From this story:

An 11-year-old Des Moines girl was at home on suspension Tuesday for bringing a handful of empty shotgun shells to school last week.



Jazmine Martin, a sixth-grader at Brody Middle School, picked up the shells as souvenirs during a family trip to a ranch in South Dakota, where the rounds were fired as part of a show. They were blanks.

Remember ... Zero Tolerance policies are brought to you by government officials who want to escape the hard work of logical thought. Behind every zero tolerance policy you will find a collection of bureaucrats celebrating the fact that they won't actually have to use any common sense to noodle out a problem when the need arises. Zero tolerance policies are the essence of bureaucratic thought, and hence government.

Barack Obama and the White House have decided that their $787 billion economic stimulus bill has been a success. How do they figure?? They base this on the fact that as many as a quarter of the jobs that have "saved or created" are government school teachers.

The chief economic advisor for Joe Biden says that recent data shows that at least 250,000 educational jobs have been saved or created. Oddly enough, no one has actually SEEN this report. The Republicans point out that 250,000 jobs were lost last month alone and 3 million have been lost since the economic stimulus bill was signed. But don't slow us down with the facts! Let's celebrate that we have done exactly what we wanted to do: get more people on the government payroll. After all, folks, remember that these teachers are nothing more than glorified government bureaucrats. They are paid by the government, report to the government, abide by government regulations to fulfill their jobs requirement ... they are government employees.

So we spend $787 billion to provide pork barrel projects and hire more government workers. That sounds like stimulus to me!

Keep in mind that data released last week by the federal government found that federal contracts paid for with stimulus money created or saved 30,383 jobs. That is not a lot of jobs, folks. In fact, the White House at one point had a goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs over two years. There is a pretty big gap between 30,000 and 3.5 million, wouldn't you say? So when in doubt, emphasize the fact that you kept the government school teachers around and hope that Americans are too ignorant to realize that the darn thing isn't working.

And while we're at it .. you do know this whole "created or saved" thing is a crock, don't you? There is no way the government can accurately tell you how many jobs have been "saved" by stimulus spending. What we have here is the local governments telling the federal government "Oh yeah! Thanks for the money! If it hadn't been for that money we would have fired a bunch of people!" Hogwash. This is nothing but a transparent PR scam designed to convince the public that this stimulus plan is working. Try to get some private business to talk about jobs saved

Yesterday in Atlanta, we had a school in lockdown because somewhere in the area there had been a car-jacking. And I pointed out to the caller the fact that someday, these kids ... locked up inside a school, unable to play in dirt or eat birthday cake at lunch or play a sport that might cause bruising ... someday we are going to be asking these kids to fight for our country. Go, you little pansy, put your life on the line! There is no way in hell that these kids will be able to handle it.

And it is stories like this that just add to my collection of stories about the wussification of America. This story takes place in Delaware. Zachary Christie is 6-years-old. He recently joined the Cub Scouts. Good. I'm glad his parents signed him up for the Scouts, now we have to work on the whole government school thing ... but that is another rant. So Zachary joins the Cub Scouts and his parents take him to the store so he can buy some camping equipment. And Zachary is really excited about his new gadget - a camping utensil that serves as a knife, fork and a spoon. So Zachary packs his lunch for school the next day. In his lunch box he throws his new utensil so he can eat his lunch. So he gets to school, whips out his new utensil and it wasn't two minutes before Zachary is being harassed by school officials. Why? For bringing a knife to school.

Zachary is suspended from school. Not only that, but then he faces 45 days in the school district's reform school. Zero tolerance policies. He was accused of bringing a weapon to school and knives are strictly banned, "regardless of possessor's intent."

That, folks, is what we call the wussification of America. And you have government schools to thank for it.

Again, read my notes below .. then come back here.

OK .. you see those lyrics I have posted? Here's one of the verses:

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight.

Well, that's just mighty fine, isn't it?

Now ... take a look at this verse of a hymn written by Rebecca St. James.

Jesus loves the little children,

All the children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white,

All are precious in His sight,

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Yup .. there you go. You know that song, don't you? Most of us sang "Jesus loves the little children" when we were little children! Now they've taken this song and substituted Obama for Jesus! Amazing!

It's the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey. Up until yesterday you've probably never heard of this place. Now, thanks to the Internet and to evil, hate-filled talk radio hosts, you probably know good old BBY as the place where those students were led in an Mmm Mmm Mmm, Barack Hussein Obama praise chant earlier this year. It couldn't have been more outrageous. Here we had these government employees - government agents, if you will - leading these young kids in a rap, song, chant .. whatever .. with lines like "equal pay for equal work! Mmm Mmm Mmm, Barack Hussein Obama."

Lyrics? We have the complete lyrics here for you! Ready?

Mm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand

To make this country strong again

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today

Equal work means equal pay

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand

To make sure everyone gets a chance

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black or white

All are equal in his sight

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama
Yes!

Mmm, mmm, mm

Barack Hussein Obama

But wait! There was more! We didn't catch this yesterday, but there was another taught to these children. Here are the lyrics for the second song:

Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!

For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say "hooray!"
Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!

The first black American to lead this great nation!
Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans

To make this country's economy number one again!
Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!

And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!
So continue --- Mr. President we know you'll do the trick

So here's a hearty hip-hooray ---
Hip, hip hooray!

Hip, hip hooray!

Hip, hip hooray!

When America's nasty, evil, disgusting, putrid talk show hosts, along with the Fox News Channel, started playing the video yesterday the website for the B. Bernice Young Elementary School was there for all to see. You could find it at http://www.burltwpsch.org/schools/ys/. Now as of last night, when I was actually writing this particular note, that website is dead. It's still dead this morning. You get the magic "page cannot be displayed" message. It's no secret as to why. The school officials were fed up with the emails from irate parents and Americans across the country. The less information publicly available about this school, the better.

Fear not though: The school superintendent weighed in to explain everything. This was all part of a celebration of black history. No big deal. So .. there you are! Now you understand everything, don't you? They were just trying to teach the kids something about the nation's first black president. I feel so much better now.

Look ... these are government schools, staffed by government workers. The people teaching our children are members of the nation's most powerful union, the National Education Association. We really should not be surprised when the children who attend these institutions start sounding and acting like the old Soviet Union's Young Pioneers. All these kids needed was a little red book of quotations from Chairman Barack.

Wait! Before I move on, let's check in with Media Myrmidons to see what these leftist footstools have to say about this episode: Here you go:

Conservative media fearmonger about unauthorized YouTube video of school kids "praising" Obama The Drudge Report: "SHOCK VIDEO: School kids taught to praise Obama ..." On September 23, Internet gossip Matt Drudge linked to a YouTube video purportedly showing "[s]chool kids taught to praise Obama." The video, showing young schoolchildren in New Jersey singing a song about Obama, provides no evidence that the children or their parents consented to having the video posted on YouTube.

