespread criticism, the company that produced the report issued a statement saying that it analyzed only part of the bill because that's exactly what the insurance industry paid them to do!

And we just got word that insurance companies are spending $1 million on a misleading ad to scare seniors out of supporting reform. The ad falsely declares that reform will cause cuts in Medicare, even though reform is crucial to ensuring the long-term survival of the program and preserving the care that millions of seniors depend on.

Now that all five congressional committees have passed reform legislation, we're sure to see attacks that are even more extreme. It's up to us to make sure that ordinary Americans continue to be heard louder than the Washington lobbyists.

Please send a message to Congress today:

http://my.barackobama.com/Fight_Back

The next few weeks are absolutely crucial to our success -- we'll be organizing events, running ads, and doing everything possible to make sure Congress passes real reform. But right now, the most important thing we can do is make our voices heard immediately. Please speak out now.

Thanks,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Bill

EsquireUK — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:22:59 EDT

WASHINGTON — The Senate Finance Committee voted on Tuesday to approve legislation that would reshape the American health care system and provide subsidies to help millions of people buy insurance, as Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, joined all 13 Democrats on the panel in support of the landmark bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/health/policy/14health.html?_r=1&hp

Senate Finance Committee Approves Health Bill

EsquireUK — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:17:32 EDT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/health/policy/14health.html?_r=1&hp

President Obama's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:33:22 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-New-Momentum-for-Health-Reform/

The President goes through the leading conservative and Republican figures who have come out one after another urging passage of health insurance reform. After a summer of intense debate, cooler heads begin to prevail to make progress for the American people.

President Obama: New Momentum for Health Reform

EsquireUK — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:29:21 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-New-Momentum-for-Health-Reform/

President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

EsquireUK — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:02:24 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Building-a-World-that-Gives-Life-to-the-Promise-of-Our-Founding-Documents/

Early this morning, it was announced that President Obama had been selected as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. From the New York Times:

In a stunning surprise, the Nobel Committee announced in Oslo that it has awarded the annual prize to the president “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The award cited in particular Mr. Obama’s effort to reduce the world’s nuclear arsenal.

“He has created a new international climate,” the committee said.

The announcement, coming extraordinarily early in Mr. Obama’s presidency — less than nine months after he took office as the first African American president — shocked people from Norway to Washington.

The White House had no idea it was coming.

...a senior administration official said in an e-mail message that Mr. Gibbs called the White House shortly before 6 a.m. and woke the president with the news.

“The president was humbled to be selected by the committee,” the official said, without adding anything further.

Mr. Obama made repairing the fractured relations between the United States and the rest of the world a major theme of his campaign for the presidency and since taking office as president, he has pursued a range of policies intended to fulfill that goal. He has vowed to pursue a world without nuclear arms, as he did in a speech in Prague earlier this year, reached out to the Muslim world, delivering a major speech in Cairo in June, and sought to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said in its citation. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

President Obama is only the third sitting U.S. president to win the award.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Building-a-World-that-Gives-Life-to-the-Promise-of-Our-Founding-Documents/

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

EsquireUK — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:50:37 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Building-a-World-that-Gives-Life-to-the-Promise-of-Our-Founding-Documents/

Early this morning, it was announced that President Obama had been selected as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. From the New York Times:

In a stunning surprise, the Nobel Committee announced in Oslo that it has awarded the annual prize to the president “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The award cited in particular Mr. Obama’s effort to reduce the world’s nuclear arsenal.

“He has created a new international climate,” the committee said.

The announcement, coming extraordinarily early in Mr. Obama’s presidency — less than nine months after he took office as the first African American president — shocked people from Norway to Washington.

The White House had no idea it was coming.

...a senior administration official said in an e-mail message that Mr. Gibbs called the White House shortly before 6 a.m. and woke the president with the news.

“The president was humbled to be selected by the committee,” the official said, without adding anything further.

Mr. Obama made repairing the fractured relations between the United States and the rest of the world a major theme of his campaign for the presidency and since taking office as president, he has pursued a range of policies intended to fulfill that goal. He has vowed to pursue a world without nuclear arms, as he did in a speech in Prague earlier this year, reached out to the Muslim world, delivering a major speech in Cairo in June, and sought to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said in its citation. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

President Obama is only the third sitting U.S. president to win the award.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Building-a-World-that-Gives-Life-to-the-Promise-of-Our-Founding-Documents/

UPDATED: The President will deliver a statement from the White House at 10:45 a.m. Eastern. You can watch a live stream of his remarks below:

Your Video For Health Reform

EsquireUK — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:18:43 EDT

Earlier today, David Plouffe announced the official panel judges who, along with the American public, will help determine the winner of the OFA Health Reform Video Challenge:

Last month, we launched Organizing for America's Health Reform Video Challenge -- a contest to make the best 30-second ad showing why the President's plan for reform is so critical.

Today, I'm excited to announce a great panel of OFA volunteers, campaign veterans and well-known artists who will join me to help select the winning ad. The panel will include will.i.am, whose viral "Yes We Can" video fired up our movement last year, as well as Virginia Governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, actress Kate Walsh, and animator Seth MacFarlane (check out the full panel below).

There are less than two weeks left to submit a video before the October 18th deadline. The top submissions will be seen by millions online, and we'll run the winning ad on national television. With Congress moving into the final phase of this health reform debate, we need your creativity and voice out there more than ever.

Click here for all the info, rules, and everything else you need to get started.
You don't need special experience to record a powerful message. But if you know someone who makes great videos and wants to make a huge difference on the national stage, please pass on this note right away.

Your video can be serious or funny, simple or sophisticated. Just make sure to focus on why we need to fix today's broken system, or how President Obama's plan will help make sure all Americans have the care they need.

So get started today:

http://my.barackobama.com/VideoChallenge

Thanks, as always, for lending your voice.

David Plouffe

P.S. -- Here's the full list of judges: will.i.am, front man and producer of the multi-platinum Black Eyed Peas; actress and Voto Latino founder Rosario Dawson; Kate Walsh from "Private Practice" and "Grey's Anatomy;" Olivia Wilde from "House;" Dulé Hill from "The West Wing" and "Psych;' "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane; John Cho from "Harold and Kumar" and "American Pie;" and Brandon Routh from "Superman Returns."

We'll also have Virginia Governor and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine; DNC Executive Director Jen O'Malley Dillon; Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy; myself; and some of Organizing for America's most active grassroots volunteers -- Courtney S. from Georgia, Michelle M. from Arizona, and Erin T., a student organizer in New Hampshire.

Build Support In Your Community

EsquireUK — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:12:05 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

Supporting Article: "Poll: Doctors Among Public Option's Biggest Fans," NPR, 9/15/09

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

On Friday, Dr. Alice Chen sent out a special message to fellow OFA supporters:

My name is Alice Chen. I'm an OFA supporter, and a physician practicing internal medicine in Los Angeles.

I'm following the health reform debate pretty closely -- you probably are too. And as I see opponents of reform trying to water down or derail the President's plan, I know it's our urgent responsibility to speak out.

That's why millions of my fellow doctors and nurses, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and groups like the one I work with called Doctors for America are all fighting so hard for reform right now: talking to our patients, holding grassroots events -- and a few are even filming an ad with OFA.

Health professionals are doing what we can, but this is something we need to do together. Your voice, your opinion, and your story can help influence the debate at this crucial moment. Can you take 5 minutes to write a letter to the editor of your local paper in support of President Obama's Plan for health reform?
OFA has an online tool that makes it really easy. They'll provide background info on the President's plan that you can combine with your personal story about reform, and you can even submit your letter online to newspapers near you.

You don't have to be a doctor or an expert to write an effective letter -- you just have to have an opinion or a personal story to share. And these letters are short, usually just a paragraph or two, but they can have a huge impact because it shows your representatives and the media what local folks are thinking in the most public way possible.

I know that one of the most important things I can do for the health of my patients is to stand up for the reform all Americans need. That's why I and my fellow doctors are working so hard to spread the word, and that's why I'm asking you to join me by writing a letter today.

http://my.barackobama.com/write

Thank you,

Dr. Alice Chen

P.S. -- I want to share a story with you about why I'm so passionate about reform:
Two years ago, I took care of a businessman in Los Angeles. He had Crohn's disease, and his health and nutrition had been getting worse for over a year. He was seeing doctors at one of our private hospitals, but he lost his insurance, so he couldn't see his doctors anymore. Buying private insurance was impossible - no amount of money could have convinced an insurance company to cover him. He tried the county hospital ER, but the wait was 24 hours. He thought maybe he could manage.

A few months later, when he could barely walk from his bed to the door, he tried the ER again. By then, he had kwashiorkor (the kind of malnutrition that famine-stricken African children get) as a complication of his gut disorder. Every organ system was failing. I remember that even in the hospital, he tried to keep up his work via his Blackberry. We tried to help him, but he rapidly deteriorated and died just six days after admission.

I was devastated and talked to many colleagues about what I could have done differently to save my patient. He should have been living his life and being a productive member of society today, but he's dead. We could have saved him if he had been able to come for care sooner -- instead of being deterred by his lack of insurance. Ultimately, I recognize that he died because the system failed him. In our great country, that is unacceptable.
That's a big reason why I keep fighting for reform. I hope that this week, you can share your own view and your story in your letter to the editor.

Over the past week, OFA has been organizing events for health insurance reform with doctors and nurses across the country. At a “Roundtable” event in Gainesville, FL, Dr. Rob Hatch said the health care status quo is unsustainable and unacceptable. Here’s his quote from an article in the Gainesville Sun:
"It's just inexcusable. It's absolutely inexcusable and we need to do something about it. One reason our health care is so bad is that we have so many uninsured people," Hatch said.
In Albany, Georgia, about half a dozen doctors are planning to make 40,000 calls for health insurance reform. They’re talking to locals about what reform will mean for them, answering questions, debunking rumors and asking them to call on their senators and representatives to support President Obama’s plan. Here’s an excerpt from the piece on WALB News:
"I was calling to discuss health care reform with you," said Dr. Tania Smith, of Prestige Pediatrics.

Public opinion over health care reform remains divided and now these south Georgia health care professionals are weighing in. They joined forces with Organizing for America to push reform now.

"Right now people are looking for answers, they're looking for the truth about health care reform and doctors are a great place to start," said Ken King, Organizing for America.

Pediatrician Tania Smith is on the front line of this debate. While critics worry the President's plan may take decisions away from doctors, she feels insurance companies are already doing that. "As the system is going now we have a lot of people who are medically ignorant making decisions and denying claims and making insurance populations where you don't have any wellness visits included in your plan," said Smith.

Build Support In Your Community

EsquireUK — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:35:55 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

Supporting Article: "Poll: Doctors Among Public Option's Biggest Fans," NPR, 9/15/09

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

On Friday, Dr. Alice Chen sent out a special message to fellow OFA supporters:

My name is Alice Chen. I'm an OFA supporter, and a physician practicing internal medicine in Los Angeles.

I'm following the health reform debate pretty closely -- you probably are too. And as I see opponents of reform trying to water down or derail the President's plan, I know it's our urgent responsibility to speak out.

That's why millions of my fellow doctors and nurses, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and groups like the one I work with called Doctors for America are all fighting so hard for reform right now: talking to our patients, holding grassroots events -- and a few are even filming an ad with OFA.

Health professionals are doing what we can, but this is something we need to do together. Your voice, your opinion, and your story can help influence the debate at this crucial moment. Can you take 5 minutes to write a letter to the editor of your local paper in support of President Obama's Plan for health reform?
OFA has an online tool that makes it really easy. They'll provide background info on the President's plan that you can combine with your personal story about reform, and you can even submit your letter online to newspapers near you.

You don't have to be a doctor or an expert to write an effective letter -- you just have to have an opinion or a personal story to share. And these letters are short, usually just a paragraph or two, but they can have a huge impact because it shows your representatives and the media what local folks are thinking in the most public way possible.

I know that one of the most important things I can do for the health of my patients is to stand up for the reform all Americans need. That's why I and my fellow doctors are working so hard to spread the word, and that's why I'm asking you to join me by writing a letter today.

http://my.barackobama.com/write

Thank you,

Dr. Alice Chen

P.S. -- I want to share a story with you about why I'm so passionate about reform:
Two years ago, I took care of a businessman in Los Angeles. He had Crohn's disease, and his health and nutrition had been getting worse for over a year. He was seeing doctors at one of our private hospitals, but he lost his insurance, so he couldn't see his doctors anymore. Buying private insurance was impossible - no amount of money could have convinced an insurance company to cover him. He tried the county hospital ER, but the wait was 24 hours. He thought maybe he could manage.

