House Republicans Urge Congress To Listen To Afghanistan Vets

By Laura Smith - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

A collection of Republican Representatives urged Congress Thursday to listen to soldiers who have served in Afghanistan.

“This is about Congress being informed about how our decisions affects those people out there fighting ... this is not a partisan deal,” said Hunter during a press appearance with the organizations Vets For Freedom. “This is about winning in Afghanistan and then bringing our troops home victoriously. That’s what this is all about.”

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who joined Hunter, said the appearance was held to back up President Obama, and not in opposition, noting that when Obama was campaigning for President he offered support to the families of those overseas.

“As he was campaigning, he made it very clear that the best way to protect American families was to defeat the terrorists in Afghanistan,” Wilson said.

Pete Hegseth, Chairman and Executive Director of Vets for Freedom, said his organization had one non-partisan message, and that was to “support and listen to the commanders on the ground.”

“You’ve appointed General McCrystal. He’s the smartest guy we’ve got on Afghanistan. He’s lead the counter-terrorism fight for the last five years in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there’s anybody that who knows how to kill bad guys, it’s General Stan McCrystal,” said Hegseth.

“Our message today on the Hill is: ‘Let’s give that commander the assets and resources he needs to finish the job. It’s a very simple message. Give him what he needs to finish the job,” Hegseth added.

Senators, Cabinet Officials Say They're Closely Monitoring H1N1

By Laura Smith - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) discussed measures that are being taken to manage the spread of the H1N1 virus Wednesday during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on how the U.S. has so far dealt with the virus.

Lieberman, the committee's chairman, said the H1N1 virus reached pandemic levels this summer and that it was impossible to accurately report how many people in the U.S. have died from the H1N1 virus because it’s hard to stay on top of the numbers.

“We do know that at least 2,300 people have died in the United States from the H1N1 flu in the last few months,” Lieberman said.

Lieberman mentioned that the Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that the H1N1 flu virus has spread to all 50 states in the country, and that “this particular strain of influenza has moved at an alarming speed and taken an exceptionally high toll at a time of year when we normally don’t encounter significant cases of flu.”

Lieberman also said that pregnant women are being hit hard by the H1N1 virus. He said that of 100 pregnant women who required intensive care and were treated for the flu in late August, 28 died.

The former Democrat said he is concerned that the flu is spreading so rapidly and in some cases with such intensity that it may well be getting ahead of the federal government’s ability to prevent and respond to it.

Lieberman gave three reasons for his concern: The schedule for the production and availability of the vaccine, the fact that hospitals and public health departments don’t have the capacity to care for the surge of people who may need hospitalization as a result of the virus, and the availability of intravenous antiviral medication to treat the critically ill who have contracted the virus.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) mentioned that Bates College in Lewiston, Maine issued a report showing that there was a jump in how many students at their school had the H1N1 virus, from six to 160 people in just a week.

“As of yesterday, 245 Bates students are infected with H1N1,” Collins said.

She said public health experts are learning as they go along, sometimes with the surprising results that run counter to their previous assumptions about H1N1. She added that the CDC released a report saying that 46 percent of 1400 adults hospitalized with H1N1 were healthy and did not have underlying chronic illnesses before getting H1N1.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she testified in April that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and their federal partners were addressing the situation of the H1N1 virus aggressively and collectively. She said their planning has assumed that there would be some gap period between when vaccine would be commonly available and when the flu would actually be present.

“In other words they were assuming some lag time between the flu spiking and vaccine availability,” she said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the H1N1 virus has not changed significantly since April. She also said that people are using the website flu.gov as a tool, and that the website has gotten about five million hits a week.

She also said the flu season officially started October 4th, but echoed Sen. Lieberman's assertion that this is not a typical flu season.

“Visits to doctors are higher than expected, 41 states represent what we now call wide spread level of activity, which is just the count that they’re giving, and the remaining states are at elevated levels of flu. so this is a national issue,” Sebelius said.

She said there have been 86 reported H1N1 pediatric deaths since the virus was reported earlier this year, and that pregnant women are among those seriously affected.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Sebelius if she thought the spread of the virus would come down in the winter months, and she said she was hoping it would after people were vaccinated.

McCain confronted Sebelius about a comment she made saying there would be many people who would not be vaccinated, and asked her if she was worried about hospital over utilization and lack of capacity in the hospitals in America, to which Sebelius stumbled to a response.

Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan said schools earlier this year closely followed school-dismissal guidance policies developed by the CDC. One example he gave occurred on April 26, 2009 when he said, “the CDC advised schools to consider closing when they had a confirmed or suspected case of H1N1 - and we found that schools adhered to that advice.”

Duncan said they learned a lesson in the spring that not only did schools follow the CDC’s advice on flu-related issues, but also that quickly closing a school is a complex undertaking that has consequences beyond the loss of valuable school time.

“For example, unplanned school closures led to the loss of school meals for some of the 31 million kids who rely on the federal school meals programs, loss of wages for parents who had to stay home from home to take care of their children, and older students left home without proper supervision,” he said.

Education Secretary: School Failure Is National Failure

By Laura Smith, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

While Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is certainly pleased over the strides made by many schools, he concedes that more needs to be done to improve education.