Now that's some hard-hitting stuff there. Is that all they brought to this bar fight? The video was "unauthorized!" Oh my gosh! Dogs and cats sleeping together! Then these weak sisters complain that parents hadn't consented to having the video posted on YouTube. You gotta love the quotes around "praising." Apparently Media Myrmidons isn't concerned about parents being consulted before their kids were taught these Obama praise songs. Gotta love 'em. By the way, they haven't given me my props for some time. I'll need to step it up a bit.

Have you ever heard me refer to our government schools as indoctrination
centers? If' you've listened for more than a day you have. Check out this video from a government school:

At first I thought this article was a joke. I really thought that there was no way our government schools have gotten this bad. But I was wrong. Go figure.

The Tucson Unified School District has decided to implement a two-tiered system for student discipline. One tier will be for blacks and Hispanics ... and the other tier will be for everyone else.

The goal of this system is to create a "'restorative school culture and climate' that conveys a 'sense of belonging to all students,' the board is insisting that its schools reduce its suspensions and/or expulsions of minority students to the point that the data reflect 'no ethnic/racial disparities.'"

With this comes the creation of an "Equity Team" that will ... get this ... oversee the plan to ensure "a commitment to social justice for all students."

OK ... now what does this look like to you? I'm thinking that the Tucson school district will not be allowed to discipline minority students except in accordance with strict quotas. If 60% of the students are black and Hispanic, then only 60% of disciplinary actions can be taken against black and Hispanic students. The other 40% of disciplinary actions must be taken against whites ... regardless of who is committing the infractions.

Let's apply this to crime enforcement in your city. Why knows? Maybe the Tucson idea will catch on and this will come to pass?

Let's say the breakdown in your city is 30% black and Hispanic, and 70% white. Statistics show that about 70% of the violent crimes are committed by the black and Hispanic population. As I understand the Tucson plan, the cops in your city will have to charge 7 whites for every 3 blacks and Hispanics for these crimes. You gotta stick with the ratios, you know.

But wait! There's more! As I understand it, the school disciplinarians in Tucson will also have to treat every infraction based on the color of the infractor. (OK ... I made the word up.) A brilliant example follows. The MF word is a part of black culture; not so much for white culture. Maybe only whites should be punished for uttering that epithet.

Precedence? You want precedence? OK, I got your precedence right here. Several years ago the NBA decided to strengthen the penalties for swearing on the basketball court during a game. Black players asked that the "MF" phrase be exclused because it was a part of their culture and, thus, was not swearing.

Keeps getting stranger and stranger folks.

With your kids returning to their indoctrination centers - government schools - I have been noticing reports from around the country concerning the Pledge of Allegiance. Now I will tell you up front that I am not a big fan on the forced recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance. These children are in these schools by government mandate .. and I don't the government leading them on a pledge of allegiance to anything but themselves. At any rate; it seems that every year we get the stories about students being harassed for not standing up to say the Pledge, and now the debate is being taken to a new level.

We've settled the fact that no one, not even government school students, has to stand to pledge allegiance. But the new advocacy issue is about a "Miranda warning" for the Pledge. This would be an administrative notice that students have the right to remain silent. First Amendment advocates argue that the law "compels educators to inform kids at the beginning of school that the decision is entirely up to them."

Does this all strike you as a bit absurd? Let's just see if these schools can get rid of ceremonies and warnings and get on the with task of teaching. Look ... they have about 12 years to teach these kids how to make change, learn how to read People Magazine and cook French fries.

Well .. he stuck to the script, and by last evening the people who had been in such a panic over the president's speech to the nation's school children were looking, shall we say, foolish. It was actually a very strong event for Obama. He got to deliver a good positive message to the nation's school children and, in the process, he got to embarrass his opponents.

One problem .. the teleprompter. Obama delivered the speech at some high school near Washington and, predictably, had to use teleprompter. This meant that he was either looking 45 degrees to the left or right, but never directly into the camera. Most of Obama's audience was out there on the other side of that TV camera, and that's where he should have been looking. Not once did he actually look the children in classrooms across America in the eye. Since we're talking Obama here, I just had to find a criticism.

I'm sorry .. but this is about as lame as it gets. This chorus of "it wasn't the speech, it was the lesson plan" line the opponents of Obama's speech came up with yesterday would have been funny if it hadn't been so pathetic. Here's just one of the emails we received yesterday:

"The problem isn't Obama's speech. We knew all the time it would be very warm and fuzzy-innocuous, if you will. The real issue and problem is the teacher instructed fact sheets/student study guides and their scary agenda."

Grow up and admit it .. you blew this one. Obama and the Democrats played you like a banjo. Admit it and move on ... there's a government takeover of health care that needs to be fought.

Before we move on ourselves ... another email:

"Your attack on those that were opposed to the President and his minions original plan of propogandizing school children is eerily similar to Arianna Huffington's journey to kooksville. I hope you are not becoming the male version of Arianna."

By the way .. .my Townhall.com column yesterday "Republicans get Rolled ... and Deservedly So" was the second most read column on Townhall.com yesterday and received the second highest number of comments --- most negative. I was beat out in both categories by Thomas Sowell. There's just no way I could ever measure up to Thomas Sowell.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. Today I'll deliver my version of a speech to America's school children. It will be during the first syndicated hour of my program, and then repeated during the Information Overload Hour. After today it will be available to Boortz Blast subscribers. Let me know what you think.

Gee, maybe I need to clarify since some of you don't seem to get it. By "available to Boortz Blast subscribers", we mean we are going to put a link to the text and audio in the next Boortz Blast newsletter (comes out 9/10 in the afternoon.) If you want it, subscribe. Mmmmkay? Just poke that link up there. -ww

Today at noon Barack Obama addresses the nation's schoolchildren .. or a good number of them anyway. Many students won't hear the speech because of a rather severe miscalculation from the right. Republican screaming and wailing made it sound as if Hugo Chavez was flying in via Aeroflot to speak to our poor, innocent, unsuspecting angels. School districts reacted ... and millions of school kids will sit around picking their noses at noon instead of watching the speech.

So now the speech is out. As of yesterday afternoon you could read it on the Internet. I've read it, and if there is anything in there that I wouldn't want my child to have heard from a U.S. President, I certainly couldn't find it.

Egad! The speech is innocuous! What are we going to do now? I know! We'll all claim that Obama changed the speech after the uproar from the right! Well, duhhhhhh. Of course he did! Why wouldn't he! Well, actually he really didn't have to change it. It probably wasn't written by the time conservative boxers bunched up en masse. So Obama's speechwriters took their cue from the right and made the speech essentially bulletproof from the get-go. One sharp mind in a Republican strategy session could have seen this one coming from the next galaxy.

• President says he will give speech to schoolchildren.
• Republicans say the speech will be full of leftist propaganda
• Parents run in circles flailing arms overhead while screaming and shouting.
• Some school officials black out Obama's speech. (racist comment)
• Grinning speechwriters prepare speech with no leftist propaganda.
• Republicans look like fools.
• People now more reluctant to listen to conservative complaints about Obama.