A few months later, when he could barely walk from his bed to the door, he tried the ER again. By then, he had kwashiorkor (the kind of malnutrition that famine-stricken African children get) as a complication of his gut disorder. Every organ system was failing. I remember that even in the hospital, he tried to keep up his work via his Blackberry. We tried to help him, but he rapidly deteriorated and died just six days after admission.

I was devastated and talked to many colleagues about what I could have done differently to save my patient. He should have been living his life and being a productive member of society today, but he's dead. We could have saved him if he had been able to come for care sooner -- instead of being deterred by his lack of insurance. Ultimately, I recognize that he died because the system failed him. In our great country, that is unacceptable.
That's a big reason why I keep fighting for reform. I hope that this week, you can share your own view and your story in your letter to the editor.

Over the past week, OFA has been organizing events for health insurance reform with doctors and nurses across the country. At a “Roundtable” event in Gainesville, FL, Dr. Rob Hatch said the health care status quo is unsustainable and unacceptable. Here’s his quote from an article in the Gainesville Sun:
"It's just inexcusable. It's absolutely inexcusable and we need to do something about it. One reason our health care is so bad is that we have so many uninsured people," Hatch said.
In Albany, Georgia, about half a dozen doctors are planning to make 40,000 calls for health insurance reform. They’re talking to locals about what reform will mean for them, answering questions, debunking rumors and asking them to call on their senators and representatives to support President Obama’s plan. Here’s an excerpt from the piece on WALB News:
"I was calling to discuss health care reform with you," said Dr. Tania Smith, of Prestige Pediatrics.

Public opinion over health care reform remains divided and now these south Georgia health care professionals are weighing in. They joined forces with Organizing for America to push reform now.

"Right now people are looking for answers, they're looking for the truth about health care reform and doctors are a great place to start," said Ken King, Organizing for America.

Pediatrician Tania Smith is on the front line of this debate. While critics worry the President's plan may take decisions away from doctors, she feels insurance companies are already doing that. "As the system is going now we have a lot of people who are medically ignorant making decisions and denying claims and making insurance populations where you don't have any wellness visits included in your plan," said Smith.

Word From The White House

EsquireUK — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:43:20 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

Supporting Article: "Poll: Doctors Among Public Option's Biggest Fans," NPR, 9/15/09

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-President-Obama-Welcomes-Doctors-from-Around-the-Country/

On Friday, Dr. Alice Chen sent out a special message to fellow OFA supporters:

My name is Alice Chen. I'm an OFA supporter, and a physician practicing internal medicine in Los Angeles.

I'm following the health reform debate pretty closely -- you probably are too. And as I see opponents of reform trying to water down or derail the President's plan, I know it's our urgent responsibility to speak out.

That's why millions of my fellow doctors and nurses, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and groups like the one I work with called Doctors for America are all fighting so hard for reform right now: talking to our patients, holding grassroots events -- and a few are even filming an ad with OFA.

Health professionals are doing what we can, but this is something we need to do together. Your voice, your opinion, and your story can help influence the debate at this crucial moment. Can you take 5 minutes to write a letter to the editor of your local paper in support of President Obama's Plan for health reform?
OFA has an online tool that makes it really easy. They'll provide background info on the President's plan that you can combine with your personal story about reform, and you can even submit your letter online to newspapers near you.

You don't have to be a doctor or an expert to write an effective letter -- you just have to have an opinion or a personal story to share. And these letters are short, usually just a paragraph or two, but they can have a huge impact because it shows your representatives and the media what local folks are thinking in the most public way possible.

I know that one of the most important things I can do for the health of my patients is to stand up for the reform all Americans need. That's why I and my fellow doctors are working so hard to spread the word, and that's why I'm asking you to join me by writing a letter today.

http://my.barackobama.com/write

Thank you,

Dr. Alice Chen

P.S. -- I want to share a story with you about why I'm so passionate about reform:
Two years ago, I took care of a businessman in Los Angeles. He had Crohn's disease, and his health and nutrition had been getting worse for over a year. He was seeing doctors at one of our private hospitals, but he lost his insurance, so he couldn't see his doctors anymore. Buying private insurance was impossible - no amount of money could have convinced an insurance company to cover him. He tried the county hospital ER, but the wait was 24 hours. He thought maybe he could manage.

A few months later, when he could barely walk from his bed to the door, he tried the ER again. By then, he had kwashiorkor (the kind of malnutrition that famine-stricken African children get) as a complication of his gut disorder. Every organ system was failing. I remember that even in the hospital, he tried to keep up his work via his Blackberry. We tried to help him, but he rapidly deteriorated and died just six days after admission.

I was devastated and talked to many colleagues about what I could have done differently to save my patient. He should have been living his life and being a productive member of society today, but he's dead. We could have saved him if he had been able to come for care sooner -- instead of being deterred by his lack of insurance. Ultimately, I recognize that he died because the system failed him. In our great country, that is unacceptable.
That's a big reason why I keep fighting for reform. I hope that this week, you can share your own view and your story in your letter to the editor.

Reforming our health insurance system as a critical step in rebuilding our economy

EsquireUK — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:52:17 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Health-Reform-Urgent-for-the-Economy/

The President discusses ongoing efforts to spur job creation. He also explains why health insurance reform is needed not just for long-term economic stability, but in the immediate future, discussing statistics on how costs will continue to skyrocket and hurt small businesses even next year.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Health-Reform-Urgent-for-the-Economy/

The President's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:39:02 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Health-Reform-Urgent-for-the-Economy/

$5 Billion In Grant Awards To Fund Cutting-Edge Medical Research

EsquireUK — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:54:10 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Creating-Jobs-and-Finding-Cures/

Today, President Obama is announcing $5 billion in grant awards to fund cutting-edge medical research in all 50 states. To put this investment in context and better understand how it will create jobs and fuel advancements, check out this video of experts from NIH, including Director Francis Collins:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Creating-Jobs-and-Finding-Cures/

The funds, to come from the $787 billion economic stimulus package, will pay for "cutting-edge medical research in every state across America," the White House said.

One billion dollars will go to research into the genetic causes of cancer and potential targeted treatments. Obama also promised a large infusion of funds into research on autism, which affects an estimated 1 in 150 U.S. children.

"This kind of investment will also lead to new jobs: tens of thousands of jobs conducting research, manufacturing and supplying medical equipment, and building and modernizing laboratories and research facilities," Obama said in a speech at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington.

download .mp4 (60 MB)

Creating Jobs And Finding Cures

EsquireUK — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:34:01 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Creating-Jobs-and-Finding-Cures/

The funds, to come from the $787 billion economic stimulus package, will pay for "cutting-edge medical research in every state across America," the White House said.

download .mp4 (60 MB)

Word From The White House: Common Ground On Health Reform

EsquireUK — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:15:34 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-Common-Ground-on-Health-Insurance-Reform/

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2009 AT 10:39 AM

Word from the White House: Common Ground on Health Insurance Reform & The Real Health Care Tax

Posted by Jesse Lee

It's no secret that institutions of all stripes focus their communications on certain messages day to day. We thought it would all be a little more open and transparent if we went ahead and published what our focus will be for the day, along with any related articles, reports or documents.

Supporting article: "Study: Insured pay 'hidden tax' for uninsured health care," USA Today, 5/29/09

Supporting report: "Hidden Health Tax' for Family Health Coverage Climbed to $1,017 in 2008," Families USA, 5/28/09

Talking Points: Common Ground on Health Insurance Reform·

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-Common-Ground-on-Health-Insurance-Reform/

President Obama To Lobby Olympic Games Bid

EsquireUK — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:24:15 EDT

Barack Obama is to deploy his renowned powers of persuasion and charm against the International Olympic Committee this week in an effort to win the 2016 summer games for his old hometown, Chicago.

Obama will become the first US president to lobby the IOC in person when he travels to its meeting in Copenhagen on Friday to try to ensure that Chicago, his hometown before he became president, walks away with the prize.

Ban Ki-moon to make keynote address at the opening of the Olympic Congress

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is very pleased to announce the presence of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, at the XIII Olympic Congress, which will open on 3 October 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Mr Ban Ki-moon will open the IOC Congress with a keynote address to the Olympic family. For IOC President Jacques Rogge, the presence of Mr Ban in Copenhagen strengthens the partnership between the two organisations. “It’s a strong commitment to the recognition of the increasingly important role of sport in the implementation of internationally agreed development goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals. In the global community of the 21st century, the Olympic Movement is more accountable to the whole of society than ever before, and it must be sure of its place in all regions of the world. This is why the participation of the United Nations in its Congress, placed under the main theme of ‘the Olympic Movement in Society’, is invaluable.” The Congress will be held under the theme of “the Olympic Movement in Society”. Participants will discuss the current status of the Olympic Movement and projections into the future around five main themes: Theme 1 “The Athletes”, Theme 2 “The Olympic Games”, Theme 3 “The Structure of the Olympic Movement”, Theme 4 “Olympism and Youth” and Theme 5 “The Digital Revolution”.

http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp

Word from the White House: New York Times Debunks Medicare Scare-mongering

EsquireUK — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:47:00 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-New-York-Times-Debunks-Medicare-Scare-mongering/

It's no secret that institutions of all stripes focus their communications on certain messages day to day. We thought it would all be a little more open and transparent if we went ahead and published what our focus will be for the day, along with any articles, reports or documents they refer to.
Supporting editorial: "Medicare Scare-Mongering," New York Times, 9/26/09Talking Points: New York Times Debunks Medicare Scare-mongering

Yesterday, the New York Times decried and debunked Republican "scare-mongering" on what health insurance reform would mean for Medicare.
As the Times says, for Republicans to "posture as vigilant protectors of Medicare" reeks of "cynicism and hypocrisy," considering that they have "in the past tried to pare back Medicare." o As recently as this past April, Republicans in Congress voted overwhelmingly to end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher program that provides a fixed sum of money to buy private insurance.
With their recent scare tactics, the paper says, Republicans have been "obscuring and twisting the facts and spreading unwarranted fear."
In fact, the Times points out, "the various reform bills now pending should actually make Medicare better for most beneficiaries — by enhancing their drug coverage, reducing the premiums they pay for drugs and medical care, eliminating co-payments for preventive services and helping keep Medicare solvent, among other benefits."
President Obama believes Medicare is a sacred trust with America’s seniors. Reform protects Medicare. It doesn’t use dime of the Medicare trust fund to pay for reform and it strengthens the financial health of the program.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Word-from-the-White-House-New-York-Times-Debunks-Medicare-Scare-mongering/

G-20 Summit

EsquireUK — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:56:44 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Progress-with-the-G20-in-Pittsburgh/

Recorded literally on his way back from the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, the President uses his Weekly Address to recap the progress made during the intensive discussions with world leaders. From an historic agreement to reform the global financial system, to groundbreaking commitments on reducing subsidies to fossil fuels worldwide, to unity in standing against threats to world peace -- engagement produced tangible results in several areas.

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (79 MB) | read the transcript

President Obama's Weekly Address: G-20 Summit

EsquireUK — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:01:33 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Progress-with-the-G20-in-Pittsburgh/

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (79 MB) | read the transcript

President Obama Meets the Peacekeepers

EsquireUK — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:45:06 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/09/24/President-Obama-Meets-the-Peacekeepers/

President Obama Meets the Peacekeepers

Posted by Samantha Power

President Obama convened an unprecedented meeting with the leaders of countries who contribute troops and police to peacekeeping operations around the world. On the rare occasions when UN blue helmets have made the news in the past, it has unfortunately too often been in the context of situations where peacekeepers have failed to shield civilians, or even when the peacekeepers themselves have been involved in abuse. But every day more than 113,000 peacekeepers around the world go unrecognized as they put their lives on the line to patrol tense front lines, assist the delivery of humanitarian aid, and protect civilians in harm’s way. In light of his administration's commitment to global burden sharing and to peace and security, President Obama felt that it was important to gather those who have put troops in the line of fire to express his appreciation for their sacrifice, and to solicit their views on how best to strengthen peacekeeping, a vital instrument for U.S. security and global stability.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/09/24/President-Obama-Meets-the-Peacekeepers/

Shortly after noon today President Obama sat down with Heads of State from Bangladesh, Rwanda, Italy, Pakistan, Ghana, Senegal, Nepal, Uruguay on the challenges faced by peacekeepers in the field. Observers to the gathering of Heads of State included Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, and Foreign ministers and/or UN permanent representative from other leading contributors, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Nigeria. [Prime Minister Singh of India, the second largest troop contributor to UN peacekeeping, sent his sincere regrets, as he was unable to attend the 64th UN General Assembly.]