During an award ceremony Wednesday honoring Texas' Aldine Independent School District (ASID), Duncan noted that only seven out 10 public school students finish high school, and that only one in four college students can do college work.

"This simply isn't just a personal failure. It's a national failure," Duncan said.

An additional $100 billion of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds has recently been allocated for education reform.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation awarded the Aldine Independent School District (AISD) from outside Houston the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education. This award is the largest education award in the country, and the school district will receive $1 million in college scholarships.

Superintendent Dr. Wanda Bamberg Ed.D., accepted the award.

Aldine has shown some of the most consistent student achievement gains nationally in the last decade and has been recognized as one of the top five most improved urban American school systems in four of the last six years.

The four finalists were Broward County Public Schools in southern Florida; Gwinnett County Public Schools outside Atlanta; the Long Beach Unified School District in California; and the Socorro Independent School District in Texas. Each finalist will receive $250,000 in college scholarships.

Dr. Bamberg said Aldine is 84% economically disadvantaged, and have watched their college students and college participation numbers decline in the past few years. She said the scholarship is truly the only way students can further their education.

"When you see the conditions that our students live, and understand that they truly do live in poverty in some places, then this doesn't just represent a scholarship opportunity, it doesn't just represent four years at school, it represents a future and a complete change of life for that individual student and, in many cases, the family of that student," Bamberg said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said excellence is what the Broad Award has always been about. She said the nation's children success is essential to the success of the U.S.

"Those blessed with the most serve all of us," Pelosi said.

Pelosi said that while a high school diploma may gain entry into the workforce, but a college degree is a ticket to higher wages, more job security and a brighter future.

House May Provide $87 Billion In Financial Aid For Students

Congressman George Miller (D-CA) said Tuesday the House will consider an $87 billion piece of legislation aimed at making college more affordable.

“The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act ... will allow us to invest $87 billion dollars to make college more affordable, to build a world class community college system, to improve opportunities for our youngest students to succeed and to pay down our deficit,” Miller said during a press conference.

According to Miller, the Act represents the single largest investment of federal college aid in history. Miller said it would give students more help in covering their tuition and expenses, including a historic investment in the Pell Grant Scholarship program, better opportunities to prepare for 21st century jobs and improved financial aid programs.

Miller stressed that Congress will be able to do this with no cost to the taxpayers by undertaking what he described as long overdue student loan reform.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that improving education is essential to recovering the U.S. economy, adding that it will also improve the U.S.' standing in the international community.

“People still think we do lead the world [in education]. That hasn’t been true for probably two and a half decades. We’re stagnated, we’re flat-lined and other countries have passed us by,” Duncan said.

“We’re not asking the taxpayers for one single dollar. We’re simply making the choice to stop subsidizing banks, to invest our young people back here,” Duncan added.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the President's outlook of economic recovery had three pillars: education, healthcare and energy policy.

“This was in the context of a budget that was fiscally sound that we gave tax cuts to America’s middle class would reduce the deficit,” Pelosi said.

RNC chairman candidates debate

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is poised to elect a new chairman to serve as their master strategist following two elections that have proved disastrous for the party.

Michael Steele, GOPAC Chairman; Ken Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State; Chip Saltsman, former Chairman of Tennessee’s Republican party; Katon Dawson, chairman of South Carolina’s Republican party; Saul Anuziz, Chairman of Michigan’s Republican party; and current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan met in a debate sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform to make their case for the position.

The candidates agreed on most of the issues, including reaching out to more Ron Paul supporters, young conservatives, and minorities, but the majority of the debate rested on the specific steps each candidate would take.

Steele, who dismissed allegations that the Republican party was dead as “bunk,” said that in order to increase the party’s influence, the chairman would have to rally state leaders behind the cause.

“How long have we been talking about this? When are we going to start doing it, for goodness sakes? This isn’t anything any of us can do individually as chairman of this party. The state organizations are where the rubber meets the road…. They’re the ones with the courage and leadership at the national level to get it done,” said Steele.

Blackwell touched upon how the RNC could reach out to more voters by increasing the committee’s technological reach, complete with the recruitment of a Chief Technology Officer.

Anuziz suggested using the technological capabilities to do more than just campaign, claiming that it could be a key networking tool.

“We need this to be part of everything we do. And not just a certain section of what we do. And I think the way we do that is make it part of everything we run as a party because that is the best way to network every single grass roots activist that wants to be part of the system,” said Anuziz.

The candidates were asked if they had Twitter, and if so, how many followers they had. Steele and Dawson replied that they have around 300-400 followers and Anuziz claimed that he had just under 3,000. Blackwell responded that he used twitter, but also noted he had an impressive 4,000 friends on Facebook. Duncan explained that he did not have a twitter account himself, but understood how the website worked.

The candidates touched upon the notion that the party had deviated from its general values in recent years and discussed the need to be return to their roots.

“People come to Washington as rat killers, and a couple years later they’re rodent control officers and the rats are their constituents,” said Saltsman.

“We’ve got to make sure we elect people across this country … that know who they are and will stand up during the hard times, just like the folks have done in Florida, where they’re sitting with a budget deficits like they are in many states but have decided not to raise taxes but rather go after spending restraints.”