Now how easy was that? For about three days we have parents, the Republican Party and assorted odds spinning around on their eyebrows and spitting wooden nickels over Obama's speech. He's going to indoctrinate our children. He's going to fill them full of socialist ideology. They're all going to come away from school today singing Kumbaya and waving red flags. They'll probably stop on the way home from school to buy a Che Guevara t-shirt from vendors the Democrats will have waiting out in front of their schools. Then the hopelessly indoctrinated kids will come home and destroy all the incandescent light bulbs and turn the spare bathtub into a recycling bin. Before they do their homework (reading The Communist Manifesto) they'll hide the car keys so daddy has to take mass transportation to work on Wednesday.

TeamObama must have loved this one. Talk about a hanging curveball. Once the manic inanity started all they had to do is sit back, prepare an innocuous speech for The One, and let the people scratch their heads wondering what in the hell the Republicans were so upset about!

Now that the speech is out .. and now that most stable people realize that there is nothing in the speech worthy of such an uproar ... it's time to change tactics. "It's not the speech! It's the lesson plan!" Oh yeah ... if that makes you feel better, go for it. You can just tell everyone that you really weren't upset about Obama actually speaking to the students ... it was the lesson plan that had you so angry all along. Yup! Works for me! Sure .. some Department of Education hack messed up the lesson plan, but that was so easily corrected and it was on to the speech. Now the next time the right comes up with an objection to some Obama concept, people who last week might have been on board will stand back and look at the Republicans with a jaundiced eye.

The massively dysfunctional Congress is back today .. with one thought in mind: Rescue Obama's presidency. The danger that this man and his congressional sycophants presents to this country is far from over. Obama will be doubling his effort to destroy much of America's private economic sector, starting with the seizure of the 18 percent of our economy represented by health care. This nonsense over the speech to the school children has boosted Obama's image as he and the congress get back to the business of promoting government. He will make a speech to the congress tomorrow night outlining his vision of government-controlled health care. No doubt his vision will contain many threats to liberty ... but opposing views will be filtered through the school speech debacle. Two steps forward and four steps back. Unless PrezBO really messes up his address to Congress tonight watch for his popularity ratings to rise. Thanks, Republicans!

A version of the foregoing Nuze segment about Obama's school speech appeared as a column at Townhall.com today ... and it wasn't what you might call "welcomed." You can click here to read the comments.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells us that there were four perfect 2400 scores in Georgia on the SAT test. Wunnerful wunnerful. Let's have our own little test right here: First, we'll do what the diversity mavens like to do so much, and that is divide Georgia school children into four different ethnic classifications.

[  ] White
[  ] Black
[  ] Hispanic
[  ] Asian

There you go. Remember, to the diversity cops it's all about ethnic heritage, not so much about personal character, ability, effort or traits.

OK ... Now you go ahead and put a number beside each ethnic classification showing how you think those four perfect SAT scores were distributed.

Done? If you put the number 4 beside Asian, you have just made a perfect score on our own little test! Aren't you proud! Their names are Cong "Tom" Hui, Michelle Liu, Marissa Pan and Tanya Nguyen. You can read their stories here.

So - do you think that all four of the Georgia students who scored a perfect 2400 on their SAT did so because of some genetic inherent superiority of the Asian people? It's not genetics, folks. It's culture. Read the stories. In every case these kids came from a family - a culture - that honored and prized education. You can bet that when these students worked hard in class or actually brought in their homework their Asian classmates didn't accuse them of trying to "act white." You can also bet they weren't denigrated by friends for learning to speak English in an understandable and proper manner.

This "culture" message doesn't sit well with a lot of people. Why not? Because culture is something you can change. You cannot change your race. If you fail to rise above the negative aspects of the culture in which you were raised, your bad. For many it is so much easier to blame failures on skin color - something you can't change.

This is a story that keeps on giving.

A lot of you have your thongs in a square knot over the fact that Barack Obama will be addressing school children next week. Some schools have decided that they are not going to show the speech. Others will require parent permission. But you parents are pretty upset. You're upset with me as well because I'm not all that upset. All I'm saying is to give the speech a chance. This really is a win-win situation for conservatives. If he says something that suggests "indoctrination," then conservatives can nail him. If he says something worthwhile, then what harm could it really do?

Question: What type of kool-aid do they serve in the green rooms of MSNBC? Have you been listening to these people? No wonder Dr. G and her bolt cutters have a bigger audience. Here's the latest example of MSNBC idiocy: Keith Boykin appeared on MSNBC yesterday to discuss this presidential address to students. Boykin says, "So much of the debate about President Obama has been politicized in an effort by some to delegitimize his presidency ... This is clearly much ado about nothing. We're talking about the President of the United States speaking to school kids. Why wouldn't schools want this to happen?"

Ok, I can agree with him so far. But then he goes on to say, "That's why our kids are so dumb today, because they don't want to have basic common sense in the classroom." Hey Keith, maybe our children are "so dumb today" because we send them to the government to be educated. Ever think about that?

 

Are we ready to chill out about Obama's speech to the nation's government school children next week? Is there a potential for a disaster? Sure there is, but I think it's unlikely. Obama isn't going to go on the classroom tubes and tell the kids to "go home and tell your folks to call their elected officials and tell them to support my health care plan. If you don't, you're gonna die." The White House says that the purpose of the speech is for PrezBO to "address the students on the importance of taking responsibility for their success in school." Who in the world wouldn't want this message delivered to our students? Do you think you would have had your panties in a wad if it was George W. Bush delivering the same message to the students?

Obama is in a position to do some good here. Many of these school children look up to him. They have no awareness of his flirtations with Marxism in college. They don't understand his complete lack of experience as he stood for election last year. They just know that he's the president, and that's important. Young black students see him as an incredible roll model. If he delivers them a positive message about personal responsibility we're all the better off for it.

All this doesn't mean we sleep through his speech. Let's watch carefully to see if there is any pro-big government propaganda that needs to be addressed. Until then ... find something else to get all worked up over.

It's from Robert Gibbs .. PrezBO's spokesman. The headline says that "PRESIDENT OBAMA DELIVERS NATIONAL ADDRESS TO AMERICA'S SCHOOCHILDREN." Anyone see a problem with that?

By now, most of you parents have jeopardized your children's future by sending them off to the government to be educated. You didn't do it out of malice .. but do it you did. You put them on a school bus this morning where, essentially, they will go and learn to be good little government subjects. The government school goal is to make you're your spawn learn just enough to get by, but not enough to ask the hard questions or think for themselves. Don't believe me? Well that is, in fact, the purpose of government education. Don't take it from me, take it from this guy who was a helluvalot smarter than me. That guy would be H.L. Mencken. Here are two quotes I want you to absorb from Mencken about government education:

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."

"And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps."

Well .. here comes some more rubber stamping. On September 8th ... that's next Tuesday ... your children are going to get a welcome back to school speech from none other than President Obama. Teachers are getting ready. Perhaps you would like to read this memo from the Department of Education as to how teachers should handle this first-ever event.

OK .. everybody out there just calm down. You should have seen the email that came crashing in last night ... Obama's little talk has a mighty good number of panties in a complete wad. So let's relax for a bit and see what Obama intends to do.

We get this preview from the DOE:

"The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens."

