“The moment a mere numerical superiority by either states or voters in this country proceeds to ignore the needs and desires of the minority, and for their own selfish purpose or advancement, hamper or oppress that minority, or debar them in any way from equal privileges and equal rights -- that moment will mark the failure of our constitutional system.”
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
There's an enhanced jobs bill working its way through Congress, reform of the financial regulatory system, climate legislation and immigration reform are some of the big issues that the White House has confirmed its intention of pursuing.
Later this month, led by strategically-challenged "activists", there will be a comprehensive immigration reform march in Washington.
Will it put immigration reform on the agenda in 2010? Unlikely. The White House has said that it is not on the docket for this year.
The political calculations of passing immigration reform are complex at any time. In an election year marked by massive unemployment, vituperative partisan bickering and scared incumbents fearing a big loss at the ballot box, it is even more daunting.
Obama is facing a political squeeze play on the issue. As Graham was warning that health care reform could derail immigration reform, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus were arriving at the White House to discuss their threat to drop support for health care reform legislation if illegal immigrants are not permitted to buy insurance through new federal exchanges.
And in fact, the White House’s public nods toward immigration reform in recent days could be intended, in part, to keep Latino members from breaking out in full-scale revolt over the health care bill’s treatment of undocumented workers.
Despite holding high-profile meetings last week on energy and immigration reform, President Obama will focus the next few months on two issues that could help his party in November: stronger financial regulations and ways to mitigate a Supreme Court ruling that allows direct corporate spending on behalf of candidates.
Those priorities, although still difficult to achieve in a partisan Congress, are highly popular with the Democratic base and could force Republicans to choose between supporting the president or defending Wall Street when much of the country blames big business for the economic decline.
Such an agenda will give the rest of the legislative calendar, compressed by the midterm election season, a distinctly political cast. It will also push energy and immigration reform, two of Obama's most far-reaching campaign pledges, into the next Congress, which is likely to be more influenced by the Republican opposition.
The big push for final passage of health care reform is on.
President Barack Obama has delayed a state visit to Asia, Nancy Pelosi is saying she'll have the votes for the President to sign the bill, and even key Senators are promising that they will move with unusual speed.
Republicans are guaranteed to use health reform as a line of attack in the elections - whether or not it passes.
So the calculus is simple. Do you want to be branded a "big government liberal" that fails to execute, or a Progressive that is able to deliver on promises?
"I want some courage," President Obama said during a campaign stop this morning in Ohio. Will the Democrats in Congress give it to him in the form a reform bill?
In many ways the fate of the Democratic Party - and future of the Obama Presidency - are directly connected to the answer.
Barack Obama faces the stiffest test of his first-term agenda — and a defining moment in his presidency — as Democratic Party leaders mount a fevered campaign this week to round up votes for a historic health care bill.
After nearly a year of haggling, most of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 252 Democratic colleagues still have concerns about passing the Senate bill, even with some fixes. Their objections range from the ideological to the procedural, and the shape of the final package hinges on an obscure, unelected official — Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin.
Majority Whip Dick Durbin sounded cautiously optimistic on Sunday about finishing the health care reform this week:
And now health reform stands as another crucial juncture. If the President fails to win the upcoming series of congressional votes that are designed to get health care legislation to his desk, it will be a calamitous failure for his presidency and for him personally, dwarfing the potholes he has hit during his first bumpy year in office. Indeed, the notion of defeat is so unthinkable for his Administration that Obama's foremost argument in rounding up support in the House and Senate is a panoptic imperative: health care is too important — politically and substantively — to fail. Should the effort collapse, regaining political traction would be nigh impossible any time soon, if ever. And a potential comeback would be in further jeopardy because Obama is so unaccustomed to losing.
Here's the President's advisor on Meet the Press saying that health care reform will pass:
Among the Founding Fathers' brilliant ideas was universal public education.
A true democracy can only exist if the citizen is properly and broadly educated to be an informed participant in the political system. Moreover, education confers benefits to the nation's economic progress, the Founders thought. Better educated people could more easily develop new industries and better manage America's thriving capitalist economy.
Indeed, we have seen the fruits of that vision in America's global leadership over the last century.
The American public education system was the bright star at the center of American success. It was the great equalizer that took in immigrants and kids from disadvantaged homes and in turn propelled legions of educated people ready to climb the social pyramid and win - in academia, enterprise, and in public service.
