SAIC CityTime Mike Bloomberg CityTime SAIC Preet Bharara New YouTube SAIC MTA Jay Walder , The People Want Answers!

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http://youtu.be/YdLZmfkA460
No news at all on the CityTime SAIC scandal is good news for SAIC and large naval contracts SAIC just snared!!!!!!!!!!  Yippie but the People of New York demand SAIC admit guilt.
I, Suzannah B. Troy want Preet Bharara to question Jay Walder before he leaves his post as head of the MTA.  If you want to understand why the USA has a multi-trillion dollar deficit than look at the CityTime SAIC deal brought in by Rudy Giuliani and his pal lawyers are lobbyists involved on SAIC and look how Mike Bloomberg and pals pushed SAIC like drug king pins pushing heroin.  Watch my new YouTube and learn how Mike spent the most amount of money on IT Information Technology and a large part was theft, fraud, the fix was in no really competitive bids and this is true for the MTA and NY State from The White House on down so you want to stop raising the roof on trillions of dollars of debt. stop all the corrupt back room dealings and starting putting the People first!!!!!
Look at countless corrupt deals from Board of Ed, 911 Tech System to CityTime in NYC Gov. largest white  collar crime ever exposed and under a third term mayor like Ed Koch and reminder Christine Quinn who wants to be mayor pushed Mike for three terms...the largest white collar crime ever.  Christine Quinn brushed aside two investigations in to CityTime by Tish James and discouraged a third so Quinn, Mike Bloomberg’s mini-me should never ever be mayor of NYC.
Below the latest news on SAIC new big contracts but no news on CityTime and to date SAIC is like Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson, they do not seem to have to admit guilt and they are guilt as sin.
We want our money back, plus damages x 3 with RICO charges and that starts with arrests Preet Bharara!
http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1588885&highlight=http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1586866&highlight=http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1574847&highlight="A retired Navy Rear Admiral, Reilly brings more than 34 years of experience to SAIC"Is it experience of no bid contracts?http://youtu.be/YdLZmfkA460
No news at all on the CityTime SAIC scandal is good news for SAIC and large naval contracts SAIC just snared!!!!!!!!!!  Yippie but the People of New York demand SAIC admit guilt.
I, Suzannah B. Troy want Preet Bharara to question Jay Walder before he leaves his post as head of the MTA.  If you want to understand why the USA has a multi-trillion dollar deficit than look at the CityTime SAIC deal brought in by Rudy Giuliani and his pal lawyers are lobbyists involved on SAIC and look how Mike Bloomberg and pals pushed SAIC like drug king pins pushing heroin.  Watch my new YouTube and learn how Mike spent the most amount of money on IT Information Technology and a large part was theft, fraud, the fix was in no really competitive bids and this is true for the MTA and NY State from The White House on down so you want to stop raising the roof on trillions of dollars of debt. stop all the corrupt back room dealings and starting putting the People first!!!!!
Look at countless corrupt deals from Board of Ed, 911 Tech System to CityTime in NYC Gov. largest white  collar crime ever exposed and under a third term mayor like Ed Koch and reminder Christine Quinn who wants to be mayor pushed Mike for three terms...the largest white collar crime ever.  Christine Quinn brushed aside two investigations in to CityTime by Tish James and discouraged a third so Quinn, Mike Bloomberg’s mini-me should never ever be mayor of NYC.
Below the latest news on SAIC new big contracts but no news on CityTime and to date SAIC is like Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson, they do not seem to have to admit guilt and they are guilt as sin.
We want our money back, plus damages x 3 with RICO charges and that starts with arrests Preet Bharara!
http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1588885&highlight=http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1586866&highlight=http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1574847&highlight="A retired Navy Rear Admiral, Reilly brings more than 34 years of experience to SAIC"Is it experience of no bid contracts?

Dave Paterson WOR NYU Domestic Violence Politics No Spitzer As Suzannah...

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http://youtu.be/6fPuhfFMipQ
I ask Dave Paterson why he has to say about Violence Towards Women and Dave Johnson.

Listen to Dave's pathetic response!!!!!!!!!!!! LIES!!!!!!! oh yeah he did EVENTUALLY suspend Johnson but it took him long enough and HE SHOULD have fired him.

