AAC Blog
Senator Kennedy showed us how the federal government can play a role in improving the lives of working families. From increasing the minimum wage to expanding health care for children; from cash-for-clunkers that saves small car dealerships to passage of the American Relief and Recovery Act that pumps millions of dollars into the North Carolina economy when it needs it most, the U.S. Senate today stands with organized labor.
The question today is will the labor movement continue to have an ally in the U.S. Senate or will it face the return of a U.S. Senate that prioritizes tax cuts for the wealthiest over economic incentives for working families.
The recession has placed many working families in North Carolina on the brink. Increasing unemployment coupled with healthcare costs spiraling out of control, have created economic insecurity.
Today, I attended the Wake County Democratic Party picnic. I heard from Lewis Cameron of Moncure IAMAW Local who spoke about the union's courageous 8-month strike to protect their health insurance benefits.
This Labor Day, let us re-commit ourselves to insuring representation in Washington that focuses on the things that matter most: investing in the working families of North Carolina; restructuring a healthcare system to expand coverage and reduce costs; and an educational system that provides opportunity and rewards hard work not just for the privileged few but for all Americans.
Thank you for everything you do.
September 8, 2009
Wakefield High School
Arlington, Virginia
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. All right, everybody go ahead and have a seat. How is everybody doing today? (Applause.) How about Tim Spicer? (Applause.) I am here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all across America, from kindergarten through 12th grade. And I am just so glad that all could join us today. And I want to thank Wakefield for being such an outstanding host. Give yourselves a big round of applause. (Applause.)
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now -- (applause) -- with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer and you could've stayed in bed just a little bit longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived overseas. I lived in Indonesia for a few years. And my mother, she didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school, but she thought it was important for me to keep up with an American education. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday. But because she had to go to work, the only time she could do it was at 4:30 in the morning.
Now, as you might imagine, I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. And a lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and she'd say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster." (Laughter.)
So I know that some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now, I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked about responsibility a lot.
I've talked about teachers' responsibility for inspiring students and pushing you to learn.
I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and you get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with the Xbox.
I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting high standards, and supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren't working, where students aren't getting the opportunities that they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world -- and none of it will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. That's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.
I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a great writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you write that English paper -- that English class paper that's assigned to you. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or the new medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do your project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a senator or a Supreme Court justice -- but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life, I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to train for it and work for it and learn for it.
And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. The future of America depends on you. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical-thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents and your skills and your intellect so you can help us old folks solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that -- if you quit on school -- you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.
Now, I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what it's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us the things that other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and I felt like I didn't fit in.
So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things I'm not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was -- I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have a lot of money. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Neither of her parents had gone to college. But she worked hard, earned good grades, and got a scholarship to Brown University -- is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to becoming Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's had to endure all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer -- hundreds of extra hours -- to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind. He's headed to college this fall.
And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods in the city, she managed to get a job at a local health care center, start a program to keep young people out of gangs, and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
And Jazmin, Andoni, and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They face challenges in their lives just like you do. In some cases they've got it a lot worse off than many of you. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their lives, for their education, and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That's why today I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education -- and do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending some time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all young people deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, by the way, I hope all of you are washing your hands a lot, and that you stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
But whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you're not going to be any of those things.
The truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject that you study. You won't click with every teacher that you have. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right at this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That's okay. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. J.K. Rowling's -- who wrote Harry Potter -- her first Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. He lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understood that you can't let your failures define you -- you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently the next time. So if you get into trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to act right. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one's born being good at all things. You become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. The same principle applies to your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right. You might have to read something a few times before you understand it. You definitely have to do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.
Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength because it shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and that then allows you to learn something new. So find an adult that you trust -- a parent, a grandparent or teacher, a coach or a counselor -- and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you, don't ever give up on yourself, because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and they founded this nation. Young people. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google and Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask all of you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?
Now, your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books and the equipment and the computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part, too. So I expect all of you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down. Don't let your family down or your country down. Most of all, don't let yourself down. Make us all proud.
Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you. (Applause.)
financially-struggling North Carolinians
CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ Rep. Tricia Cotham of Mecklenburg County has helped
bring the “Help is Here Express” bus tour to Charlotte next week as
part of an effort to assist uninsured and financially-struggling North
Carolinians.