As if that wasn't enough, as I told you the federal Department of Education has put together a worksheet for teachers across America so that they can properly prepare their students for the President's speech. There are some little gems in this worksheet that could be troublesome. Pretty much what you would expect, though, from government.

An example: In the teacher's worksheet the teacher is urged to discuss with the students the following questions:

• What do you think the president wants us to do?
• Does the speech make you want to do anything?
• Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
• What would you like to tell the president?

Well .. how about a few more questions from the Talkmaster:

• What are the constitutional limits on this president's power?
• Is the president asking us to do things that are really outside of his designated powers?
• SHOULD we do what President Obama is asking of us?
• Do you feel the president was talking to you, or with you?

It's hard to really flesh this out until we hear Obama's speech. Trust me ... we'll be listening, and hoping for the best.

So Barack Obama is going to give this little speech to students across this nation. Yeah, yeah I know ... I'm sure that students in private schools will be watching too, but students in government schools will be REQUIRED to watch and participate.

So I've come up with a little treat of my own. Next week, I am going to give the Boortz address to government school students. This is the speech that students in this country SHOULD be hearing, but won't. I challenge any of you government school teachers to include my version of Obama's address in your lesson plans ... see how long it takes for your administration to put a stop to that.

No ... no rant here. It's just disappointing. The evidence is there in the form of letters, articles and memos. The people who engineered the evolution of our government school system in the early 1900s were clear ... the goal of "public education" was only to educate our children to the point that they would be good employees and government subjects. Nothing more. The evidence of the failure of our government schools is everywhere .. yet today, without a second thought, millions of people who call themselves "parents" will turn their children over to the government for nothing more than a mediocre education. They will be spit out at the end of the school year barely able to make change or read a simple lease agreement.

Here's a wonderful quote of H.L. Mencken that fits in real nicely:

"That erroneous assumption is to the effort that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.

To those of you who make the sacrifice to get your children away from the government and the teacher's unions .. my admiration and thanks. Your children will be the key to our country's future. The kids going to government schools will be working for your kids .. or for the government.

Here's a read for all of you, few though you may be, who have come to recognize, or even to suspect that the purpose of our government schools is not so much to educate as it is to prepare for servitude. It's called "You Don't Have to go to School."

Tell you what; the way things are with our educational system I'm beginning to think that the many of our spawn would be better off if you just told them "Hey ... no school. Figure out this thing for yourself, pal." Now think about it. We send our chilluns to these government "schools" and tell them that if they pay attention and do what is asked of them they'll be all ready to earn a living and forge a path to success in our society. We tell them this, when we should know its horse crap, and they believe it. They when they finally "graduate" from these hideous institutions they find that, at best, they're ready to start their "would you like french fries with that" career at a local fast food joint.

Now I'm wondering ... what if your kid had to start worrying about preparing himself to earn a living from the moment he managed to put together his first rational thought? No more of this "just go to school and do what they tell you" nonsense. Just tell the hid that he has some choices to make, and that he'd better man up and make the right ones, or else he'll be throwing garbage into the back of a truck for the rest of his life. Just a guess ... but that might be a way to put some motivation into these spoiled brats. Tell them that all is NOT going to be taken care of for them .. and that if they're not prepared life is going to be pretty damned miserable, and they'll only have themselves to blame.

This story takes place in Baltimore, Maryland. It actually involves a charter school. You see, the law in Maryland requires that charter school teachers be part of the union in their school district. That was their first mistake.

So this charter school, the KIPP Ujima Village Academy starts doing really well. Students at the school are outperforming students at the local government schools. One reason may be that the teachers at the KIPP Ujima Village Academy put in longer hours than their government school counterparts. KIPP teachers work nine hours and 15 minutes a day, as well as every other Saturday. Local government school teachers are only required to work seven hours and five minutes a day. And you can forget about weekends.

This is where the local union steps in and says "Hey, wait a minute. Teachers at this charter school are working longer hours than other unionized teachers at the government schools." The solution? The Baltimore Teachers Union says that this charter school must pay its teachers 33% more than other government school teachers. The charter school says ... screw you, we have a budget to meet (there's a concept no government hack would understand). So now, one of Baltimore's most successful schools is laying off staff and shortening its school day. They are doing this in order to please the teachers unions.

Oh wait ... you thought that teachers unions are there to enhance the education of your child? And just what planet did you say you are from?

During a recent audit here in Georgia, the state Board of Education discovered something fishy about some standardized test scores. Specifically, the fifth grade Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRTs). Administrations and/or teachers at four elementary schools are believed to have tampered with the CRT results.

The audit was conducted by the Governor's Office of Student Achievement. It noticed something was strange when some of the answer sheets had up to 40 erasure marks on them; when students on average only changed their answers twice. Not to mention that most of the changed answers always went from a wrong one to a right one.

Here's the deal. Based on previous results, the four schools involved must have been on the verge of being sanctioned under the federal No Child Left Behind law. In other words ... they were going to receive an "F." Once the answers were changed on these tests ... guess what? No "F"! Now suddenly these schools look golden! Whoever changed those scores ... were they helping the kids? Hardly. If the school was sanctioned the parents could then transfer kids to another school. In effect, the altered answers trapped these kids in these poor schools.

So now the state board has to vote on whether or not to toss the scores. The principal at Atherton Elementary, James L. Berry, has already resigned. His assistant principal Doretha Alexander also resigned. Both have been arrested and charged with altering public documents. Isn't that just sweet!

Now state senators have called for a bill that would make it a crime for educators to change answers on standardized tests.

I don't have to go into the details of what is going on in California right now. The bottom line is that the state is broke. Part of the reason California is broke is because the wealthy, the high-producers, the larger taxpayers have fled. Can you blame them? We are still free enough to chose to escape high tax states, though that may change under the enlightened leadership of Barack Obama. At any rate, now California has to balance its budget, and it is ugly. Amusingly, it is putting a real strain on the relationship between state Democrats and the labor unions. I say amusingly because I love to see unions scream and politicians squirm.

California is going to have to cut government services --- big time. In fact, some government services may be eliminated altogether. CalGrants, for instance, provides financial aid to low-income students of union members. That program would be phased out. Also, government home healthcare services would be slashed. There's even a headline on Drudge this morning suggesting that California may end its welfare programs. It's news like this has the unions' thongs in a wad because many of them would lose their jobs or see a significant reduction in forces.

What is the solution offered up by the unions? Well .. the same solution Obama has for funding his government takeover of health care. It's really very easy. You just tax the rich! Yep, there is a union pledge being passed around to support $44 million in new or higher taxes on the wealthy, oil companies, tobacco industry and others. The California Democrats, it seems, aren't biting. The unions are "appalled" that Democrats are openly discussing the idea of cutting government programs without first considering the idea of tax increases. Union members are beginning to ask themselves: "If these Democrats are not going to stand up for us, then what good is it to have them there?"

So will these Democrats end up bending to union demands? If not, it could lead to the end of their political careers. If they do, it could lead to the financial collapse of California.