Did Dave Dinkins protect Paterson because of the Aqueduct deal and other deals....hhhhm? Just like Bloomberg and pals.....just like the bail-out of Wall Street.

http://youtu.be/6fPuhfFMipQ



Above the law, Dave Paterson Elliot Spitzer, Dave's 1st guest...Suzannah B. Troy protest WOR and NYU rewarding corrupt politician Dave Paterson with a radio clearly WOR and NYU support violence towards and NYU want Basil Paterson's connections. Reminder the Aqueduct race track deal is open investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/nyregion/25paterson.html

We have 25 shootings in 24 hours and you wonder why violence is up, rapes are up, spousal abuse up? Politicians and street thugs behave the same.

If Elliot Spitzer was in deed Dave’s first guest he snuck past me or went in a side entrance.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg Haggerty NY Post Judge DA Cover-Ups?

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http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/09/ny-post-cover-up-for-mike-bloomberg.html
Read this piece I wrote. It is long and you actually have to use your brain and think. There is nothing new about media moguls and their roll in attempting to rule politics. Rent Mr. Smith Goes to Washington starring Jimmy Stewart. I feel like Jimmy Stewart with my YouTubes and blog postings most especially on Mike’s third term, Christine Quinn, CityTime and Haggerty.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg John Haggerty Trial Charity Rumors

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http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2011/09/mayor-bloomberg-haggerty-trial-sept-12.htmlClick the above link to take you to the rumors about Bloomberg using his charity money to buy council members?
On Sept. 11 -- terrorist goal to achieve mass murder, mass destruction and destroy our economy but politicians, Wall Street and others achieved the terrorists goal to destroy our economy...click on link below.
http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2011/09/suzannah-troy-artist-on-sept-11-than.html

http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2011/09/dep-dot-cant-solve-starting-with-ny1.html


http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/09/ny-post-cover-up-for-mike-bloomberg.html Click on the link and read the piece. It is long but worth the read.Know that every major newspaper published my letters until I became anti-Bloomberg.None would cover my "Mayor Bloomberg King of New York Is Democracy for Sale?" Poster lampooning him and my YouTube channel was removed for 28 hours before the election, thanks to Norman Seigel and all of you who spoke up for me.

Bloomberg Weprin Turner Democrats Destroying Party Drop Quinn!

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http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2011/09/turner-won-sends-message-media-corrupt.html
http://youtu.be/F3OLAgH1MJgI forecasted correctly bloomberg might not win due to Voter Anger! My work was removed from YouTube as in brought down and by Mike Bloomberg's cyber stalking thugs committing aggravated harassment? How low would Bloomberg's people go? Ask John Haggerty.

http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2011/09/henry-kissinger-to-share-insights-with.html
Dark day for the People of New York City and for the DA as well Internal Affairshttp://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2011/09/mayor-bloomberg-haggerty-trial-sept-12.html

Village Voice: Mulgrew Suit Won't Go Far

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From The Running Scared blog:

It looks like the courts will have an easy time dismissing this one. It is reported that the lawyer of Ostrowsky, Joy Hachstadt, has no evidence whatsoever to present to the court and that her and her client are actually on the lookout for some. All they have now is "hearsay" evidence, which, in terms of the legal world, is near the equivalency of a $2 bill.

Ostrowsky also mentions in the suit that he was unfairly targeted for firing with a bad teacher rating and demands reparations for emotional distress. That might not be the best information to put into an argument to present in front of a jury. Quickly, the 73 pages becomes Angry Ex-Worker Seeking Revenge Vs. Boss.

And The Post reports the lawyer who brought the suit has been cited and fined for bringing frivolous lawsuits before.

Still, the allegations are damaging to Mulgrew and the UFT leadership.

You'll note that he does not deny a relationship with the woman in question in his letter to the membership, nor does he deny handing her a job at the union.

But in his letter, Mulgrew does state the following:

When an organization like ours strongly defends the public schools, their students and its members, our opponents will seize on any opportunity to make teachers and their union a target.

Union opponents aren't making teachers a target by bringing this suit.