The bus tour will be in Charlotte on Wednesday September 16, 2009
along with American TV icon and former “Leave It To Beaver” star Jerry
Mathers, stopping at Eastland Mall from 2–5 pm. The “Help is Here
Express” is equipped with computer terminals and mobile phones so
people can find out if they may be eligible for help paying for their
medicines. There will be assistants aboard to make the application
process quick and easy.
“The benefit of this program is undeniable,” Rep. Cotham said. “The
“Help is Here Express” has already helped millions of North
Carolinians across the state and I am proud to play even just a small
role in their valiant efforts”.
To date, the PPA has helped nearly 6 million people across America,
including more than 231,000 patients in North Carolina. Since its
launch in April 2005, the PPA bus tour has visited all 50 states and
more than 2,000 cities to raise awareness about patient assistance
programs. The “Help is Here Express” is staffed by trained
specialists able to quickly help uninsured patients access information
on more than 475 patient assistance programs, including nearly 200
programs offered by pharmaceutical companies. When the “Help is Here
Express” moves on, patients can visit PPA’s easy-to-use Web site
(www.pparx.org) or call the toll-free phone number (1-888-4PPA-NOW)
where trained operators field calls in 150 languages.
Rep. Cotham is an on-leave school administrator and teacher in her
second term representing District 100 in Mecklenburg County. She is
chair of the Education Subcommittee on Pre-School, Elementary and
Secondary Education and vice chair of the Education and Juvenile
Justice committees.
Are you involved in a local group, club, or Democratic committee? If so, then we need you to stand up today.
We're joining with FireDogLake-com and Credo Action to pass Public Option Resolutions at the local level. It doesn't matter if your local group is big or small, a DFA group or Sierra Club chapter, your Democratic Club or statewide Democratic Party. It might even be your local Chamber of Commerce or Resident Association. There are thousands of local groups around the country representing millions of Americans who could stand up and amplify our voices.
Expanding local community support will build the momentum to win. Will you work to help pass a Public Option Resolution in your local group?
SIGN UP NOW TO TAKE GRASSROOTS MOMENTUM TO THE NEXT LEVEL
How do I know that this works? Look what just happened in Montana.
As FireDogLake-com reported last week, a coalition of eighteen Montana Democratic Central Committees issued a Unified Statement.
"The statement sends a loud and clear message to their Senator: Any health care reform package coming out of his Senate Finance Committee must contain, at a minimum, a provision for a strong public option."
Sen. Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, responded immediately to this kind of organizing.
"Senator Max Baucus has finally broken his silence regarding his personal position on including a public option in health care reform legislation in an unprecedented conference call to Montana Democratic central committee chairs; the powerful leader of the Senate Finance Committee told his strongest supporters that he supported a public option."
This is no guarantee that Senator Baucus will back up his personal position with action in the committee he chairs, but there can be no denying that these local community members took local grassroots pressure to the next level. Now, it's up to us to do it everywhere.
HELP YOUR LOCAL GROUP PASS A PUBLIC OPTION RESOLUTION
After you've signed up, we'll track success across the nation. We'll help you with the process if you need it. It doesn't matter if your group is in Republican district or a Democratic one. Members of Congress will feel the heat of your local group either way.
We can't leave victory up to chance. We need to deliver the results to win. Thank you for everything you're doing to make change happen.
-Charles
Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America
C A R O L I N A
JUSTICE POLICY CENTER
"Criminal Justice Advocacy since 1975"
A Carolina Justice Policy Center
Special Announcement
Turnout for Statewide Day of Action
Health Care for All Rallies - This Saturday
On Saturday, August 29th, there will be a statewide day of action supporting a viable national public health insurance option as a way to drive down costs and to insure the estimated 56 million uninsured people living in the United States. The lack of health care options affects all of us. Health care or lack thereof affects an individual's buying power and their job security.
Rallies are being held throughout the state to inform, educate, and provide facts to North Carolina's residents about Healthcare Reform. The Carolina Justice Policy Center, as an HK on J Coalition and Blueprint NC partner group, encourages our supporters to get involved by taking a moment to understand health care issues.