The meeting included lively interventions from each of the assembled heads of state. A few highlights: President Obama thanked President Kagame of Rwanda for the fine service of his forces in Darfur, and the Rwandan President expressed the hope that the United States and other UN member states would help reenergize political processes so that peacekeepers would in fact have "a peace to keep." President Zadari of Pakistan, the UN's leading troop contributor (with more than 10,000 soldiers active around the world) expressed tremendous pride in his country's forces and emphasized the salutary effect of UN missions of so many nationalities mingling in service of a common cause. Prime Minister Nepal of Nepal – a country active in peacekeeping for more than five decades -- stressed the peacekeepers' need for greater logistic support, and greater clarity in Security Council mandates. [He also said he had brought President Obama the gift of a large Gurkha knife, to symbolize Nepal’s commitment to peace – a knife that the U.S. secret service could not allow him to deliver!] And President Vasquez of Uruguay declared peacekeeping a bargain investments, as its benefits to all countries dramatically outweigh its financial costs. He also said that President Obama’s attention to the issue "had not gone unnoticed" around the world.

President Obama, who listened and took notes during much of the meeting, concluded by summarizing what he took to be the key message from the troop contributing countries represented: UN member states needed to work together to: ensure that the resources provided to peacekeepers are sufficient to enable them to carry out the mandates given to them; improve and expand the training, equipping, and transporting of peacekeepers; invest in prevention and conflict resolution so that peacekeeping is not simply what he called a "band-aid for where there is insufficient diplomatic attention;" support, listen to, and, above all, protect local populations. The President pledged to those gathered that his administration "would follow up on a bilateral as well as a multilateral basis so that you receive the support, respect, and thanks that you deserve."

Samantha Power is the Senior Director for Mulilateral Affairs.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/09/24/President-Obama-Meets-the-Peacekeepers/

President Obama Urges World To Stand United

EsquireUK — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:36:27 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Real_Change_is_Possible/

The prepared remarks of President Barack Obama at the United Nations General Assembly.

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentleman: it is my honor to address you for the first time as the forty-fourth President of the United States. I come before you humbled by the responsibility that the American people have placed upon me; mindful of the enormous challenges of our moment in history; and determined to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad.

I have been in office for just nine months, though some days it seems a lot longer. I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world. These expectations are not about me. Rather, they are rooted – I believe – in a discontent with a status quo that has allowed us to be increasingly defined by our differences, and outpaced by our problems. But they are also rooted in hope – the hope that real change is possible, and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change.

I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust. Part of this was due to misperceptions and misinformation about my country. Part of this was due to opposition to specific policies, and a belief that on certain critical issues, America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others. This has fed an almost reflexive anti-Americanism, which too often has served as an excuse for our collective inaction.

Like all of you, my responsibility is to act in the interest of my nation and my people, and I will never apologize for defending those interests. But it is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 – more than at any point in human history – the interests of nations and peoples are shared.

The religious convictions that we hold in our hearts can forge new bonds among people, or tear us apart. The technology we harness can light the path to peace, or forever darken it. The energy we use can sustain our planet, or destroy it. What happens to the hope of a single child – anywhere – can enrich our world, or impoverish it.

In this hall, we come from many places, but we share a common future. No longer do we have the luxury of indulging our differences to the exclusion of the work that we must do together. I have carried this message from London to Ankara; from Port of Spain to Moscow; from Accra to Cairo; and it’s what I will speak about today. Because the time has come for the world to move in a new direction. We must embrace a new era of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect, and our work must begin now.

We know the future will be forged by deeds and not simply words. Speeches alone will not solve our problems – it will take persistent action. So for those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions that we have taken in just nine months.

On my first day in office, I prohibited – without exception or equivocation – the use of torture by the United States of America. I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed, and we are doing the hard work of forging a framework to combat extremism within the rule of law. Every nation must know: America will live its values, and we will lead by example.

We have set a clear and focused goal: to work with all members of this body to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies – a network that has killed thousands of people of many faiths and nations, and that plotted to blow up this very building. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, we – and many nations here – are helping those governments develop the capacity to take the lead in this effort, while working to advance opportunity and security for their people.

In Iraq, we are responsibly ending a war. We have removed American combat brigades from Iraqi cities, and set a deadline of next August to remove all of our combat brigades from Iraqi territory. And I have made clear that we will help Iraqis transition to full responsibility for their future, and keep our commitment to remove all American troops by the end of 2011.

I have outlined a comprehensive agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In Moscow, the United States and Russia announced that we would pursue substantial reductions in our strategic warheads and launchers. At the Conference on Disarmament, we agreed on a work plan to negotiate an end to the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. And this week, my Secretary of State will become the first senior American representative to the annual Members Conference of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Upon taking office, I appointed a Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, and America has worked steadily and aggressively to advance the cause of two states – Israel and Palestine – in which peace and security take root, and the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians are respected.

To confront climate change, we have invested 80 billion dollars in clean energy. We have substantially increased our fuel-efficiency standards. We have provided new incentives for conservation, launched an energy partnership across the Americas, and moved from a bystander to a leader in international climate negotiations.

To overcome an economic crisis that touches every corner of the world, we worked with the G-20 nations to forge a coordinated international response of over two trillion dollars in stimulus to bring the global economy back from the brink. We mobilized resources that helped prevent the crisis from spreading further to developing countries. And we joined with others to launch a $20 billion global food security initiative that will lend a hand to those who need it most, and help them build their own capacity.

We have also re-engaged the United Nations. We have paid our bills. We have joined the Human Rights Council. We have signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We have fully embraced the Millennium Development Goals. And we address our priorities here, in this institution – for instance, through the Security Council meeting that I will chair tomorrow on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and through the issues that I will discuss today.

This is what we have done. But this is just a beginning. Some of our actions have yielded progress. Some have laid the groundwork for progress in the future. But make no mistake: this cannot be solely America’s endeavor. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone. We have sought – in word and deed – a new era of engagement with the world. Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.

If we are honest with ourselves, we need to admit that we are not living up to that responsibility. Consider the course that we are on if we fail to confront the status quo. Extremists sowing terror in pockets of the world. Protracted conflicts that grind on and on. Genocide and mass atrocities. More and more nations with nuclear weapons. Melting ice caps and ravaged populations. Persistent poverty and pandemic disease. I say this not to sow fear, but to state a fact: the magnitude of our challenges has yet to be met by the measure of our action.

This body was founded on the belief that the nations of the world could solve their problems together. Franklin Roosevelt, who died before he could see his vision for this institution become a reality, put it this way – and I quote: “The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one Nation…. It cannot be a peace of large nations – or of small nations. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.”

The cooperative effort of the whole world. Those words ring even more true today, when it is not simply peace – but our very health and prosperity that we hold in common. Yet I also know that this body is made up of sovereign states. And sadly, but not surprisingly, this body has often become a forum for sowing discord instead of forging common ground; a venue for playing politics and exploiting grievances rather than solving problems. After all, it is easy to walk up to this podium and to point fingers and stoke division. Nothing is easier than blaming others for our troubles, and absolving ourselves of responsibility for our choices and our actions. Anyone can do that.

Responsibility and leadership in the 21st century demand more. In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in an interconnected world. Nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War.

The time has come to realize that the old habits and arguments are irrelevant to the challenges faced by our people. They lead nations to act in opposition to the very goals that they claim to pursue, and to vote – often in this body – against the interests of their own people. They build up walls between us and the future that our people seek, and the time has come for those walls to come down. Together, we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides – coalitions of different faiths and creeds; of north and south, east and west; black, white, and brown.

The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of the 20th century into the 21st; that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, and failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or, we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings, and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the name given to this institution: the United Nations.

That is the future America wants – a future of peace and prosperity that we can only reach if we recognize that all nations have rights, but all nations have responsibilities as well. That is the bargain that makes this work. That must be the guiding principle of international cooperation.

Today, I put forward four pillars that are fundamental to the future that we want for our children: non-proliferation and disarmament; the promotion of peace and security; the preservation of our planet; and a global economy that advances opportunity for all people.

First, we must stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and seek the goal of a world without them.

This institution was founded at the dawn of the atomic age, in part because man’s capacity to kill had to be contained. For decades, we averted disaster, even under the shadow of a super-power stand-off. But today, the threat of proliferation is growing in scope and complexity. If we fail to act, we will invite nuclear arms races in every region, and the prospect of wars and acts of terror on a scale that we can hardly imagine.

A fragile consensus stands in the way of this frightening outcome – the basic bargain that shapes the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. It says that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; that nations with nuclear weapons have the responsibility to move toward disarmament; and those without them have the responsibility to forsake them. The next twelve months could be pivotal in determining whether this compact will be strengthened or will slowly dissolve.

America will keep our end of the bargain. We will pursue a new agreement with Russia to substantially reduce our strategic warheads and launchers. We will move forward with ratification of the Test Ban Treaty, and work with others to bring the Treaty into force so that nuclear testing is permanently prohibited. We will complete a Nuclear Posture Review that opens the door to deeper cuts, and reduces the role of nuclear weapons. And we will call upon countries to begin negotiations in January on a treaty to end the production of fissile material for weapons.

I will also host a Summit next April that reaffirms each nation’s responsibility to secure nuclear material on its territory, and to help those who can’t – because we must never allow a single nuclear device to fall into the hands of a violent extremist. And we will work to strengthen the institutions and initiatives that combat nuclear smuggling and theft.

All of this must support efforts to strengthen the NPT. Those nations that refuse to live up to their obligations must face consequences. This is not about singling out individual nations – it is about standing up for the rights of all nations that do live up to their responsibilities. Because a world in which IAEA inspections are avoided and the United Nation’s demands are ignored will leave all people less safe, and all nations less secure.

In their actions to date, the governments of North Korea and Iran threaten to take us down this dangerous slope. We respect their rights as members of the community of nations. I am committed to diplomacy that opens a path to greater prosperity and a more secure peace for both nations if they live up to their obligations.

But if the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards; if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of their own people; if they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East – then they must be held accountable. The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that Treaties will be enforced. We must insist that the future not belong to fear.

That brings me to the second pillar for our future: the pursuit of peace.

The United Nations was born of the belief that the people of the world can live their lives, raise their families, and resolve their differences peacefully. And yet we know that in too many parts of the world, this ideal remains an abstraction. We can either accept that outcome as inevitable, and tolerate constant and crippling conflict. Or we can recognize that the yearning for peace is universal, and reassert our resolve to end conflicts around the world.

That effort must begin with an unshakeable determination that the murder of innocent men, women and children will never be tolerated. On this, there can be no dispute. The violent extremists who promote conflict by distorting faith have discredited and isolated themselves. They offer nothing but hatred and destruction. In confronting them, America will forge lasting partnerships to target terrorists, share intelligence, coordinate law enforcement, and protect our people. We will permit no safe-haven for al Qaeda to launch attacks from Afghanistan or any other nation. We will stand by our friends on the front lines, as we and many nations will do in pledging support for the Pakistani people tomorrow. And we will pursue positive engagement that builds bridges among faiths, and new partnerships for opportunity.

But our efforts to promote peace cannot be limited to defeating violent extremists. For the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is the hope of human beings – the belief that the future belongs to those who build, not destroy; the confidence that conflicts can end, and a new day begin.

That is why we will strengthen our support for effective peacekeeping, while energizing our efforts to prevent conflicts before they take hold. We will pursue a lasting peace in Sudan through support for the people of Darfur, and the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, so that we secure the peace that the Sudanese people deserve. And in countries ravaged by violence – from Haiti to Congo to East Timor – we will work with the UN and other partners to support an enduring peace.

I will also continue to seek a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world. Yesterday, I had a constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. We have made some progress. Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security. Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement for the Palestinians. As a result of these efforts by both sides, the economy in the West Bank has begun to grow. But more progress is needed. We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.

The time has come to re-launch negotiations – without preconditions – that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem. The goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security – a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people. As we pursue this goal, we will also pursue peace between Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Syria, and a broader peace between Israel and its many neighbors. In pursuit of that goal, we will develop regional initiatives with multilateral participation, alongside bilateral negotiations.

I am not naïve. I know this will be difficult. But all of us must decide whether we are serious about peace, or whether we only lend it lip-service. To break the old patterns – to break the cycle of insecurity and despair – all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private. The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. And nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks over a constructive willingness to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, and its right to exist in peace and security.

We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It is paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the night. It is paid by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own. These are God’s children. And after all of the politics and all of the posturing, this is about the right of every human being to live with dignity and security. That is a lesson embedded in the three great faiths that call one small slice of Earth the Holy Land. And that is why – even though there will be setbacks, and false starts, and tough days – I will not waiver in my pursuit of peace.

Third, we must recognize that in the 21st century, there will be no peace unless we make take responsibility for the preservation of our planet.