But like all great man-made systems, America's public education has decayed. Over the years, it has been captured by special interests - unions, corporate constituencies and even political forces that have sought to both control and profit from the gigantic expenditures in education.
In Los Angeles, for example, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second biggest in the country, is rife with failure. Embarrassingly low graduation rates, low college attendance of those that actually manage to graduate, social promotion, special interests and the politicians that those interests control, have come together in a toxic stew that has left America's second largest city with a third world education system.
If indeed a successful public education system is the cornerstone of democracy and national prosperity, Los Angeles is showing the way in how we can effectively devolve as a society.
Through long-term, unchecked systemic failure of our critical public schools, the LAUSD is now the driving force in perpetuating poverty, deepening class and ethnic divisions and presiding over the destruction of human capital at an unprecedented scale in the Los Angeles metropolitan region.
In the 21st century economy, knowledge workers, people who have succeeded in school and college, will be the major participants of a prosperous nation. Those kids left behind by the incompetence of LAUSD, and other notable failures across the country, will most likely be destined to make minimal contributions to their own prosperity or to society.
While this stark reality seems intractable, a harbinger of total collapse of our democracy, it is not.
Voters can remove the paid and bought for politicians that have run the system as a personal power and economic base. These are the politicians - for they cannot be confused with leaders - that have thrust the LAUSD into near bankruptcy, both financial and moral.
Great teachers can be identified and supported. They are a critical part of the solution, not the problem. But they need effective allies to push back the ravenous bureaucracy that every day consumes their best efforts.
Parents can be inculcated with an ethos of educational excellence - and made full partners in the success of their kid's education.
Corrupt organizations like LAUSD can rarely be reformed piecemeal. They are literally captured by special interests and kids are a marginal concern to the bureaucracy and its handlers.
The idea that we can wait, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., for the system to somehow fix itself is unacceptable. The lives of the 700,000+ students currently in the LAUSD are at stake. The future of our city is inextricably bound to the success of public education. And the potential for America to maintain and extend its global leadership is also in play.
The time has come for the entire community to come together to seek a radical solution to the LAUSD problem.
No more step by step fights to gain minor victories. We must have the vision and courage to break the grip of special interests and work tirelessly and with complete focus, to create a new public education system that will be the pride of the nation - and propel Los Angeles to its rightful place as the envisioned Metropolis of the West, a place of dreams and promise and fulfilment.
President Barack Obama is launching an ambitious effort to reform public education across the United States. While a national effort is a positive step towards resolving our national education deficit, it will not be enough until local systems - such as LAUSD - are flushed of bad people, practices and rules, and kids are put first.
Our Founders knew it: the future of the United States' greatness will be driven by a world class public education system. Are we up to the challenge of fulfilling that brilliant vision? Yes, we are.
Here's the President speaking about our nation's education deficit:
As a result, over the last few decades, we’ve lost ground. One assessment shows American fifteen year olds no longer even near the top in math and science when compared to their peers around the world. As referenced in the news report I mentioned, we’ve now fallen behind most wealthy countries in our high school graduation rates. And while we once led the world in the proportion of college graduates we produced, today we no longer do.
Not only does that risk our leadership as a nation, it consigns millions of Americans to a lesser future. For we know that the level of education a person attains is increasingly a prerequisite for success and a predictor of the income that person will earn throughout his or her life. Beyond the economic statistics is a less tangible but no less painful reality: unless we take action – unless we step up – there are countless children who will never realize their full talent and potential.
I don’t accept that future for them. And I don’t accept that future for the United States of America. That’s why we’re engaged in a historic effort to redeem and improve our public schools: to raise the expectations for our students and for ourselves, to recognize and reward excellence, to improve performance in troubled schools, and to give our kids and our country the best chance to succeed in a changing world.
Under the leadership of an outstanding Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, we launched a Race to the Top, through which states compete for funding by committing to reform and raising standards, by rewarding good teaching, by supporting the development of better assessments to measure results, and by emphasizing math and science to help prepare children for college and careers.
And on Monday, my administration will send to Congress our blueprint for an updated Elementary and Secondary Education Act to overhaul No Child Left Behind. What this plan recognizes is that while the federal government can play a leading role in encouraging the reforms and high standards we need, the impetus for that change will come from states, and from local schools and school districts. So, yes, we set a high bar – but we also provide educators the flexibility to reach it.
Monday, March 15, 2010 at 10:30AM 
If President Barack Oabma is right and he can get the heath care reform enacted this week, he will be under tremendous pressure to quickly act on other key priorities.