For this section of Nealz Nuze, let's focus on the Massachusetts Teachers Association. This would be the largest teachers union in the great state of Massachusetts. Now keep in mind that the goal of a teachers union is to maintain union jobs power, not to educate children. So when the teachers union comes up with ways for its teachers to develop professionally, you can guarantee that this will have little to do with student achievement.

According to this article from the Boston Herald, the Massachusetts Teachers Association offers professional development like "Lessons through Balloon Twisting" where each participant can learn to make at least two different balloon animals. Another like "Easy Tie-Dye" will "awe your friends and family" by creating a "groovy tie-dyed T-shirt." That's not all, folks ... these teachers can learn Native American Bead Weaving, silk screening, folk dancing and more.

These are the people you put in charge of educating your child. School choice is the great civil rights struggle of the era. Are you paying attention? Read this next bit to see what some Russian writer has to say about our education system.

The Young America's Foundation has been keeping tabs on who is being invited to speak at commencement ceremonies around the country ... notice that I am not one of them ... and it won't shock you to hear that far more liberals are invited to speak at graduation ceremonies than conservatives. Why is this? Well it is very simple: liberals are preaching to the choir where as conservatives are more likely to spill the beans about the realities facing these fresh graduates.

So here is the list of just some of the liberals invited to speak at the nation's top colleges this year:

President Barack Obama, Notre Dame
Vice President Joe Biden, Wake Forest University
Hillary Clinton, New York University
Rahm Emanuel, George Washington University
Matt Lauer, Harvard University
Katie Couric, Princeton University
Ellen DeGeneres, Tulane University
Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, MIT
Steven Chu, secretary of Energy Department, California Institute of Technology
Oprah Winfrey, Duke University
Wynton Marsalis, Northwestern University
Vicente Fox, Emory University
Gwen Ifill, Georgetown University
Suze Orman, University of Illinois
Tom Brokaw, Fordham University

Now, only five recognizable conservatives were selected to speak at the nation's top colleges this year:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), Miami University
Laura Bush, Southern Methodist University
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), University of Georgia
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, University of Virginia
U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Morris Arnold, University of Arkansas

We read this wonderful essay by John Taylor Gatto on the air this morning. If you missed it, read it here. Especially if you still have your kids in government schools.

Barack Obama announced yesterday that he wants to see 5,000 failing government schools closed and reopened with new principals and teachers. A few questions immediately come to mind.

Since Obama doesn't have the authority to do this, how exactly is he going to see that local school districts follow suit? Or will he expand his role as president to make sure this happens ... wouldn't shock me. Maybe he'll just withhold federal funding. That seems to work.

What the heck are these schools going to do with these teachers and principals in the meantime? Will they get paid not to work? Will they be fired? Will they be transferred? Fired? Did I say fired? No way. There will be some other government job for them somewhere. You don't expect them to survive in the private sector, do you?

That leads to the next, giant question ...

How long will it be before the teachers unions throw a fit? Unless their jobs are guaranteed ... I would give them minutes rather than hours to blow a union gasket.

My last question would have been how much money is the going to cost the taxpayers? But I managed to find the answer ... about a million dollars per school. Yep, Obama's budget sets aside up to $5 billion to facilitate this type of school turnarounds for failing government schools.

Here's an idea, Obama ... ever heard of a voucher or a private school? Rather than spending $5 billion to build more government schools, why not use that money to give students vouchers to attend the schools of their choice. That's what you and the First Lady did? Or here's another idea .. why not allow that money to be used by private companies or individuals or churches or what-have-you to build and run private schools. Just because you build a brand-new school doesn't mean that the education is going to be any better .. especially when you are dealing with government.

Unions rule in the education world, my friends. They're doing to the government schools what they did to our auto industry. We're just going to stand by and let them get away with it.

Some Dallas, Texas schools are going to give students time off for performing well on tests. Looks like there's going to be a scarcity of Asian faces around these schools on some days.

Uh oh. That was racist, wasn't it?

Democrats, including Barack Obama, don't like the idea of vouchers. Vouchers smell too much like freedom. Government knows what is good for us, so there is no need for us to exercise any freedom of choice. Government reasoning isn't hard to figure out. First we have the teacher's unions. Teacher's unions are the most powerful unions in this country, and teachers don't want the competition that would come from vouchers. If the teacher's unions don't like it ... the Democrat Party will kill it; guaranteed.

I bring this up because the D.C. voucher program is back in the news. Remember that Democrats essentially killed the D.C. voucher program. But Obama has decided that he is going to extend the program until all of its current participants have graduated from high school. So the students who are currently enrolled in the program will get to stay in the program ... but this opportunity will not be afforded to any new students or families in the future. There are currently 1,1716 students participating in the voucher program.

Now Obama has to become a salesman and convince Democrats to endorse the gradual phase out of the program, which would include granting funding in future appropriations bills.

So Obama has essentially taken the easy way out. He won't come out in favor of the voucher system; however he won't totally deny these students participation in the system. He will let it run its course and hope that this will appease the participants enough to get by for the next couple of years.

Depriving DC parents of school choice. Change you can believe in.

Aren't you just sick to death of me pulling these "change you can believe in" lines on you?

Wouldn't it be nice if I could put a nice little educational item on the Nuze everyday for you homeschooling parents? I would say I'll try ... but I'm lousy at followthrough.

Anyway ... here's a link you can use to teach your child the strangeness of the number 6! I wonder who sat down and figured this one out.

There's another idea floating around in Washington DC right now. Barack Obama wants to end a government-subsidized student loan program and redirect billions of dollars in bank profits to scholarships for "needy" students. A lot of private student lenders as well as Congressmen are upset by the plan.

They are upset because it would make spending on Pell grants mandatory. And it would limit Congressional control ... see, it's all about maintaining power, folks. Republicans say it is just another effort to vastly expand the imperial federal government.

The Congressional Budget Office did a report on how much money would be saved by replacing subsidized loans made by private banks with direct government lending. The figure: $94 billion over the next decade. And that money would be used to expand Pell grants for poor students.

Our education secretary Arne Duncan had a message for your government educated children out there: Americans need to be in class more. Yep. He wants a six day school week and wants classes to run at least 11 months a year.

Hey, Arne. Here's an idea. Maybe the solution isn't more government indoctrination. Maybe the solution would be to take our children out of the hands of government and let them be educated in schools their parents choose. You might also give some thought to getting rid of the politically correct aspects of our education system and actually try to get back to teaching the basics. You may find this hard to believe, Secretary Duncan, but John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are actually more important figures in our history than Harriet Tubman. If you really want to compete with schools in India and China, our government education system isn't the way to do it. You could board the children and make them sing "God Bless America" in their sleep ... but they are still coming out with a government education.

And perhaps my favorite part of the whole story is this .... Arne was giving this speech to 400 middle and high school students at a government school in northeast Denver. And when he made the suggestion of adding more class time, he told the children that they could boo him all they want. But instead, Arne was met with nothing more than bored stares.

Yep, that sounds about right. Half of the students were probably text messaging on their cell phones. The other half were probably concerned about who was getting kicked off American Idol that night. The fact is, none of them even cared.

How sad. Almost sad as the thought that this clown actually believes that we'll ever send our children to school six days a week 11 months a year. Ain't going to happen.