The danger posed by climate change cannot be denied, and our responsibility to meet it must not be deferred. If we continue down our current course, every member of this Assembly will see irreversible changes within their borders. Our efforts to end conflicts will be eclipsed by wars over refugees and resources. Development will be devastated by drought and famine. Land that human beings have lived on for millennia will disappear. Future generations will look back and wonder why we refused to act – why we failed to pass on intact the environment that was our inheritance.

That is why the days when America dragged its feet on this issue are over. We will move forward with investments to transform our energy economy, while providing incentives to make clean energy the profitable kind of energy. We will press ahead with deep cuts in emissions to reach the goals that we set for 2020, and eventually 2050. We will continue to promote renewable energy and efficiency – and share new technologies – with countries around the world. And we will seize every opportunity for progress to address this threat in a cooperative effort with the whole world.

Those wealthy nations that did so much to damage the environment in the 20th century must accept our obligation to lead. But responsibility does not end there. While we must acknowledge the need for differentiated responses, any effort to curb carbon emissions must include the fast-growing carbon emitters who can do more to reduce their air pollution without inhibiting growth. And any effort that fails to help the poorest nations both adapt to the problems that climate change has already wrought – and travel a path of clean development – will not work.

It is hard to change something as fundamental as how we use energy. It’s even harder to do so in the midst of a global recession. Certainly, it will be tempting to sit back and wait for others to move first. But we cannot make this journey unless we all move forward together. As we head into Copenhagen, let us resolve to focus on what each of us can do for the sake of our common future.

This leads me to the final pillar that must fortify our future: a global economy that advances opportunity for all people.

The world is still recovering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In America, we see the engine of growth beginning to churn, yet many still struggle to find a job or pay their bills. Across the globe, we find promising signs, yet little certainty about what lies ahead. And far too many people in far too many places live through the daily crises that challenge our common humanity – the despair of an empty stomach; the thirst brought on by dwindling water; the injustice of a child dying from a treatable disease, or a mother losing her life as she gives birth.

In Pittsburgh, we will work with the world’s largest economies to chart a course for growth that is balanced and sustained. That means vigilance to ensure that we do not let up until our people are back to work. That means taking steps to rekindle demand, so that a global recovery can be sustained. And that means setting new rules of the road and strengthening regulation for all financial centers, so that we put an end to the greed, excess and abuse that led us into disaster, and prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again.

At a time of such interdependence, we have a moral and pragmatic interest in broader questions of development. And so we will continue our historic effort to help people feed themselves. We have set aside $63 billion to carry forward the fight against HIV/AIDS; to end deaths from tuberculosis and malaria; to eradicate polio; and to strengthen public health systems. We are joining with other countries to contribute H1N1 vaccines to the World Health Organization. We will integrate more economies into a system of global trade. We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s Summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.

Now is the time for all of us to do our part. Growth will not be sustained or shared unless all nations embrace their responsibility. Wealthy nations must open their markets to more goods and extend a hand to those with less, while reforming international institutions to give more nations a greater voice. Developing nations must root out the corruption that is an obstacle to progress – for opportunity cannot thrive where individuals are oppressed and business have to pay bribes. That’s why we will support honest police and independent judges; civil society and a vibrant private sector. Our goal is simple: a global economy in which growth is sustained, and opportunity is available to all.

The changes that I have spoken about today will not be easy to make. And they will not be realized simply by leaders like us coming together in forums like this. For as in any assembly of members, real change can only come through the people we represent. That is why we must do the hard work to lay the groundwork for progress in our own capitals. That is where we will build the consensus to end conflicts and to harness technology for peaceful purposes; to change the way we use energy, and to promote growth that can be sustained and shared.

I believe that the people of the world want this future for their children. And that is why we must champion those principles which ensure that governments reflect the will of the people. These principles cannot be afterthoughts – democracy and human rights are essential to achieving each of the goals that I have discussed today. Because governments of the people and by the people are more likely to act in the broader interests of their own people, rather than the narrow interest of those in power.

The test of our leadership will not be the degree to which we feed the fears and old hatreds of our people. True leadership will not be measured by the ability to muzzle dissent, or to intimidate and harass political opponents at home. The people of the world want change. They will not long tolerate those who are on the wrong side of history.

This Assembly’s Charter commits each of us, and I quote – “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women.” Among those rights is the freedom to speak your mind and worship as you please; the promise of equality of the races, and the opportunity for women and girls to pursue their own potential; the ability of citizens to have a say in how you are governed, and to have confidence in the administration of justice. For just as no nation should be forced to accept the tyranny of another nation, no individual should be forced to accept the tyranny of their own government.

As an African-American, I will never forget that I would not be here today without the steady pursuit of a more perfect union in my country. That guides my belief that no matter how dark the day may seem, transformative change can be forged by those who choose the side of justice. And I pledge that America will always stand with those who stand up for their dignity and their rights – for the student who seeks to learn; the voter who demands to be heard; the innocent who longs to be free; and the oppressed who yearns to be equal.

Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect. Each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its people, and – in the past – America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy. But that does not weaken our commitment, it only reinforces it. There are basic principles that are universal; there are certain truths which are self evident – and the United States of America will never waiver in our efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny.

Sixty-five years ago, a weary Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the American people in his fourth and final inaugural address. After years of war, he sought to sum up the lessons that could be drawn from the terrible suffering and enormous sacrifice that had taken place. “We have learned,” he said, “to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.”

The United Nations was built by men and women like Roosevelt from every corner of the world – from Africa and Asia; form Europe to the Americas. These architects of international cooperation had an idealism that was anything but naïve – it was rooted in the hard-earned lessons of war, and the wisdom that nations could advance their interests by acting together instead of splitting apart.

Now it falls to us – for this institution will be what we make of it. The United Nations does extraordinary good around the world in feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and mending places that have been broken. But it also struggles to enforce its will, and to live up to the ideals of its founding.

I believe that those imperfections are not a reason to walk away from this institution – they are a calling to redouble our efforts. The United Nations can either be a place where we bicker about outdated grievances, or forge common ground; a place where we focus on what drives us apart, or what brings us together; a place where we indulge tyranny, or a source of moral authority. In short, the United Nations can be an institution that is disconnected from what matters in the lives of our citizens, or it can be indispensable in advancing the interests of the people we serve.

We have reached a pivotal moment. The United States stands ready to begin a new chapter of international cooperation – one that recognizes the rights and responsibilities of all nations. With confidence in our cause, and with a commitment to our values, we call on all nations to join us in building the future that our people deserve. Thank you.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Real_Change_is_Possible/

United Nations General Assembly

EsquireUK — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:20:23 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Real_Change_is_Possible/

The prepared remarks of President Barack Obama at the United Nations General Assembly.

First, we must stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and seek the goal of a world without them.

That brings me to the second pillar for our future: the pursuit of peace.

Third, we must recognize that in the 21st century, there will be no peace unless we make take responsibility for the preservation of our planet.

This leads me to the final pillar that must fortify our future: a global economy that advances opportunity for all people.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Real_Change_is_Possible/

The President's Plan In Four Minutes

EsquireUK — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:39:57 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health_care/?e=14&ref=image

Health CareThe President's Plan

Watch the new "Obama Plan in Four Minutes" video to get the basics down:

download .mp4 (61 MB)

In an address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama explained how health insurance reform will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, coverage for those who don’t, and will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government.

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

Progress

The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act on February 4, 2009, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured.
The President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act protects health coverage for 7 million Americans who lose their jobs through a 65 percent COBRA subsidy to make coverage affordable.
The Recovery Act also invests $19 billion in computerized medical records that will help to reduce costs and improve quality while ensuring patients’ privacy.
The Recovery Act also provides:
- $1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve America’s health and help to reduce health care costs;
- $1.1 billion for research to give doctors tools to make the best treatment decisions for their patients by providing objective information on the relative benefits of treatments; and
- $500 million for health workforce to help train the next generation of doctors and nurses.

Guiding Principles

President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Learn about the fundamental health insurance consumer protections included in reform.

Comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases. This forces families to sit around the kitchen table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. Given all that we spend on health care, American families should not be presented with that choice. The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person – nearly twice the average of other developed nations. Americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. If rapid health cost growth persists, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system. This growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that are needed to grow our economy. Rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global economy, as American companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower health care costs.

The President has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his Administration – an open, inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a solution to the health care crisis. Working together with members of Congress, doctors and hospitals, businesses and unions, and other key health care stakeholders, the President is committed to making sure we finally enact comprehensive health care reform.

The Administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:

Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
Invest in prevention and wellness
Improve patient safety and quality of care
Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

Please visit www.HealthReform.gov to learn more about the President’s commitment to enacting comprehensive health reform this year.

download .mp4 (61 MB)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health_care/?e=14&ref=image

Health Insurance Reform as a Women’s Issue

EsquireUK — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:19:04 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Health-Insurance-Reform-as-a-Womens-Issue-The-First-Ladys-Take/

In case you missed it, on Friday the First Lady spoke with clarity and conviction to 140 womens health advocates on how health insurance reform impacts women and families. She also highlighted womens crucial role in making sure reform is passed.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the First Lady
_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 18, 2009

REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
ON WHAT HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM MEANS
FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES

Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Room 450

11:33 A.M. EDT

MRS. OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you all. Please, sit. Rest. (Laughter.) First of all, good morning. I am so thrilled to see so many of you here this morning at the White House. Welcome. And that's including my good friend, Dr. Dorothy Height. (Applause.) You know, she is always there, for the past eight months and before. If there was a big event, an important event, she finds a way to be here. She is my inspiration, and it is wonderful to see you again today. Thank you so much. (Applause.)

Thank you all for joining us today for the outstanding work you're doing every day on behalf of women and families all across this country. I have to thank our extraordinary Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, for taking the time to be here. (Applause.) And for her tireless efforts to keep our nation healthy. And that includes not just pushing for health insurance reform but preparing us for H1N1, pursuing cutting-edge research to find treatments and cures for tomorrow. Clearly this is not the easiest portfolio she could have, but she is doing a terrific job, and we are grateful for her leadership.

And I also want to thank Tina Tchen, who you all know, for emceeing today. (Applause.) She, too, is doing a fabulous job as Director of our Office of Public Engagement, and she played a critical role in pulling together today's event -- not just as an emcee but as a key figurehead, making sure that we're all aware of what's going on.

And finally, I want to thank the three women behind me -- to Debi, Easter, and Roxi. (Applause.) It is not easy to come here and tell your story. And these stories aren't new. You know, these stories are happening all over this country, not just for thousands of women -- for millions of them. For two years on the campaign trail, this was what I heard from women, that they were being crushed, crushed by the current structure of our health care. Crushed. But these stories that we've heard today, and all of us -- if we're not experiencing it, we know someone who is. These are the stories that remind us about what's at stake in this debate. This is really all that matters. This is why we are fighting so hard for health insurance reform. This is it. This is the face of the fight.

And that's why I'd like to talk to you today. That's why I'm here. That's why reform is so critical in this country -- not tomorrow, not in a few years, but right now. People are hurting in this country right now.

But there is also a reason why I invited this particular group to talk today. There's a reason why we've invited the leaders not only from family advocacy groups and health care advocacy groups, but for so many organizations that have been fighting for decades for empowerment for women. And that's because when it comes to health care, as the Secretary said, as we all know, women play a unique and increasingly significant role in our families. We know the pain, because we are usually the ones dealing with it.

Eight in 10 women, mothers, report that they're the ones responsible for choosing their children's doctor, for getting them to their checkups, for managing that follow-up care. Women are the ones to do it. Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses. (Laughter.) And more than 10 percent of women in this country are currently caring for a sick or elderly relative. It's often a parent, but it could a grandparent, or a mother -- or a relative of some sort -- but it's often a parent. So they're making critical health care decisions for those family members as well.

In other words, being part of the sandwich generation, is what we are now finding, raising kids while caring for a sick or elderly parent, that's not just a work/family balance issue anymore. It's not just an economic issue anymore. More and more it is a health care issue. It's something that I have thought a great deal about as a mother.

I will never forget the time eight years ago when Sasha was four months that she would not stop crying. And she was not a crier, so we knew something was wrong. So we fortunately were able to take her to our pediatrician that next morning. He examined her and same something's wrong. We didn't know what. But he told us that she could have meningitis. So we were terrified. He said, get to the emergency room right away.

And fortunately for us, things worked out, because she is now the Sasha that we all know and love today -- (laughter) -- who is causing me great -- excitement. (Laughter.)

But it is that moment in our lives that flashes through my head every time we engage in this health insurance conversation. It's that moment in my life. Because I think about what on earth would we have done if we had not had insurance. What would have happened to that beautiful little girl if we hadn't been able to get to a pediatrician who was able to get us to an emergency room? The consequences I can't even imagine. She could have lost her hearing. She could have lost her life if we had had to wait because of insurance.