The suit was brought by a "U" rated teacher who is disgruntled by the lack of defense he received from Mr. Mulgrew and the UFT leadership after his rating.

And no one is attacking teachers in this suit.

The target of the attack is Mulgrew and the UFT leadership for their patronage system.

These allegations open up a window for the membership, even the blindest members, to see the core of corruption and patronage at the top of the UFT.

Now whether that translates into anything next election year is another story.

But it does put Mulgrew and the UFT leadership on the defensive at a crucial time in the waning years (we hope) of King Bloomberg I's Reign of Terror.

President Obama's Commencement Speech To Joplin, Missouri Seniors

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President Obama, giving the commencement speech to graduating seniors in Joplin, Missouri, the town destroyed by a tornado last year, stunned the crowd when he said:

"Secretary of Education Duncan once said the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina, because it gave us a chance to start over with the education system there. I couldn't agree more. And folks, the best thing that could have happened to Joplin, Missouri was for a tornado to come around and wipe out the old education system and take those failing teachers with it, because we now have a golden opportunity to start over here too. Now that Mother Nature has brought accountability to this old failing school system and the bad teachers who once worked there, Secretary Duncan and I can help the Gates Foundation and Walmart and the hedge fund industry get down to business and really start educating kids here so this town can compete globally in the 21st century high tech, neo-feudal economy. We want you indoctrinated to expect 13 hour work days, garbage pay, no benefits and nothing but fear for the rest of your lives and by golly, charter schools are helping to bring that kind of America to fruition!"

Obama used the refrain "We're from the Gates Foundation and we're here to test you!" repeatedly to jazz the crowd up for his latest education reform program, Race to the Disaster Scene - a controversial program that gives the federal government $4 billion in aid money to charterize any school district that has suffered a natural disaster like a hurricane, flood, tornado or the Obama economic policies.

Jonathan Alter, official Obama biographer and current Bloomberg Views columnist, compared Obama's Joplin commencement speech to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

"Look, we know what works in education and this is it - bring Mother Nature in, destroy what stands, replace it with privatized, for-profit charters, and test, test, test! This president is just a rock star when it comes down to getting those ideas across. And look how cool he looks smoking his after-speech cigarette!"

This Obama speech was noticeably different from the one he gave at Barnard College last week, where he acknowledged that students who attend elite private schools like Barnard have not had to suffer under his education reforms like test-based accountability for teachers and 35+ high stakes tests a year for students.

"Yeah, there's no way we're doing that shit to kids like you," the president told the Barnard crowd. "You're being groomed to be 21st century leaders and innovators. It's the rest of the schmucks in this country, the one's who might try to Occupy, that we've got to brainwash with all that education reform bullshit."

Rules Are For Everybody But Michael Bloomberg

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From The New York Times:

Mr. Bloomberg, an experienced pilot, found himself under fire after he was discovered flying his private helicopter where he was not supposed to.

An amateur video, filmed by an annoyed Manhattanite and broadcast Tuesday on WABC-TV, showed the mayor landing and taking off several times over the weekend from the East 34th Street helipad, where trips on Saturday and Sunday have been expressly banned for more than a decade.

The mayor's spokesman said other mayors had used the helipad on weekends, so there should be no problem with Bloomberg doing so, even if it is closed.

But those mayors were using police helicopters and flying on "official" city business.

Bloomberg, on the other hand, was flying a helicopter he owns and was most expressly not flying it on city business, though he won't say where he was going with it:

The mayor’s office would not say where Mr. Bloomberg had been traveling last weekend, or why his helicopter apparently took off from or landed at the 34th Street helipad eight times in two days. The mayor had no official events scheduled for the weekend, but he did attend the wedding of the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, on Saturday evening in Manhattan’s meatpacking district.

Mr. Bloomberg was accompanied on at least one flight by his companion, Diana L. Taylor, and the couple’s two yellow Labradors, Bonnie and Clyde.

His dogs are named Bonnie and Clyde?

That's more information than I wanted to know about him.