There's a little brouhaha happening in Charleston, South Carolina over private education and school choice. A proposed bill would offer tuition tax credits to people who choose to send their children to private schools. The bill would let the state to use tax dollars to allow students to transfer from failing government schools to private schools or better government schools. This infuriates a lot of lawmakers ..... they can't get a hold of your children quite as easily if they don't submit to their government education! Besides .. these political hacks have teacher's unions to please.

But unfortunately it has become a racial issue. Black leaders are denouncing the bill. What a surprise. As an alternative they are supporting legislation that would increase choices within the government school system. A former Teacher of the Year from South Carolina says, "As an African-American and an educator, I'm shocked and appalled that this is the position that someone who is supportive of our community would propose ... It's bad legislation." And that's about as specific as the opposition gets, folks.

So many of the problems we're facing today in this country can be traced back to our government education system. You want change? When the majority of American parents understand that our government school system was designed to do little more than produce good workers and government subjects, then we'll get change.

How about a quote from H.L. Mencken:

"The erroneous assumption is to the effort that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence .... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such montebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else."

Has a ring of truth to it, doesn't it? Making you a bit uncomfortable about sending your kids to a government school, isn't it?

A state representative in from Chicago is in hot water for suggesting the idea that children should be educated about guns. She says, "Down state they teach you that guns are meant for hunting, for protection..here in the urban cities, all they see are guns on tv..and they gun down people." What's amusing is that the idea of gun education is included in a bill that would ban private handgun sales.

And you'll love this reaction from Father Moonbat Pflager of St. Sabina Church. He says, "That's like saying we might as well sell drugs legally..we don't want access to guns. We have children dying in this city. We're talking about teaching gets kids in grammar school how to shoot guns? That's crazy."

Just a little updated on our wonderful government education system in this country. According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:

• Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
• Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
• Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.*
• Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.

I've said before that the most dangerous group of people in this country ... and that would include drug dealers, gang bankers and terrorist cells ... is the teacher's unions.

Last Friday afternoon I spoke at the 29th Annual Eagle Forum luncheon in Naples, Florida. I was a stand-in for Phylis Schlaffley who had fallen and suffered a broken hip. There were a few dozen high school students at the speech. I'm not sure if they came from several area high schools, but one group was from Barron Collier High. During the speech I asked how many of the students present knew that America was not, nor was America ever supposed to be a Democracy. The entire Barron Collier contingent raised their hands. Later they introduced me to their history teacher. He makes it a practice to teach every class the truth about out Republic .. including the fact that our founding fathers abhorred the idea of a democracy. Remember, to the people who put this country together for us .. the word "democrat" was an epithet. It meant "one who panders to the mindless whims of the masses." These students knew that ... and what a refreshing discovery that was. It is wonderful to find shining lights like these in our hideous government education system.

Barack Obama has the teacher's union's thongs in a wad after his speech on education. He said some good things .. and he said some not-so-good things. Like the fact that he believes that spending money on laptops for teachers is going to stimulate our economy. And then there's his belief that the government should get its hands on your children at an earlier age.

But there are two ideas I support. First is merit pay for teachers. The teachers unions despise this one. Unions in general hate the idea of paying for performance. They believe that once they get a job as a teacher, their performance should not be held accountable because they are entitled to keep that job. That's what the teachers unions are there for - to make sure that government teachers remain government employees no matter what. And the idea of being paid on how well you perform goes against the very nature of unions. Unions generally deride anyone who is willing to stand out, work harder, work faster, and try to get the job done in the most efficient way possible.

The second positive? Obama spoke favorably of charter schools. While he won't support school choice, Obama says that charter schools work and they should be encouraged. This, too, is not good news for the teachers unions. They complain loudly that charter schools are competition for them. The government school teachers don't want to have to compete for students and tax dollars. They are entitled to that money! They work for the government! Government, after all, is why America is great!

This leads me to this story which ran on the same day that Obama made his speech on education. Two charter schools in Los Angeles have been awarded the EPIC Silver Gain Award for schools attainting the greatest student achievement gains in the nation. Alliance College-Ready Public Schools' Gertz-Ressler High School and College Ready Academy High School #4 are located just southwest of downtown Los Angeles. These students are the poorest in Los Angeles, and their government schools are the most overcrowded and the lowest achieving. But students who are sent to these charter schools "far outperform the neighborhood public schools that [they] would otherwise attend," according to the press release.

Don't believe me? Here's more, "Since 2004 Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, a nonprofit charter management organization, has led a highly successful network of small, personalized, high achieving public schools. Alliance students, 97% of whom are poor, live in LA's traditionally lowest performing communities and achieve the highest levels of academic excellence. One hundred percent of Alliance high school graduates were accepted to college - over 80% to four-year universities including Wellesley, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Mills College, Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford, Pomona College, UC Berkeley and UCLA."

Just a little FYI for you folks. By the way, it occurs to me that some of you might not be sure just how you would define a charter school. We'll take care of that on the Nealz Nuze portion of the Information Overload hour today.

In Barack Obama's address to Congress, he made a point of emphasizing education. He pointed out that our education system is failing. I wonder what his first clue was? Could it be the kid at his Starbucks who couldn't make change when the computerized cash register went on the blink?

Well ... "failing" probably isn't the right word here. Perhaps these schools are doing exactly what they were designed to do. I've said on the air how much I would like for all Americans to become aware of at least two things. One, this country is not, nor was it ever designed to be a democracy. Two, our government schools were not designed to really educate our children. I know you're not going to believe me here, and there is scant chance that you're going to take the chance top do the research yourself; but if you do you will find writings and statements from the very people and organizations who developed our system of government education - a system later mimicked by the Soviet Union - making it clear that the true goal behind this education system was not to truly educate children. The goal was to teach our children just enough that they would make good employees for industry and good government subjects. So, when it comes to our government education system, I wouldn't say that it is failing .. In fact, I would say that it is doing exactly what it was meant to do. Just look around you. There is no shortage of citizens who could do anything but work for someone else, and be obedient little Democrat voters. By the way ... these are the people the unions are after with their card check bill.

Read on .............. more on schools.

That's the word. Obama is going to introduce a $4,000,000,000,000 federal budget for consideration by his myrmidons in the Congress. How nice. Are you starting to understand that this narcissistic menace is just as dangerous as we told you he was going to be?

Yesterday, the Democrats in the House passed this $410 billion omnibus spending bill. Now it is on to the Senate. This is the same bill that has a $200,000 earmark for a "tattoo removal violence outreach program" in Los Angeles, California. This is your tax dollars paying for a tattoo removal machine to help gang members remove signs of their past. Yeah .. Ok.

As if it couldn't be any more asinine then funding tattoo removal for gang members, the Democrats managed to insert a provision into the bill that would end the school choice program in DC. As of right now, students in DC can use federal funds to attend private schools of their choice. But the Democrats don't want this because it puts the educational futures of students in the hands of parents and families .. not the government. So it is no surprise that the Democrats want to kill the program. One caveat though. DC Democrats do NOT want to end the program. They've seen it work. They know their constituents want the program to continue. Doesn't matter. Democrats need to make sure that our system of education continues to fail our children. If education works where in the hell do they find future Democrat voters? Democrats want to be seen as the heroes of education, but this will be done by throwing more money at the problem and making people more dependent on government.