And it was also fortunate that we happened to have good insurance, right? Because if we hadn't had good insurance, like many of the panelists up here, we would have been saddled with costs for covering that emergency room visit for her two days in the hospital. We would have still been paying off those bills.

And this issue isn't something that I've thought about as a mother. I think about it as a daughter. As many of you know, my father had multiple sclerosis. He contracted it in his twenties. And as you all know, my father was a rock. He was able to get up and go to work every day, even though it got harder for him as he got sicker and more debilitated. And I find myself thinking, what would we have done as a family on the South Side of Chicago if my father hadn't had insurance, if he hadn't been able to cover his treatments? What would it have done to him to think that his illness could have put his entire family into bankruptcy? And what if he had lost his job, which fortunately he never did? What if his company had changed insurance, which fortunately never happened, and we became one of the millions of Americans, families, who can't get insurance because of a preexisting condition?

So these are the thoughts that run through my mind as I watch this debate and hope that we get it right.

But let's be clear: Women aren't just disproportionately affected by this issue because of the roles that we play in families. As Tina and Kathleen mentioned, women are affected because of the jobs that we do in this economy. We all know that women are more likely to work part-time, or to work in small companies or businesses that don't provide any insurance at all.

Women are affected because, as we heard, in many states, insurance companies can still discriminate because of gender. And this is still shocking to me. These are the kind of facts that still wake me up at night; that women in this country have been denied coverage because of preexisting conditions like having a C-section or having had a baby. In some states, it is still legal to deny a woman coverage because she's been the victim of domestic violence.

And a recent study showed that 25-year-old women are charged up to 45 percent more for insurance than 25-year-old men for the exact same coverage. And as the age goes up, you get to 40, that disparity increases to 48 percent -- 48 percent difference for women for the exact same coverage in this country.

But it's not just women without insurance, as we've heard, as we know who are affected. Plenty of women have insurance. But it doesn't cover basic women's health services like maternity care or preventative care like mammograms or pap smears, which we all know we have to have. We can't go without these basic services. But many insurance policies don't even cover it.

Or policies cap the amount of coverage that you can receive, as you've heard, or it drops coverage when people get sick and they really need the care. Or maybe people have coverage but they're worried about losing it if they lose their jobs or if they change jobs or if the company changes insurance carriers. Out-of-pocket costs get higher and higher. It's hard to be able to plan your monthly bills when you don't know what your premiums are going to be. So a lot of people find they have to drop their insurance because they can no longer afford it.

Just think about it. Many women are being charged more in health care coverage, but as we all know, women are earning less. We all know that women earn 78 cents on the dollar to every men -- to a man. So it's not exactly surprising when we hear statistics that more than half of women report putting off needed medical care simply because they can't afford it.

Now, we have trouble putting ourselves first when we have the resources -- just making the appointment when you have insurance to get your regular screenings, to take care of those illnesses, those bumps and lumps and pains that we tend to ignore. But then not to be able to do it because you can't have insurance, you don't have insurance -- it's not surprising that so many millions of women around this country are simply going without insurance at all.

See, and the thing that we all know is that the current state -- this current situation is unacceptable. It is unacceptable. (Applause.) No one in this country should be treated that way. It's not fair. It's not right. And these are hard-working people we're talking about, right? People who care about their kids, care about their lives. And these circumstances could happen to any of us. This is one of those, "There but for the grace of God go I" kind of situations. None of us are exempt -- ever.

So I think it's clear that health insurance reform and what it means for our families is very much a women's issue. It is very much a women's issue.

And if we want to achieve true equality for women, if that is our goal; if we want to ensure that women have opportunities that they deserve, if that is our goal; if we want women to be able to care for their families and pursue things that they could never imagine, then we have to reform the system. We have to reform the system. The status quo is unacceptable. It is holding women and families back, and we know it.

Fortunately, that is exactly what my husband's plan proposes to do, and it's important for us to understand some of the basic principles of that plan. Under his plan, if you don't have insurance now, or you lose your insurance at some point in the future, you'll be able to purchase affordable coverage through an insurance exchange -- a marketplace with a variety of options that will let you compare prices and benefits. This is exactly the approach that is used to provide members of Congress with insurance. So the thought is that if it's good enough for members of Congress, it should be good enough for the people who vote them in. (Applause.)

And this is also an important part of the plan. If you already have insurance -- and it seems that there are a lot of people who are worried that they'll lose what they have under this plan -- but under this plan, if you already have insurance, you're set. Nothing changes. You keep your insurance, you keep your doctors -- and you're blessed. (Laughter.) This plan just puts in place some basic rules of the road to protect you from the kinds of abuses and unfair practices that we've heard.

Under this plan, insurance companies will never again be allowed to deny people like Debi and her son coverage for preexisting conditions. Sounds like a good thing. So whether you have breast cancer, diabetes, asthma, or hypertension -- or even just had a C-section, or some mental health treatment that you had in your past -- none of that will be a reason to refuse you coverage under the plan that my husband is proposing. Because when you're fighting an illness, he believes that you shouldn't also have to be in the process of fighting the insurance companies at the same time. (Applause.) It's a basic idea.

Under this plan, insurance companies will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get too sick, or refuse to pay for the care that you need, or to set a cap on the amount of coverage that you can get. And it will limit how much they can charge you for out-of-pocket expenses, because getting sick in this country shouldn't mean that you go bankrupt. That's a basic principle of this plan.

And finally, this plan will require insurance companies to cover basic preventative care. Seems simple. (Applause.) From routine checkups, to mammograms, to pap smears -- and this would come at no extra charge to the patient, so folks like Roxi can get the chance to get the kind of screenings that she needs to save her life, because we already know that if we catch diseases like cancer early -- we know this -- it's much less costly to treat, and we might just be able to save some lives. We know this.

So, under this plan, we can save lives and we can save money. It's not just good medicine but it's good economics as well.

So I think this is a pretty reasonable plan. I don't know about you. (Applause.) But I know many of you believe it's a good plan as well. And I know that many of the groups that you represent believe that what we're doing here, this fight, is important. It's important to this country, it's important to women, it's important to families that we succeed.

And now more than ever, as Tina said, as Secretary Sebelius said, we need to act. No longer can we sit by and watch the debate take on a life of its own. It is up to us to get involved, because what we have to remember is that now more than ever, we have to channel our passions into change.

That's nothing that you all haven't done before, right? (Laughter.) You all have been the driving force behind so many of our greatest health care achievements, whether it's been children's health insurance; to funding breast cancer research, stem cell research; to passing the Family Medical Leave Act. The folks in this room, you're the ones that made those phone calls, right? That you wrote those letters, you knocked on those doors. You're the ones that helped make that happen.

And that's exactly what we need you to do today for health insurance reform. We are going to need you over the next few weeks to mobilize like you've never mobilized before. We need you to educate your members about what the plan really is and what it isn't, because education is the key to understanding, and it's going to take phone calls to explain, to talk things through, to make sure that people understand not just what's at stake but what this all means.

And we know there will be all sorts of myths and misconceptions about what the plan is and isn't, so it's so important that you make sure that people know the facts, and at least they make their decisions based on the truth of what this plan is and isn't. We need you to make your voices heard right here in Washington. And you all know how to do that. (Laughter.)

And no, it won't be easy, because there are always folks who are a little afraid of change. We all understand that. We talked about this all during the campaign. Change is hard. Sometimes the status quo, even if it isn't right, feels comfortable because it's what we know. So it is understandable that people are cautious about moving into a new place in this society. There will always be folks who will want things to stay just the way they are, to settle for the world as it is. We talked about that so much. This is one of those times.

But look, I am here today, standing before you as the First Lady of the United States of America, because you all didn't settle for the world as it is, right? (Applause.) You refused to settle. And as a result of many of your efforts, as a young girl, I was able to dream in ways that I could have never imagined, that my mother could never have imagined, that my grandmother could never have imagined. And thanks to so many of you, I am raising these beautiful young women, you know -- (applause) -- who are going to be able to think so differently about their place in the world because of the work that you've done.

Health care reform is part of that movement. Health insurance reform is the next step. So we're going to need you all, focused and clear, picking up the phones, talking, calling, writing your congressmen and women, making this something that is the highest priority for all of us, so that we can make sure that every single family in this country can move forward as we hope that they can; that they don't have to worry about whether they can insure themselves. They don't have to worry about whether their kids are going to break an arm. That's what kids do, they break stuff. (Laughter.)

So I am grateful for all of you, for the work that you've done, and for what I know that we can do together over the next several weeks. But we have to be, what, fired up and what?

AUDIENCE: Ready to go!

MRS. OBAMA: And ready to go. A little fired up and ready to go. So thank you so much. God bless you all, and God bless America. (Applause.)

END
11:57 A.M. EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Health-Insurance-Reform-as-a-Womens-Issue-The-First-Ladys-Take/

President Obama's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:08:23 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Progress-in-the-Global-Economy/

With the next G20 Summit approaching in Pittsburgh, the President goes over the progress in stemming a global economic crisis. He discusses the impact of the Recovery Act, and pledges that "lobbyists for big Wall Street banks" will not prevent real reform for the future, including a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (100 MB) | read the transcript

Medal of Honor

EsquireUK — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:24:43 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/May-God-Bless-Jared-Monti/

Today the President awarded Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti, U.S. Army, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in the East Room of the White House. Sergeant First Class Monti received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic actions in combat in Afghanistan, which the President recounted alongside his parents Paul and Janet Monti:

That's when Jared Monti did what he was trained to do. With the enemy advancing -- so close they could hear their voices -- he got on his radio and started calling in artillery. When the enemy tried to flank them, he grabbed a gun and drove them back. And when they came back again, he tossed a grenade and drove them back again. And when these American soldiers saw one of their own -- wounded, lying in the open, some 20 yards away, exposed to the approaching enemy -- Jared Monti did something no amount of training can instill. His patrol leader said he'd go, but Jared said, "No, he is my soldier, I'm going to get him."

It was written long ago that "the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet, notwithstanding, go out to meet it." Jared Monti saw the danger before him. And he went out to meet it.

He handed off his radio. He tightened his chin strap. And with his men providing cover, Jared rose and started to run. Into all those incoming bullets. Into all those rockets. Upon seeing Jared, the enemy in the woods unleashed a firestorm. He moved low and fast, yard after yard, then dove behind a stone wall.

A moment later, he rose again. And again they fired everything they had at him, forcing him back. Faced with overwhelming enemy fire, Jared could have stayed where he was, behind that wall. But that was not the kind of soldier Jared Monti was. He embodied that creed all soldiers strive to meet: "I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade." And so, for a third time, he rose. For a third time, he ran toward his fallen comrade. Said his patrol leader, it "was the bravest thing I had ever seen a soldier do."

They say it was a rocket-propelled grenade; that Jared made it within a few yards of his wounded soldier. They say that his final words, there on that ridge far from home, were of his faith and his family: "I've made peace with God. Tell my family that I love them."

And then, as the artillery that Jared had called in came down, the enemy fire slowed, then stopped. The patrol had defeated the attack. They had held on -- but not without a price. By the end of the night, Jared and three others, including the soldier he died trying to save, had given their lives.

I'm told that Jared was a very humble guy; that he would have been uncomfortable with all this attention; that he'd say he was just doing his job; and that he'd want to share this moment with others who were there that day. And so, as Jared would have wanted, we also pay tribute to those who fell alongside him: Staff Sergeant Patrick Lybert. Private First Class Brian Bradbury. Staff Sergeant Heathe Craig.

And we honor all the soldiers he loved and who loved him back -- among them noncommissioned officers who remind us why the Army has designated this "The Year of the NCO" in honor of all those sergeants who are the backbone of America's Army. They are Jared's friends and fellow soldiers watching this ceremony today in Afghanistan. They are the soldiers who this morning held their own ceremony on an Afghan mountain at the post that now bears his name -- Combat Outpost Monti. And they are his "boys" -- surviving members of Jared's patrol, from the 10th Mountain Division -- who are here with us today. And I would ask them all to please stand. (Applause.)

Like Jared, these soldiers know the meaning of duty, and of honor, of country. Like Jared, they remind us all that the price of freedom is great. And by their deeds they challenge every American to ask this question: What we can do to be better citizens? What can we do to be worthy of such service and such sacrifice?

Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti. In his proud hometown of Raynham, his name graces streets and scholarships. Across a grateful nation, it graces parks and military posts. From this day forward, it will grace the memorials to our Medal of Honor heroes. And this week, when Jared Monti would have celebrated his 34th birthday, we know that his name and legacy will live forever, and shine brightest, in the hearts of his family and friends who will love him always.