RALEIGH HEALTH CARE CAN'T WAIT RALLY
Saturday, August 29, 10 am - 11:30 am
State Capitol Building (south side)
SPONSORS:
NC NAACP
NC Health Care for America Now (HCAN)
HK on J partners
FOR MORE INFO:
NC Fair Share
1-866-302-0031
NC Justice Center
Debra Tyler-Horton
ASHEVILLE HEALTH CARE CAN'T WAIT RALLY
Saturday, August 29, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Pritchard Park on Patton Avenue
SPONSORS:
Life o' Mike
NC Justice Center
FOR MORE INFO:
Leslie Boyd
828-243-6712
GREENVILLE HEALTH CARE CAN'T WAIT RALLY
Saturday, August 29, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Corner of Charles Blvd. & Greenville Blvd.
SPONSORS:
Greenville-Pitt County Health Care Coalition
Pitt County Coalition Against Racism
NC Justice Center
FOR MORE INFO:
Frank
252-327-8843
CHARLOTTE HEALTH CARE REFORM EDUCATIONAL FORUM
Saturday, August 29, 2009 3:30 - 6:00 PM
Greater Mount Sinai Baptist Church
1243 West Blvd
Charlotte, NC 28208
SPONSORS:
Interested citizens
Democracy-NC
NC Justice Center
FOR MORE INFO:
Gautami Desai
704/779-9250
Could the President's Stimulus Initiatives including Health Care Reform possibly reduce crime rates? See what one person thinks.
Header Photo compliments of blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2008/09/.
Follow the Money Trail
Challenges facing Health Reform
A Special Report from Our Friends at Democracy NC
Our friends at Democracy NC have just published a report on the links between political donations and the health care issue - more specifically, the $5.2 million raised by NC members of Congress from donors connected to the health care and insurance industries. The report describes the leading recipients of this money and their votes on past bills, particularly related to the pharmaceutical industry. As you might expect, "follow the money" is good advice for understanding the challenges facing health insurance reform. Be sure to read to the end of the report for the link between drug money, healthcare policy, and campaign finance reform.
Health Care or Prison
A New York Times Opinion Piece
North Carolina just faced an extremly difficult budget year like many other states and we're not out of the woods yet. For every $1 that we spend to send a North Carolina child back to school today, we spend $4 to send an offender to prison. Savings in corrections can save dollars for education and also free up more dollars for health care options to citizens throughout the state.
See what this writer has to say about state and national prison trends and their relationship to heatlh care.
New York Times Op-Ed
Building Knowledge & Finding Help
Find your State Legislator
North Carolina Prison Information & Inmate Search
North Carolina Courts, Court Personnel & Court Calendars
Find an Attorney
Legal Assistance for Prisoners
Legal Representation for Indigent Defendants
Legal Representation for Capital Murder Defendants
NC Alcohol and Drug Rehab Programs & Addiction Treatment Centers
COMING FALL 2009!
North Carolina's Criminal Justice Resource Directory for Practitioners, Offenders' and Their Families
August 25, 2009
froomkin@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/the-public-option-its-abo_n_264397.html
08-20-09 | Huffington Post
It's fashionable in media circles right now to treat the "public option" as nothing more than the political football du jour, to discuss it only in the context of vote counts and political strategizing, to write it off as a particularly hysterical obsession of the political "left", and -- oh, yes -- to declare it dead.
But the fate of the public option is not yet sealed. And it's much more than just a bargaining chip. The concept of offering health care consumers a government-run alternative to the rogues that comprise the modern American insurance industry not only has a powerful appeal to the general populace, it's central to effective health care reform, both symbolically and concretely.
In fact, the most extraordinary thing about the mainstream media's attitude toward the public option is how an opposition movement so obviously born of the insurance industry's rapacious self-interest, so blatantly fueled by calls to arms that have little to no basis on reality, and so dependent on a particularly ugly strain of know-nothingism, has become viewed by our elite journalists as the pinnacle of rational centrism.
Let's be blunt. The public option -- emphasis on the word "option" -- is a way to hold the insurance companies accountable should they (entirely unexpectedly, of course) fail to live up to their promises, ignore the rules, and keep doing things the way they have for the past several decades.
By contrast, the core of the argument against the public option is nothing more than a sort of whiny plaint of "Leave the insurance companies alone!"