THAT'S what Democrats call educational reform.

John Taylor Gatto came up in conversation with a caller today. If you ever wanted details on why government education is bad, he is the author for you. Just to make it easy for you, here's a link to his books on amazon.com. 

One of the items that got the boot in this "compromise" Senate bill was $50 billion from new federal grants for state education aid. And the teachers unions are furious. The National Education Association is threatening to lower the scores of Collins and Nelson because of their amendment.

From the way things are sounding in the White House, it is doubtful that these cuts will actually stick. Top White House economic aide Larry Summers says that support for education and local government is key in this bill. He says, "There's no question that what we've got to do is go after support for education and there are huge problems facing state and local governments and that could lead to a vicious cycle of layoffs, falling home values, lower property values, more layoffs, and we've got to prevent that."

This money wasn't there to support education, Mr. Summers. It was there to support teacher's unions and you know that to be true. Besides ... can somebody please explain to me how spending billions of dollars on government education is going to stimulate our economy within the next 2 years? You're right ... it wouldn't.

Even with the Senate cuts, colleges and students are going to clean up big time. I should say government colleges and government students.

And can somebody please tell me what is wrong with this .. this quote comes from an Associated Press report:

"If the infrastructure spending survives, it would likely prioritize colleges with high minority enrollments, schools rebuilding from disasters like Hurricane Katrina, and energy-saving projects. It may also take steps to make sure community colleges get their fair share, and private colleges--such as Roosevelt--are hoping the final version will allocate some to their sector, too."

Clearly this is not about growing our economy .. it's about pandering to favorite Democrat special interests. Big surprise there.

A listener pointed us to this quote by his own Congresswoman in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her name is Betsy Markey and she is the first Democrat to represent this district in almost 40 years. And what does she do? She goes and votes with her fellow Democrats in supporting this so-called economic stimulus package.

But if it makes you feel any better (trust me .. it shouldn't), Markey did struggle with her decision. What tipped her over the edge was a message she received from a government school superintendent in her district. This government school hack sent Markey a message saying that a vote for this bill would be like "Congress throwing us a lifeline." And that is why Markey decided to vote on the bill. I guess she did not take into account the fact that not only is this gargantuan spending bill a "life line," this legislation literally doubles the amount of federal dollars spent on government education. This is something that Markey's grandchildren are going to be paying for. That doesn't matter. She's a Democrat. When she runs for reelection she's going to need the help of the teacher's unions and education bureaucrats. Connect the dots.

But that brings me to this quote, which would explain why a politician like Markey would make such a crucial decision based on a message from a government school bureaucrat. Markey says, "Is it a stimulus tomorrow that we're going to put money into education? No. But (the public education system) has always been the basis of our economic prosperity."

Did you hear that? This woman believes that it is our government education system which makes this country and our economy great. No credit to capitalism. All credit to government schools.

Here's a little look at what the teachers unions are up to. This story comes from Northeast Pennsylvania. Democrat state legislatures are introducing a bill that would make religiously affiliated schools subject to state labor relations laws. It all started because the Catholic diocese would not recognize the teachers union as a collective bargaining unit.

So this bill would allow teachers and employee at religious schools the option, by a majority vote, to be represented by a union. If this were the case, the unions of religious schools would be able to bring their grievances to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. As of now, the Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction over issues in religious schools.

The union argues that by religious schools not recognizing teachers unions, this puts the teachers "at the will of their employer." Oh, the horror! If you don't want to be "at the will of an employer," get out there and create your own job!

The local Catholic diocese says that this bill would mean the end of Catholic schools in the district, which would cost local communities $73,880,400 each year to educate these students. Maybe that's the goal! The more students who are removed from parochial schools and placed into the government school system the more powerful the teacher's unions become.

Are you starting to see what is happening here? Yesterday Obama gave a big speech about his economic stimulus plan .. he is calling it an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. Well there's a nice focus group title. "Reinvestment," by the way, means "spending." We could call this the "American Government Growth and Spending Plan." Anyways ... so we have this speech yesterday and the clouds are starting to break. I am starting to see the light .. and it ain't pretty. This economic recovery plan is nothing but a camouflaged way of enacting the promised spending programs of Obama's candidacy.

Someone 'splain something to me: How on God's green Earth is investment in education supposed to stimulate the economy? Even if you wait a generation for that education to pay off .. these people will have been educated in government schools. So that doesn't seem too promising. But part of Obama's stimulus speech was that he wants to "equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries." He also wants new computers and new training for teachers. And just how does THAT stimulate our economy? Answer: It doesn't. It stimulates teachers and their unions. Stimulation you pay for under the guise of economic stimulation.

Another one of Obama's plans to stimulate the economy is to double the production of alternative energy. He wants to improve energy efficiency. He wants you to go out there and build solar panels and wind turbines. Oh and by the way, Obama says that these will be jobs "that pay well and can't be outsourced." That's a pretty ballsy thing to promise. How can he guarantee that? He can't .. unless he uses the force of government to do so. Goodbye whatever is left of the free market. Again, this is Obama deciding where your money should be spent, not you. If you want to spend money improving energy efficiency they you can do so. This is nothing less than Obama using economic scare tactics to enact green campaign promises.

Then there's healthcare. Again, can someone please explain to me how switching all of America's medical records to computers is going to provide an immediate stimulus to our economy? Anyone? I didn't think so. It isn't going to. But this was one of Obama's great promises on the campaign trail. Which allows me to reinforce my point .. PEBO is going to capitalize on America's economic crisis in order to enact his agenda. Pretty clever, huh? Anything that Obama proposes will, from here on out, be part of his efforts to "stimulate the economy."

Do you now see how much this man loves government? PEBO said, "At this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe." That's right. Only government. Not your personal self reliance or perseverance. Not your commitment to your community. Not your employer's paycheck or benefits. Not more money in your pocket. No more economic activity from the private sector. Only government.

Back to one of my favorite subjects - the unions. The union representing university workers in Ontario (that would be Canada) has decided that it would be a good idea to ban Israeli professors. Yep. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has decided that it wants to take a stand against the evil Israelis who are attacking innocent Hamas victims. So their solution is to use the power of the union to ban Israeli professors from Ontario universities. The president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees of Ontario says, "In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general." The bombing he is referring to is that of Islamic University in Gaza.

The union apparently has nothing to say about Islamic Hamas terrorist goons stashing rockets and other armaments in the buildings on these university grounds.

This isn't the first time this union has tried to pull something like this. There have been previous attempts to boycott and goods and services from Israel. But I believe this is the first time they have tried to ban professors because they are from Israel.

Imagine if it were the other way around .. and someone tried to ban Muslim professors.

Hey ... now there's an idea ...

Received this email from a listener:

The listener has it right .. this sign is actually doing more damage in this school than good. Poverty is a punishment for lack of effort. The school should change the sign to read:

A sign like that would cause the pitiful government school hostages to actually ask some questions, and if there is an astute teacher around they might get some answers that are worth that day in school.