May God bless Jared Monti, and may He comfort the entire Monti family. And may God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

"Stronger, Smarter, and Swifter Defenses"

EsquireUK — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:40:27 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Stronger_Smarter_and_Swifter_Defenses/

This morning, upon recommendation from the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President announced a new approach to missile defense in Europe. This new approach is based on an assessment of the Iranian missile threat, and a commitment to deploy technology that is proven, cost-effective, and adaptable to an evolving security environment.

download .mp4 (61 MB) | read the transcript

President Obama's Remarks On Healthcare

EsquireUK — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:29:11 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

President Obama spoke to a special joint session of Congress and the American people to outline his plan for health insurance reform. The core of his plan: provide more security and stability for people who have insurance, provide quality, affordable care to those who don’t, and rein in skyrocketing costs that are crushing American families, businesses and the government itself.

If You Have Health Insurance More Stability and Security
Ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
Limits premium discrimination based on gender and age.
Prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people are sick and need it most.
Caps out-of-pocket expenses so people don’t go broke when they get sick.
Eliminates extra charges for preventive care like mammograms, flu shots and diabetes tests to improve health and save money.
Protects Medicare for seniors.
Eliminates the "donut-hole" gap in coverage for prescription drugs.
If You Don't Have Insurance Quality, Affordable Choices for All Americans
Creates a new insurance marketplace – the Exchange – that allows people without insurance and small businesses to compare plans and buy insurance at competitive prices.
Provides new tax credits to help people buy insurance.
Provides small businesses tax credits and affordable options for covering employees.
Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice.
Immediately offers new, low-cost coverage through a national "high risk" pool to protect people with preexisting conditions from financial ruin until the new Exchange is created.
For All Americans Reins In the Cost of Health Care for Our Families, Our Businesses, and Our Government
Won’t add a dime to the deficit and is paid for upfront.
Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized.
Implements a number of delivery system reforms that begin to rein in health care costs and align incentives for hospitals, physicians, and others to improve quality.
Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system.
Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine.
Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

Hard Work & Health Insurance

EsquireUK — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:39:52 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Hard-Work-and-Health-Insurance/

Having spent the morning with Ohio GM workers, the President traveled to Pittsburgh, PA to talk to the hard-working Americans at the AFL-CIO Convention. The enthusiasm the crowd showed for health insurance reform was palpable, and you could hear the President getting "fired up and ready to go" with them.

Here are some excerpts from the speech:

For over half a century, the success of America has been built on the success of our middle class. It was the creation of the middle class that lifted this nation up in the wake of a Great Depression. It was the expansion of the middle class that opened the doors of opportunity to millions more. It was a strong middle class that powered American industries and propelled America's economy and made the 20th century the American century....

Because of the Recovery Act, we're keeping a promise I made to give all of you -- 95 percent of working Americans -- a tax cut -- a tax cut that will benefit nearly 5 million families in Pennsylvania. We increased and extended unemployment insurance to 12 million Americans -- including hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians. We made sure that they could get health insurance if they were looking for a job, because COBRA was too expensive; reduced the cost of it by 65 percent. So a lot of families out there were able to hang onto their health care even during the downturn.

We're putting Americans to work across this country rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges and waterways with the largest investment in our infrastructure since Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. (Applause.) All in all, many middle-class families will see their incomes go up by about $3,000 because of the Recovery Act, helping them get back much of what they've lost due to this recession.

And, yes, we'll grow our middle class by finally providing quality, affordable health insurance in this country. Health care can't wait. (Applause.) It can't wait. Few have fought -- few have fought for this cause harder, few have championed it longer than you, our brothers and sisters in organized labor. You're making phone calls, knocking on doors, showing up at rallies -- because you know why this is so important. You know this isn't just about the millions of Americans who don't have health insurance, it's about the hundreds of millions more who do; Americans who worry that they'll lose their insurance if they lose their job; who fear their coverage will be denied because of a preexisting condition; who know that one accident or illness could mean financial ruin.

In fact, a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation was released today showing that family premiums rose more than 130 percent over the last 10 years -- three times faster than wages. They now average over $13,000 a year, the highest amount on record, which is why when you go in to negotiate, you can't even think about negotiating for a salary -- a wage increase because the whole negotiation is about trying to keep the benefits you already have...

The plan I announced will offer more security and more stability to Americans who have insurance. It will offer insurance to Americans who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.

If you already have health insurance through your job -- and because many of you are members of unions, you do -- nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change your coverage or your doctor. Let me repeat: Nothing in this plan will require you to change your coverage or your doctor.

What this plan will do is make your insurance work better for you. It'll be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition. (Applause.) It will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick, or water it down when you need it the most. (Applause.) They won't be able to place some arbitrary cap on how much coverage you can receive in a given year or a given lifetime. (Applause.) We'll place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses -- because in the United States of America, nobody should go broke just because they got sick. (Applause...)

And because there will be one big group, these uninsured Americans, they have leverage and they can drive down the cost of care and get a better deal than they're getting right now. That's how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It's how everybody in Congress -- including those who are always critical of government -- get their insurance. (Applause.) It's time to give every opportunity to Americans that members of Congress give to themselves. (Applause.)

I've also said that one of the options in this exchange should be a public option. (Applause.) Now, let me be clear. Let me be clear, because there's been a lot of misinformation out here about this. This would just be an option. Nobody would be forced to choose it. No one with insurance would be affected. But what it would do is offer Americans more choices, and promote real competition, and put pressure on private insurers to make their policies affordable and treat their customers better. (Applause.)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Hard-Work-and-Health-Insurance/

President Obama: Normalcy Cannot Lead to Complacency

EsquireUK — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:31:22 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Normalcy-Cannot-Lead-to-Complacency/

While full recovery of the financial system will take a great deal more time and work, the growing stability resulting from these interventions means we're beginning to return to normalcy. But here's what I want to emphasize today: Normalcy cannot lead to complacency.

Unfortunately, there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment. Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we're still recovering, they're choosing to ignore those lessons. I'm convinced they do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation's. So I want everybody here to hear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses. Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall.

And that's why we need strong rules of the road to guard against the kind of systemic risks that we've seen. And we have a responsibility to write and enforce these rules to protect consumers of financial products, to protect taxpayers, and to protect our economy as a whole. Yes, there must -- these rules must be developed in a way that doesn't stifle innovation and enterprise. And I want to say very clearly here today, we want to work with the financial industry to achieve that end. But the old ways that led to this crisis cannot stand. And to the extent that some have so readily returned to them underscores the need for change and change now. History cannot be allowed to repeat itself.

So what we're calling for is for the financial industry to join us in a constructive effort to update the rules and regulatory structure to meet the challenges of this new century. That is what my administration seeks to do. We've sought ideas and input from industry leaders and policy experts, academics, consumer advocates, and the broader public. And we've worked closely with leaders in the Senate and the House, including not only Barney, but also Senators Chris Dodd and Richard Shelby, and Barney is already working with his counterpart, Sheldon Bacchus. And we intend to pass regulatory reform through Congress.

And taken together, we're proposing the most ambitious overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression. But I want to emphasize that these reforms are rooted in a simple principle: We ought to set clear rules of the road that promote transparency and accountability. That's how we'll make certain that markets foster responsibility, not recklessness. That's how we'll make certain that markets reward those who compete honestly and vigorously within the system, instead of those who are trying to game the system.

The President went on to lay out the specifics of the new regulations and oversight that the largely Wall Street audience would come under. Read the full transcript for the details.

President Obama: Message To Wall Street

EsquireUK — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:46:42 EDT

www.whitehouse.gov

September 15th marks the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, an event that, for many, brought home just how serious the financial crisis had become. One year later, President Obama spoke at the Federal hall in New York City to both look back and look forward:

While full recovery of the financial system will take a great deal more time and work, the growing stability resulting from these interventions means we're beginning to return to normalcy. But here's what I want to emphasize today: Normalcy cannot lead to complacency.

Unfortunately, there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment. Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we're still recovering, they're choosing to ignore those lessons. I'm convinced they do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation's. So I want everybody here to hear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses. Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall.

And that's why we need strong rules of the road to guard against the kind of systemic risks that we've seen. And we have a responsibility to write and enforce these rules to protect consumers of financial products, to protect taxpayers, and to protect our economy as a whole. Yes, there must -- these rules must be developed in a way that doesn't stifle innovation and enterprise. And I want to say very clearly here today, we want to work with the financial industry to achieve that end. But the old ways that led to this crisis cannot stand. And to the extent that some have so readily returned to them underscores the need for change and change now. History cannot be allowed to repeat itself.

So what we're calling for is for the financial industry to join us in a constructive effort to update the rules and regulatory structure to meet the challenges of this new century. That is what my administration seeks to do. We've sought ideas and input from industry leaders and policy experts, academics, consumer advocates, and the broader public. And we've worked closely with leaders in the Senate and the House, including not only Barney, but also Senators Chris Dodd and Richard Shelby, and Barney is already working with his counterpart, Sheldon Bacchus. And we intend to pass regulatory reform through Congress.

And taken together, we're proposing the most ambitious overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression. But I want to emphasize that these reforms are rooted in a simple principle: We ought to set clear rules of the road that promote transparency and accountability. That's how we'll make certain that markets foster responsibility, not recklessness. That's how we'll make certain that markets reward those who compete honestly and vigorously within the system, instead of those who are trying to game the system.

The President went on to lay out the specifics of the new regulations and oversight that the largely Wall Street audience would come under.

Read the President's full remarks, as prepared for delivery . . .

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

Financial Rescue and Reform

Federal Hall

September 14, 2009
Thank you all for being here and for your warm welcome. It’s a privilege to be in historic Federal Hall. It was here more than two centuries ago that our first Congress served and our first President was inaugurated. It was here, in the early days of our Republic, that Hamilton and Jefferson debated how best to administer a young economy and to ensure that our nation rewarded the talents and drive of its people. Two centuries later, we still grapple with these questions – questions made more acute in moments of crisis.

It was one year ago that we experienced just such a crisis. As investors and pension-holders watched with dread and dismay, and after a series of emergency meetings often conducted in the dead of the night, several of the world’s largest and oldest financial institutions had fallen, either bankrupt, bought, or bailed out: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Washington Mutual, Wachovia. A week before this began, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been taken over by the government. Other large firms teetered on the brink of insolvency. Credit markets froze as banks refused to lend not only to families and businesses but to one another. Five trillion dollars of Americans’ household wealth evaporated in the span of just three months.

Congress and the previous administration took difficult but necessary action in the days and months that followed. Nevertheless, when this administration walked through the door in January, the situation remained urgent. The markets had fallen sharply; credit was not flowing. It was feared that the largest banks – those that remained standing – had too little capital and far too much exposure to risky loans. And the consequences had spread far beyond the streets of lower Manhattan. This was no longer just a financial crisis; it had become a full-blown economic crisis, with home prices sinking, businesses struggling to access affordable credit, and the economy shedding an average of 700,000 jobs each month.

We could not separate what was happening in the corridors of our financial institutions from what was happening on factory floors and around kitchen tables. Home foreclosures linked those who took out home loans and those who repackaged those loans as securities. A lack of access to affordable credit threatened the health of large firms and small businesses, as well as all those whose jobs depended on them. And a weakened financial system weakened the broader economy, which in turn further weakened the financial system.

The only way to address successfully any of these challenges was to address them together, and so this administration – with terrific leadership by my Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, as well the Chair of my Council of Economic Advisers, Christy Romer, and the Chair of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers – moved quickly on all fronts, initializing a financial stability plan to rescue the system from the crisis and restart lending for all those affected by the crisis. By opening and examining the books of large financial firms, we helped restore the availability of two things that had been in short supply: capital and confidence. By taking aggressive and innovative steps in credit markets, we spurred lending not just to banks, but to folks looking to buy homes or cars, take out student loans, or finance small businesses. Our home ownership plan has helped responsible homeowners refinance to stem the tide of lost homes and lost home values.

And the recovery plan is providing help to the unemployed and tax relief for working families, all while spurring consumer spending. It’s prevented layoffs of tens of thousands of teachers, police officers, and other essential public servants. And thousands of recovery projects are underway all across America, putting people to work building wind turbines and solar panels, renovating schools and hospitals, and repairing our nation’s roads and bridges.

Eight months later, the work of recovery continues. And although I will never be satisfied while people are out of work and our financial system is weakened, we can be confident that the storms of the past two years are beginning to break.