But it's a well-funded plaint. The public option is a grave threat to the regime of obscene profit-making that has left the health care industry with plenty of cash to now throw in reform's way.
The growing "opposition" to the public plan is a direct result of that money. This is -- remember -- exactly how money works in Washington. It buys congressmen. It buys message. It generates publicity. It even makes presidents flinch. For the political journalists to whom this is all just a big game, those are the things that matter the most: Who's up and who's down, who's winning the message wars, the soundbite battles and the day's "visuals."
But the public option deserves better journalism than that. It deserves to be covered for what it means. And in this case, what a public option that provides an alternative to consumers means is that there would actually be consequences in the coming years if things don't turn out the way our good-hearted leaders intend.
Without consequences -- as we've seen in the runaway national security establishment of the Bush era or the colossally irresponsible behavior of financial titans that drove our economy to the brink of disaster -- things go out of control. Anything goes -- regardless of the "rules."
Are you really confident, for instance, that the insurance industry will work hard to control health care costs? Our health insurance chieftains have been talking about that for decades. But rather than do it, they seem perfectly happy taking a big cut of an ever-bigger pie -- and focusing their cost-cutting energies on denying coverage to people when they need it. This seems to work for them. Changing the rules under which they operate may have some modest impact on their behavior, but not nearly as much as will looking over their shoulders and seeing a government-run program bending the cost curve, lowering rates, and improving service.
The presence of an alternative -- a choice -- is critical. It's also about as American as apple pie. The insurance companies themselves understand this very well. The industry-backed PR firms that are bankrolling and inciting ostensibly "grassroots" protests understand this. That's why they encourage talking points about a "government takeover" of health care, rather than anything based in reality. They know full well that a public insurance option -- that, initially, relatively few people could even avail themselves of -- doesn't lead to doctors working for the government or committee of bureaucrats deciding who lives and dies.
That's also the reason why critics were absolutely right to cry foul when the word "choice" was removed from a recent poll's question about the public option -- and support predictably "dropped" like a rock. (See Sam Stein's latest on that story.)
The single biggest mystery about the public option remains: Why is the White House so peripatetic in its support for the measure? Who is whispering in President Obama's ear that compromise is the way to go here, when nobody else is compromising; that bipartisanship is still the goal, when the Republicans are clearly gearing up to use health care as a wedge issue; that health care co-ops, which no one can even define, are a legitimate alternative?
The high priests of Washington conventional wisdom summed things up this morning in a Washington Post editorial calling for the public plan to die. "This is not a matter of ideology but of political nose-counting," said the editorial. "[T]here's no way to amass 60 votes with a public option in the bill."
Now as it happens, that last part, as Ryan Grim wrote recently, ain't necessarily so. With a little gumption, Obama and Democratic leaders could present the caviling Democrats with an up or down vote on a bill that includes a public option -- and dare them to torpedo the whole package.
But regardless: The goal isn't just to get something passed. That's how you end up with no-reform boondoggles like "No Child Left Behind."
Real reform doesn't emerge from government by (faulty) nose-counting. It requires respect for the facts, a serious approach to the issues -- and a little common sense. Oh wait, that's just crazy leftist talk.—
Background:
On August 27, 1959, the High Point City Board of Education approved the request of Mrs. Miriam W. Fountain that her daughter Miriam Lynn Fountain attend the eleventh grade at High Point Senior High School rather than William Penn High School and that her daughter Brenda Jean Fountain attend High Point Junior High School rather than William Penn.
Miriam Lynn Fountain and Brenda Jean Fountain became the first black students to enroll in formerly all white schools in High Point.
On the first day of school the sisters reported to Superintendent Dean B. Pruette’s office in the company of their cousin, Dr. Perry Little (who later served as a member of the Board of Education), and their minister, Reverend B. Elton Cox. After reporting to the Superintendent at 8:15 am, on September 1, 1959, the sisters were driven to their neighboring school by Dr. Little, the Reverend Cox, and Dr. Pruette and directed to the side entrance about 8:45 am, after most of the students were already in the building. With the exception of some writing in green paint on the sidewalks, which had been somewhat wiped away by students, and a few carloads of outsiders, token integration began quietly.