A school resource officer by the name of Derek Jones in a Massachusetts better be looking for another job. You see, Derek had the idea that government school children need to be trained to defend themselves if they are ever being held by a gunman. Common sense and government schools don't mix very well .. and I'm afraid Derek may learn the hard way.

Naturally, his idea didn't go over too well. His proposal was to teach children fifth grade and up (that's about 10 years old) to fight back against a gunman than came into the classroom. They would learn techniques on how to use their backpacks or textbooks to fight or defend themselves.

Derek says, "Do we want the kids to sit there and literally have the gunman be able to shoot them one at a time? Or do we want to allow instincts to kick in and basically allow them to protect themselves against the threat?" Boy, isn't that the painful truth? Most parents don't want to answer that question. Instead, they are worried about how the children would handle the training emotionally. It may frighten them!

Protecting yourself from an attack? Is this guy nuts? Doesn't he know that the standard practice in any school - right up to and through college - is to sit there and wait for your turn to be attacked?

Needless to say, I don't think government school children in Massachusetts will be getting this training any time soon.

This story is from Great Britain.  But it is only a matter of time before it becomes a reality in your child's government school.  The Greenwood Junior School .. I assume that is the equivalent to an elementary school .. sent out a letter to the parents: Christmas is canceled because we want to celebrate a Muslim holiday instead.

The three day festival of Eid al-Adha .. whatever that is .. will take place between December 8^th and 11^th.  Since a lot of students were going to be off from school for Eid, the school thought that the traditional nativity play scheduled for later in the month would be too taxing.  The staff of the Greenwood Junior School says, "It is with much regret that we have had to cancel this year's Christmas performances. This is due to the Eid celebrations that take place next week and its effect on our performers."

After some parents complained, the school had to send out another letter saying that Christmas hasn't been canceled; only postponed.  They will be doing their Christmas play in January. 

Barack Obama has announced that he has a grand plan to save our country. His solution ... this shouldn't surprise you ... is more government. He wants to save or create 2.5 million jobs by investing billions of your tax dollars into government works projects. These projects include building roads and bridges, developing alternative energy sources and making efficient cars. This investment also includes a "modernization" of our government schools.

Well ... that's our new president for you. Anything worth doing is worth doing through government. Government: Bringing All Things to All People.

Even Chuckie Schumer called this what it is, it is "a little like having a new New Deal, but you do it before a depression occurs, not after." And how much is this new New Deal going to cost? Well this is government we are talking about. So what you can assume is that it will be expensive, inefficient and the results more likely than not unsatisfactory.

Perhaps the best news to come out of all this was the prospect that Obama may delay his promises to increase taxes on the evil, putrid, hated, disgusting, rancid, rotton-to-the-core rich. The liberals and wealth envy crowd are furious. But two Obama aides over the weekend said that Obama may consider delaying a "roll back" on the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire in 2011. Remember, the phrase "roll back" is the catchy way to say "increase taxes." Keep in mind that Obama's current website says, "Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of the tax cuts they have received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal responsibility." I just love that phrase "give back." Oh, and "fairness." Fairness is when someone else has a claim to what you have earned. Remember ... if a wealthy American wants to keep their money, that's greed. If someone wants to take it away from them by force, that's fairness.

Just a question though ... if Obama wants to create these public works projects, and implement universal healthcare, and spend more on our government schools ... where is he planning to get all of this money for new spending?

The Swedish government must have a lot of time on its hands. I mean A LOT. First let's set the scene. An 8-year-old boy shows up to his government school with invitations for his birthday party. He starts passing them out to friends in his class. Everyone in the class is invited, except for two students. You know where this is going ... don't you? The government school teacher notices that the boy did not invite all of the students in the class to his birthday party, so the teacher forces the students to hand over their invitations. "That's not fair! You have to invite every student in the class or someone could get his feelings hurt!"

The incident is then reported to the Swedish parliament. The father of the boy says that the teacher should not have confiscated the invitations. The school says that it has an "unwritten policy that either all children, or all the boys, or all the girls in a class, had to be invited to parties when invitations were handed out at school." Well isn't that convenient?

Finally, the Swedish parliament ruled that the school was wrong to take the invitations but it will not be sanctioned for its actions.

... Coming to the United States government education system soon. In fact, I'll be you situations like this already happen in the United States in efforts to wussify our youth. The difference in the United States is that cases like this wouldn't be sent to the federal government to handle. Although that could change, too. Remember that the idea of a federalized education is a historically recent phenomenon. The days of states' rights and local control are over.

Subject: government schooling
Name: jerry
Message:
neal, your as full of crap as a christmas turkey. you have spent, who
knows how many years, telling us how bad the government school system is
and yet don't have any idea how a privately conducted school system
would fair in our nation.surely you jest...you have more opions than i
have hairs on my backside...come on brainiac, tell me how much better it
would turn out. you've been saying the same thing ,word for word, for
years now...i should know since i can recite what you're going to say
and the examples you use over and over again (maybe not word for word).
same drivle different day.

why do i continue to listen to you? beats me...i guess i like hollering
at you untill i'm hoarse...maybe i'm just bored...maybe i don't have
have anything better to do while driving this truck.

luvyaforever you jerk

Yes, I've heard it ... and you can bet we'll play it on the air today for those of you who haven't. We're talking here about the video of a government school teacher in North Carolina telling a student that her dad is going to be the military for another 100 years because she was supporting John McCain for President. Here's the video clip, for those of you who haven't seen it.

Now this teacher in the video is a woman by the name of Diantha Harris. She is employed by your tax dollars - and has been for over 25 years. The parents of the student in the video, Cathy, say that Harris didn't do anything wrong. Cathy herself says that Harris "is usually messing around" and that she wasn't upset when Harris said those statements. Keep in mind that Cathy is also in elementary school. Can she really understand what is going on here? But Cathy's parents also say that they aren't mad at the teacher and they believe that Harris is "getting a rough deal" with all the controversy. They don't want any repercussions for the teacher because "there was no harm done to anybody."

Harris has called the parents and Cathy to apologize. She says, "If I could take anything back from that video, it would be that statement. I should not have said that."

Meanwhile, Cumberland County Schools Superintendent William Harrison says that the statements were inappropriate and there will be an investigation into the incident.

How many times have I called our government schools indoctrination centers? It seems that our children are taught from day one that dependence on government is a far better course than true self reliance. They're taught so many things that are just flat-out wrong that it's hard to keep count. Let's see ... America is a Democracy ... you have a right to health care ... Republicans only care about rich people ... you have a right to vote for president ... etc. Is it any wonder that we see so many big businesses stepping up to the government bail-out trough right now? The leaders of this business were taught this stuff by their very own government teachers who-knows-how many years ago.

I'm not buying the sweet innocence of Diantha Harris. I would imagine that this type of propagandizing goes on in her classroom on a regular basis, but she's so popular with the kids that nobody wants to really call her out on this. She got caught on tape - now she's claiming that the tape was altered. Yeah ... right.