In fact, while there continues to be a need for government involvement to stabilize the financial system, that necessity is waning. After months in which public dollars were flowing into our financial system, we are finally beginning to see money flowing back to the taxpayers. This doesn’t mean taxpayers will escape the worst financial crisis in decades unscathed. But banks have repaid more than $70 billion, and in those cases where the government’s stake has been sold completely, taxpayers have actually earned a 17-percent return on their investment. Just a few months ago, many experts from across the ideological spectrum feared that ensuring financial stability would require even more tax dollars. Instead, we’ve been able to eliminate a $250 billion reserve included in our budget because that fear has not been realized.

While full recovery of the financial system will take a great deal more time and work, the growing stability resulting from these interventions means we are beginning to return to normalcy. But what I want to emphasize is this: normalcy cannot lead to complacency.

Unfortunately, there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment. Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them. They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation’s. So I want them to hear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses. Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall.

That’s why we need strong rules of the road to guard against the kind of systemic risks we have seen. And we have a responsibility to write and enforce these rules to protect consumers of financial products, taxpayers, and our economy as a whole. Yes, they must be developed in a way that does not stifle innovation and enterprise. And we want to work with the financial industry to achieve that end. But the old ways that led to this crisis cannot stand. And to the extent that some have so readily returned to them underscores the need for change and change now. History cannot be allowed to repeat itself.

Instead, we are calling on the financial industry to join us in a constructive effort to update the rules and regulatory structure to meet the challenges of this new century. That is what my administration seeks to do. We have sought ideas and input from industry leaders, policy experts, academics, consumer advocates, and the broader public. And we’ve worked closely with leaders in the Senate and House, including Senators Chris Dodd and Richard Shelby, and Congressman Barney Frank, who are now working to pass regulatory reform through Congress.

Taken together, we are proposing the most ambitious overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression. But I want to emphasize that these reforms are rooted in a simple principle: we ought to set clear rules of the road that promote transparency and accountability. That’s how we’ll make certain that markets foster responsibility, not recklessness, and reward those who compete honestly and vigorously within the system, instead of those who try to game the system.

First, we’re proposing new rules to protect consumers and a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to enforce those rules. This crisis was not just the result of decisions made by the mightiest of financial firms. It was also the result of decisions made by ordinary Americans to open credit cards and take on mortgages. And while there were many who took out loans they knew they couldn’t afford, there were also millions of Americans who signed contracts they didn’t fully understand offered by lenders who didn’t always tell the truth.

This is in part because there is no single agency charged with making sure it doesn’t happen. That is what we’ll change. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will have the power to ensure that consumers get information that is clear and concise, and to prevent the worst kinds of abuses. Consumers shouldn’t have to worry about loan contracts designed to be unintelligible, hidden fees attached to their mortgages, and financial penalties – whether through a credit card or debit card – that appear without warning on their statements. And responsible lenders, including community banks, doing the right thing shouldn’t have to worry about ruinous competition from unregulated competitors.

Now there are those who are suggesting that somehow this will restrict the choices available to consumers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The lack of clear rules in the past meant we had innovation of the wrong kind: the firm that could make its products look best by doing the best job of hiding the real costs won. For example, we had “teaser” rates on credit cards and mortgages that lured people in and then surprised them with big rate increases. By setting ground rules, we’ll increase the kind of competition that actually provides people better and greater choices, as companies compete to offer the best product, not the one that’s most complex or confusing.

Second, we’ve got to close the loopholes that were at the heart of the crisis. Where there were gaps in the rules, regulators lacked the authority to take action. Where there were overlaps, regulators often lacked accountability for inaction. These weaknesses in oversight engendered systematic, and systemic, abuse.

Under existing rules, some companies can actually shop for the regulator of their choice – and others, like hedge funds, can operate outside of the regulatory system altogether. We’ve seen the development of financial instruments, like derivatives and credit default swaps, without anyone examining the risks or regulating all of the players. And we’ve seen lenders profit by providing loans to borrowers who they knew would never repay, because the lender offloaded the loan and the consequences to someone else. Those who refuse to game the system are at a disadvantage.

Now, one of the main reasons this crisis could take place is that many agencies and regulators were responsible for oversight of individual financial firms and their subsidiaries, but no one was responsible for protecting the whole system. In other words, regulators were charged with seeing the trees, but not the forest. And even then, some firms that posed a “systemic risk” were not regulated as strongly as others, exploiting loopholes in the system to take on greater risk with less scrutiny. As a result, the failure of one firm threatened the viability of many others. We were facing one of the largest financial crises in history and those responsible for oversight were caught off guard and without the authority to act.

That’s why we’ll create clear accountability and responsibility for regulating large financial firms that pose a systemic risk. While holding the Federal Reserve fully accountable for regulation of the largest, most interconnected firms, we’ll create an oversight council to bring together regulators from across markets to share information, to identify gaps in regulation, and to tackle issues that don’t fit neatly into an organizational chart. We’ll also require these financial firms to meet stronger capital and liquidity requirements and observe greater constraints on their risky behavior. That’s one of the lessons of the past year. The only way to avoid a crisis of this magnitude is to ensure that large firms can’t take risks that threaten our entire financial system, and to make sure they have the resources to weather even the worst of economic storms.

Even as we’ve proposed safeguards to make the failure of large and interconnected firms less likely, we’ve also proposed creating what’s called “resolution authority” in the event that such a failure happens and poses a threat to the stability of the financial system. This is intended to put an end to the idea that some firms are “too big to fail.” For a market to function, those who invest and lend in that market must believe that their money is actually at risk. And the system as a whole isn’t safe until it is safe from the failure of any individual institution.

If a bank approaches insolvency, we have a process through the FDIC that protects depositors and maintains confidence in the banking system. This process was created during the Great Depression when the failure of one bank led to runs on other banks, which in turn threatened the banking system. And it works. Yet we don’t have any kind of process in place to contain the failure of a Lehman Brothers or AIG or any of the largest and most interconnected financial firms in our country.

That’s why, when this crisis began, crucial decisions about what would happen to some of the world’s biggest companies – companies employing tens of thousands of people and holding trillions of dollars in assets – took place in hurried discussions in the middle of the night. And that’s why we’ve had to rely on taxpayer dollars. The only resolution authority we currently have that would prevent a financial meltdown involved tapping the Federal Reserve or the federal treasury. With so much at stake, we should not be forced to choose between allowing a company to fall into a rapid and chaotic dissolution that threatens the economy and innocent people, or forcing taxpayers to foot the bill. Our plan would put the cost of a firm’s failure on those who own its stock and loaned it money. And if taxpayers ever have to step in again to prevent a second Great Depression, the financial industry will have to pay the taxpayer back – every cent.

Finally, we need to close the gaps that exist not just within this country but among countries. The United States is leading a coordinated response to promote recovery and to restore prosperity among both the world’s largest economies and the world’s fastest growing economies. At a summit in London in April, leaders agreed to work together in an unprecedented way to spur global demand but also to address the underlying problems that caused such a deep and lasting global recession. This work will continue next week in Pittsburgh when I convene the G20, which has proven to be an effective forum for coordinating policies among key developed and emerging economies and one that I see taking on an important role in the future.

Essential to this effort is reforming what’s broken in the global financial system – a system that links economies and spreads both rewards and risks. For we know that abuses in financial markets anywhere can have an impact everywhere; and just as gaps in domestic regulation lead to a race to the bottom, so too do gaps in regulation around the world. Instead, we need a global race to the top, including stronger capital standards, as I’ve called for today. As the United States is aggressively reforming our regulatory system, we will be working to ensure that the rest of the world does the same.

A healthy economy in the 21st Century also depends upon our ability to buy and sell goods in markets across the globe. And make no mistake, this administration is committed to pursuing expanded trade and new trade agreements. It is absolutely essential to our economic future. But no trading system will work if we fail to enforce our trade agreements. So when, as happened this weekend, we invoke provisions of existing agreements, we do so not to be provocative or to promote self-defeating protectionism. We do so because enforcing trade agreements is part and parcel of maintaining an open and free trading system.

And just as we have to live up to our responsibilities on trade, we have to live up to our responsibilities on financial reform as well. I have urged leaders in Congress to pass regulatory reform this year and both Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd, who are leading this effort, have made it clear that that’s what they intend to do. Now there will be those who defend the status quo. There will be those who argue we should do less or nothing at all. But to them I’d say only this: do you believe that the absence of sound regulation one year ago was good for the financial system? Do you believe the resulting decline in markets and wealth and employment was good for the economy? Or the American people?

I’ve always been a strong believer in the power of the free market. I believe that jobs are best created not by government, but by businesses and entrepreneurs willing to take a risk on a good idea. I believe that the role of government is not to disparage wealth, but to expand its reach; not to stifle markets, but to provide the ground rules and level playing field that helps to make them more vibrant – and that will allow us to better tap the creative and innovative potential of our people. For we know that it is the dynamism of our people that has been the source of America’s progress and prosperity.

So I certainly did not run for President to bail out banks or intervene in the capital markets. But it is important to note that the very absence of common-sense regulations able to keep up with a fast-paced financial sector is what created the need for that extraordinary intervention. The lack of sensible rules of the road, so often opposed by those who claim to speak for the free market, led to a rescue far more intrusive than anything any of us, Democrat or Republican, progressive or conservative, would have proposed or predicted.

At the same time, what we must do now goes beyond just these reforms. For what took place one year ago was not merely a failure of regulation or legislation; it was not merely a failure of oversight or foresight. It was a failure of responsibility that allowed Washington to become a place where problems – including structural problems in our financial system – were ignored rather than solved. It was a failure of responsibility that led homebuyers and derivative traders alike to take reckless risks they couldn’t afford. It was a collective failure of responsibility in Washington, on Wall Street, and across America that led to the near-collapse of our financial system one year ago.

Restoring a willingness to take responsibility – even when it is hard – is at the heart of what we must do. Here on Wall Street, you have a responsibility. The reforms I’ve laid out will pass and these changes will become law. But one of the most important ways to rebuild the system stronger than before is to rebuild trust stronger than before – and you do not have to wait for a new law to do that. You don’t have to wait to use plain language in your dealings with consumers. You don’t have to wait to put the 2009 bonuses of your senior executives up for a shareholder vote. You don’t have to wait for a law to overhaul your pay system so that folks are rewarded for long-term performance instead of short-term gains.

The fact is, many of the firms that are now returning to prosperity owe a debt to the American people. Though they were not the cause of the crisis, American taxpayers through their government took extraordinary action to stabilize the financial industry. They shouldered the burden of the bailout and they are still bearing the burden of the fallout – in lost jobs, lost homes and lost opportunities. It is neither right nor responsible after you’ve recovered with the help of your government to shirk your obligation to the goal of wider recovery, a more stable system, and a more broadly shared prosperity.

So I want to urge you to demonstrate that you take this obligation to heart. To put greater effort into helping families who need their mortgages modified under my administration’s homeownership plan. To help small business owners who desperately need loans and who are bearing the brunt of the decline in available credit. To help communities that would benefit from the financing you could provide, or the community development institutions you could support. To come up with creative approaches to improve financial education and to bring banking to those who live and work entirely outside the banking system. And, of course, to embrace serious financial reform, not fight it.

Just as we are asking the private sector to think about the long term, Washington must as well. When my administration came through the door, we not only faced a financial crisis and costly recession, we also found waiting a trillion-dollar deficit. Yes, we have had to take extraordinary action in the wake of an extraordinary economic crisis. But I am committed to putting this nation on a sound and secure fiscal footing. That’s why we’re pushing to restore pay-as-you-go rules, because I will not go along with the old Washington ways which said it was OK to pass spending bills and tax cuts without a plan to pay for it. That’s why we’re cutting programs that don’t work or are out of date. And that’s why I’ve insisted that health insurance reform not add a dime to the deficit, now or in the future.

There are those who would suggest that we must choose between markets unfettered by even the most modest of regulations – and markets weighed down by onerous regulations that suppress the spirit of enterprise and innovation. But if there is one lesson we can learn from the last year, it is that this is a false choice. Common-sense rules of the road do not hinder the markets but make them stronger. Indeed, they are essential to ensuring that our markets function, and function fairly and freely.

One year ago, we saw in stark relief how markets can err; how a lack of common-sense rules can lead to excess and abuse; how close we can come to the brink. One year later, it is incumbent on us to put in place those reforms that will prevent this kind of crisis from ever happening again; that reflect the painful but important lessons we’ve learned; and that will help us move from a period of recklessness and crisis to one of responsibility and prosperity. That is what we must do. And I’m confident that is what we will do.