Campers sent packing after first visit to swim club
By KAREN ARAIZA
Updated 6:41 PM EDT, Thu, Jul 9, 2009
More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.
Pool Boots Kids Who Might "Change the Complexion"
Watch VideoKids at Creative Steps Day Camp were thrilled to go swimming once a week at the Valley Swim Club. But after only one trip to the private club, they were...
"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.
The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.
"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."
The next day the club told the camp director that the camp's membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.
"I said, 'The parents don't want the refund. They want a place for their children to swim,'" camp director Aetha Wright said.
Campers remain unsure why they're no longer welcome.
"They just kicked us out. And we were about to go. Had our swim things and everything," said camper Simer Burwell.
The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.
"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.
The African American Democratic Chair of Mecklenburg County has said, " That maybe it was time to get rid of the African American Caucus" after all, I am Chair of the County Dem. Party, we have African Americans on the Executive Board and we have African Americans who are Precinct Chairs. Makes sense to me, ya think, "NOT"
Rising Joblessness Blunts President's Plan for Recovery
PHOTOS Previous Next
(By Haraz N. Ghanbari -- Associated Press)
President Obama defended the $787 billion plan. Republicans pounced on news that joblessness rose to 9.5 percent in June. Rep. Eric Cantor, above, said, "There's a failure when you have a commitment of nearly $800 billion in taxpayer funds and you have the type of job loss we're experiencing." (By Brendan Smialowski -- Getty Images For "Meet The Press")
Yesterday, Obama took time out of his first presidential trip to Moscow to defend the $787 billion stimulus package, arguing that the measure was the right medicine at the right time. "There's nothing that we would have done differently," he told ABC News.
Back in Washington, senior Democrats on Capitol Hill were nervously contemplating whether additional government stimulus spending may be needed to pull the nation out of the worst recession since the 1930s. Senior administration officials acknowledged that the effects of the stimulus package have been overshadowed by an unexpectedly sharp drop-off in employment since the measure passed in February. But they reported that only about $100 billion has so far been spent and that as increasingly large sums flow out of Washington, the program is on pace to save or create 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days.
"It is clear from the data that there needs to be more fiscal stimulus in the second half of the year than there was in the first half of the year," White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers said. "Fortunately, the stimulus program designed by the president and passed by Congress provides exactly that."
Leading economists agree that the most powerful effects of the stimulus package have yet to be felt. But even if the measure lives up to Obama's expectations, it would barely offset the 433,000 jobs the nation lost last month alone, and the resulting employment would represent a drop in the bucket compared with the 6.5 million jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007.
"Just 130 days out on the adoption of a very, very major effort to get the economy moving, certainly I don't think we can make a determination as to whether or not that's been successful," House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday. But, he said, "I think we need to be open to whether or not we need additional action."
Republicans, meanwhile, pounced on news that the unemployment rate increased to 9.5 percent in June and accused the Democrats of sinking the nation deeper into debt to finance an economic recovery package that has failed to save American jobs. Noting that the Obama administration predicted earlier this year that stimulus spending would keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the No. 2 Republican in the House, said, "I think any objective measure would indicate there's a failure when you have a commitment of nearly $800 billion in taxpayer funds and you have the type of job loss we're experiencing."
Department of Housing and Urban Development - Shaun Donovan, Secretary
Office of Public Affairs, Washington, DC 20410
2 P.M TOMORROW
THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2009
HUD SECRETARY TO ANNOUNCE ANNUAL REPORT ON STATE OF HOMELESSNESS IN AMERICA
At 2 p.m. EDT on Thursday, July 9, 2009, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will host a telephone conference call to unveil HUD's latest Annual Homeless Assessment Report. Secretary Donovan will also make a major funding announcement to help state and local communities prevent homelessness.
Members of the working media interested in being a part of this news conference are asked to RSVP to Andrew.D.Grubin@hud.gov or call (202) 708-0685.
WHO: HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan
WHAT: Release of HUD's Annual Homeless Assessment Report and major funding announcement
WHEN: 2 p.m. EDT
Thursday, July 9, 2009
WHERE: Reporters interested in this conference call should RSVP to Andrew.D.Grubin@hud.gov or call (202) 708-0685.
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