Thank you.

www.whitehouse.gov

Source: The White House

President Obama's Weekly Address

EsquireUK — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:41:03 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Losing-Insurance-Can-Happen-to-Anybody/

The President discusses a staggering new report from the Treasury Department indicating that under the status quo, around half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next ten years. He pledges not to allow this future to unfold: "In the United States of America, no one should have to worry that they'll go without health care – not for one year, not for one month, not for one day. And once I sign my health reform plan into law – they won't."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Weekly-Address-Losing-Insurance-Can-Happen-to-Anybody/

Eighth Anniversary Of 9/11 Attacks

EsquireUK — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:05:24 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/09/11/A_Legacy_That_Still_Shines_Brightly/

Today marks the eight anniversary of the tragedies of September 11. In a proclamation recognizing the anniversary, the President honored those who lost their lives on that day:

Through the twisted steel of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the scarred walls of the Pentagon, and the smoky wreckage in a field in southwest Pennsylvania, the patriotism and resiliency of the American people shone brightly on September 11, 2001. We stood as one people, united in our common humility and shared sorrow. We grieved for those who perished and remembered what brought us together as Americans.

Today, we honor the lives we lost eight years ago. On a bright September day, innocent men, women, and children boarded planes and set off for work as they had so many times before. Unthinkable acts of terrorism brought tragedy, destruction, pain, and loss for people across our Nation and the world.

As we pay tribute to loved ones, friends, fellow citizen, and all who died, we reaffirm our commitment to the ideas and ideals that united Americans in the aftermath of the attacks. We must apprehend all those who perpetrated these heinous crimes, seek justice for those who were killed, and defend against all threats to our national security. We must also recommit ourselves to our founding principles. September 11 reminds us that our fate as individuals is tied to that of our Nation. Our democracy is strengthened when we uphold the freedoms upon which or Nation was build: equality, justice, liberty, and democracy. These values exemplify the patriotism and sacrifice we commemorate today.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/09/11/A_Legacy_That_Still_Shines_Brightly/

Service and Remembrance

Posted by Dr. Jill Biden

I wanted to share some news with you that the First Lady and I are pleased to announce on this National Day of Service and Remembrance.As some of you may know, Michelle and I have been working together to find ways that we can support our military families. We have been meeting with Generals and their spouses, visiting bases, meeting with community and service groups to learn about what they are doing, what is working and how Americans can help. As the mother of a National Guardsman who is serving in Iraq, this is personal for me. I share the concerns, the anxieties, and the pride that come with being a member of a military family.When our troops are deployed, their families are left behind with a completely different set of duties, and I have seen first-hand what a difference it makes when people reach out to show support, whether in school, in the neighborhood, or in the workplace. That’s why Michelle and I are both happy to announce today that we have recorded a public service announcement which will hopefully encourage as many people as possible to join us in taking time to honor those who sacrifice for our nation. We each have the power to make a difference in the lives of service members and their families. Please join us in this effort with your own act of service.

-Jill

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Service-and-Remembrance/

9/11: Day Of Remembrance

EsquireUK — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:34:57 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Service-and-Remembrance/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Wreath-Laying-Ceremony-at-the-Pentagon-Memorial/

Today marks the eight anniversary of the tragedies of September 11. In a proclamation recognizing the anniversary, the President honored those who lost their lives on that day:

Through the twisted steel of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the scarred walls of the Pentagon, and the smoky wreckage in a field in southwest Pennsylvania, the patriotism and resiliency of the American people shone brightly on September 11, 2001. We stood as one people, united in our common humility and shared sorrow. We grieved for those who perished and remembered what brought us together as Americans.

Today, we honor the lives we lost eight years ago. On a bright September day, innocent men, women, and children boarded planes and set off for work as they had so many times before. Unthinkable acts of terrorism brought tragedy, destruction, pain, and loss for people across our Nation and the world.

As we pay tribute to loved ones, friends, fellow citizen, and all who died, we reaffirm our commitment to the ideas and ideals that united Americans in the aftermath of the attacks. We must apprehend all those who perpetrated these heinous crimes, seek justice for those who were killed, and defend against all threats to our national security. We must also recommit ourselves to our founding principles. September 11 reminds us that our fate as individuals is tied to that of our Nation. Our democracy is strengthened when we uphold the freedoms upon which or Nation was build: equality, justice, liberty, and democracy. These values exemplify the patriotism and sacrifice we commemorate today.

Service and Remembrance

Posted by Dr. Jill Biden

-Jill

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Service-and-Remembrance/

President Obama: Add Your Voice

EsquireUK — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:47:01 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help.

Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you.

Add your voice: Ask your representatives to support my plan for real health reform in 2009.

The heart of my plan is simple: bring stability and security to Americans who already have health insurance, guarantee affordable coverage for those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.

Tonight, I offered a specific plan for how to make it happen. I incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans to create a plan that's bold, practical, and represents the broad consensus of the American people.

We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way.

We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential.

See my full plan and call on your representatives to support it.
Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Millions Of Americans Can't Afford To Wait...

EsquireUK — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:51:21 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help.

Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you.

Add your voice: Ask your representatives to support my plan for real health reform in 2009.

The heart of my plan is simple: bring stability and security to Americans who already have health insurance, guarantee affordable coverage for those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.

Tonight, I offered a specific plan for how to make it happen. I incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans to create a plan that's bold, practical, and represents the broad consensus of the American people.

We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way.

We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential.

See my full plan and call on your representatives to support it.
Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

President Obama: Add Your Voice

EsquireUK — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:00:28 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help.

Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you.

Add your voice: Ask your representatives to support my plan for real health reform in 2009.

The heart of my plan is simple: bring stability and security to Americans who already have health insurance, guarantee affordable coverage for those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.

Tonight, I offered a specific plan for how to make it happen. I incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans to create a plan that's bold, practical, and represents the broad consensus of the American people.

We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way.

We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential.

See my full plan and call on your representatives to support it.
Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Special Presidential Address To Congress

EsquireUK — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:30:57 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

Highlights from online commentary:

Andrew Sullivan: "This passage brings the bipartisan peroration to a real close: 'That large-heartedness – that concern and regard for the plight of others – is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.' This is a liberalism most centrists can live with."
Open Left: "[H]e hit the jackpot tonight. I have been listening closely to Presidential speeches for about 35 years now, have watched quite a few oldies but goodies from the past, have even contributed ideas to a fair share of speeches in the Clinton years, and I am sitting here thinking that was one of the very best Presidential speeches I have ever heard. JFK's inaugural and a couple of FDR's best are the only ones I can think of that moved me so much. More importantly, though, he did everything he needed to do: Lay out clearly what he strongly believes in; make a powerful argument for why we need to get this done; answer the phony scare tactics; [and] fire up the people around the country who want to get this done to keep working to make it happen."
Washington Monthly: "Obama went big, sold the plan, and actually explained how this would work. It was as strong as I've seen him on health care — which means he came through with the right speech at the right time … And if someone at the DNC and/or White House political operation can just take the last five minutes or so of that speech, and keep airing it in a constant loop, I'd appreciate it. Brilliant stuff."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

Tonight: Presidential Address On Health Care

EsquireUK — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:12:54 EDT

On Wednesday night at 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time, President Obama will deliver a major address to spell out his vision for health insurance reform to a special joint session of Congress. As we head into the next phase of the debate, the President's address will be an important moment in our campaign for change.

The President's speech will be carried live on most major television networks, and you can watch online at BarackObama.com.

In addition, Organizing for America members will be gathering at local watch parties with friends, neighbors and fellow supporters across the country. Afterward, watch party attendees will be invited to join a special conversation with former Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe to discuss how we can help make the President's vision a reality. Click here to find a watch party near you.

Tonight: Presidential Address On Health Care

EsquireUK — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:09:20 EDT

The President's speech will be carried live on most major television networks, and you can watch online at BarackObama.com.

President Obama Speaks to America's Students

EsquireUK — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:31:46 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-Noon-The-Presidents-Speech-to-Americas-Students/

UPDATED: The speech has ended, but you can read the full text of the President's prepared remarks below:

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
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.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-Noon-The-Presidents-Speech-to-Americas-Students/

THE PRESIDENT'S BACK-TO-SCHOOL MESSAGE TO AMERICA'S STUDENTS

EsquireUK — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:26:04 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-Noon-The-Presidents-Speech-to-Americas-Students/

UPDATED: The speech has ended, but you can read the full text of the President's prepared remarks below:

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
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.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-Noon-The-Presidents-Speech-to-Americas-Students/

We Can Not Afford The Status Quo

EsquireUK — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:28:20 EDT

We Can Afford Reform, We Can’t Afford the Status Quo

Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist for the Vice President and Executive Director of the Middle Class Task Force, debunks the myth that we can’t afford health insurance reform. To the contrary, not only has the President demanded that reform not add to the deficit in the short term, but reform is the only way to get skyrocketing health care costs under control that will be devastating not for families , businesses, and for government deficits in the long term under the status quo.

Watch the Video

Earlier today, it was announced that President Obama will address a joint session of Congress on the issue of health insurance reform next Wednesday, September 9th. CNN reported:

It will be Obama's second speech to the full legislature since he took office in January, and the setting and rarity of such an event highlighted the importance the president places on his top domestic priority: overhauling the nation's ailing health care system.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid formally invited Obama to make the address, as required, in a letter issued Wednesday after news broke of the planned speech.

We'll have more information on this important speech in the days to come.

www.whitehouse.gov

http://my.barackobama.com/ontheground

EsquireUK — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:20:50 EDT

Mitch Stewart, Director of Organizing for America, just sent out this e-mail:

At the beginning of August, President Obama wrote to the OFA community to challenge us to work hard, break through the noise and give the American people a voice in the fight for health insurance reform.

It wasn't easy: With Congress back home, special interests and partisan attack groups went into overdrive spreading lies, and the media seemed to broadcast any story of conflict or division they could find.

But you accepted the President's challenge -- and delivered.

See it for yourself: Check out the latest photos and stories from around the country.

Our strategy for the month was simple: engage the millions of individuals who know we need change to fight the lies and tell the truth, build support for reform, and ensure that support is highly visible while members of Congress are home gauging public opinion. We continued our methodical, battle-tested approach of volunteers reaching out online and offline in every part of the country. We offered the facts, answered questions and engaged those who were ready to get involved.

And the results were extraordinary. OFA supporters like you came together in an unprecedented way over the past four weeks -- and it couldn't have happened without the individual volunteers who make it all possible:
Folks like Rebecca E. in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who voted for the first time last year -- and collected more than 1,800 health care declarations this summer. Across the country, we've collected more than 1 million signatures in support of the President's core principles for health insurance reform.
Supporters like Nita L. in Longmont, Colorado, who organized hundreds of supporters in her town to come with her to talk with their member of Congress about how much this fight means to them. They were among the more than 70,000 folks who showed up at 350 town halls -- where supporters of reform at times outnumbered opponents by 10-1 -- and volunteers who made 5,000 trips to local congressional offices.
It's the people who made more than 100,000 calls to Congress to thank representatives fighting for change -- like Nancy T. in Hendersonville, North Carolina, who hosted a health care phone booth because, after her heart transplant, she knows that no American should have to choose between financial ruin and getting the care they need.
It's the 1,500 supporters who filled a local recreation center in Kansas City, Missouri, at a town hall meeting with Senator Claire McCaskill, and the 2,500 people who jammed the streets to hear from Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio -- just two of the more than 4,000 events where folks gathered to show their support across all 50 states in August.

All of these signatures, calls, office drop-bys, conversations, gatherings, and town hall meetings, all of the late nights, homemade signs, long hours in the sun, and tireless volunteers who make it happen -- totaling more than 1.5 million people who've taken part in this campaign for real reform -- it all adds up to one incredible movement for change.

Check out the latest photos and stories from the field to see this movement in action:

http://my.barackobama.com/ontheground

As Congress returns to D.C. and we roll up our sleeves for the final push toward reform, we know the hardest work may yet lie ahead. The special interests and those in Congress who have pledged to oppose the President no matter what will stoop even lower in the weeks ahead.

But you should never doubt that we face the coming challenges together, as part of something far larger than any of us alone -- and far stronger than the old broken politics that have preserved the status quo for long enough.

Our strategy is working. We are going to win this thing. Americans will finally get the health insurance reform we all need.

Thank you for making it possible,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

We Can Not Afford The Status Quo

EsquireUK — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:22:42 EDT

We Can Afford Reform, We Can’t Afford the Status Quo

Watch the Video

Earlier today, it was announced that President Obama will address a joint session of Congress on the issue of health insurance reform next Wednesday, September 9th. CNN reported:

It will be Obama's second speech to the full legislature since he took office in January, and the setting and rarity of such an event highlighted the importance the president places on his top domestic priority: overhauling the nation's ailing health care system.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid formally invited Obama to make the address, as required, in a letter issued Wednesday after news broke of the planned speech.

We'll have more information on this important speech in the days to come.

www.whitehouse.gov