At any rate, this is just another example of there being two sets of rules in this city - one for Bloomberg and his friends and cronies, one for everybody else:

Gale Brewer, a council member who has worked for years to reduce helicopter flights in and around Manhattan, said Mr. Bloomberg had rarely been supportive of those efforts. She said she was disappointed to hear about his weekend flights.

“You have to follow the rules,” she said. “When you read that the mayor takes off at times that are restricted, I think it’s shocking.”

Dr. Ron Sticco, 50, a physician whose footage of Mr. Bloomberg’s flights, taken from his high-rise apartment overlooking the helipad, led to the report on WABC, said Wednesday that the mayor did not understand the disturbances that his flights had caused.

“There are times it’s so noisy I have to go in my bathroom to talk on the telephone,” Dr. Sticco said in an interview. “I don’t doubt the mayor has essential business to perform. But, going back to Fiorello La Guardia, they didn’t need the perpetual use of a heliport to govern the city.”

Some critics viewed the mayor’s copter trips as evidence of his disconnect from the average New Yorker. But Kenneth Sherrill, a professor of political science at Hunter College, said something else was afoot.

“This is, on a very trivial matter, about the arrogance of power,” Dr. Sherrill said. “It’s the type of thing you do when you stop thinking about the political and public consequences of what you’re doing.”

Until New Yorkers return to treating him the way people in Rockaway did after the Bloomberg Blizzard Debacle of 2010, he'll think he can get away with this stuff.

But one thing our oligarch does not like is to be publicly humiliated.

If people booed and jeered him wherever he went, treated him with the disdain that he treats rules and regulations, sent his poll numbers back below the Mendoza Line, some of this crap would stop.

I blame this on New Yorkers for putting up with this little arrogant autocrat.

Headline Of The Day

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From a story in the NY Times:

Drugs Help Tailor Alcoholism Treatment

Oh goodie - people susceptible to substance abuse will be given substances to stem their susceptibility to substance abuse.

That should work swell.

We live in a culture that looks for the easy way out of things.

We also live in a culture that is looking for a way to cash in on everything.

Personal transformation and spiritual, emotional and physical recovery from addiction?

Nah, that's too hard.

Here's a pill for your abuse problem.

If that doesn't work, we'll give you another pill.

Then another.

Just keeping drugging until your cravings for a drink go away.

And keep paying for those drugs while you're at it.

Soon you'll be all better!

So long as you continue to pay for and take our drugs, of course...

Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby And The 99%

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Very interesting piece in The Guardian about Scott Fitzgerald and his use of the phrase "99%":

On 19 October 1929, just five days before the first stock market crash and 10 days before Black Tuesday, Scott Fitzgerald published a now-forgotten story called "The Swimmers," about an American working for the ironically named Promissory Trust Bank, and his realisation that American ideals have been corrupted by money. This corruption is emblematised by sexual infidelity: as in Gatsby, Fitzgerald again used adultery to suggest a larger world of broken promises and betrayals of faith. There's a remarkable moment early in "The Swimmers" – which Fitzgerald called "the hardest story I ever wrote, too big for its space" – when an unfaithful wife, who is French, complains about the American women she sees on the Riviera:

"How would you place them?" she exclaimed. "Great ladies, bourgeoises, adventuresses - they are all the same. Look! …"

Suddenly she pointed to an American girl going into the water:

"That young lady may be a stenographer and yet be compelled to warp herself, dressing and acting as if she had all the money in the world."

"Perhaps she will have, some day."

"That's the story they are told; it happens to one, not to the ninety-nine. That's why all their faces over thirty are discontented and unhappy."

The story has much relevance for today:

The American dream comes true for just 1%: for the other 99%, only discontent and bitterness await, ressentiment on a mass scale. More than 15 years later, the Marxist critics Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer used a similar image of the typist who believed she would be a movie star to reveal the American dream as a rigged lottery that no one wins but everyone plays. Today, almost 100 years after "The Swimmers" appeared, the Occupy movement has clenched its fist around the same angry realisation that we are all the 99%, not the 1%. More remarkable than the fact that Fitzgerald beat Adorno and Horkheimer and the Occupy movement to the punch, however, is that he saw all this before Wall Street came smashing down.

The villain of "The Swimmers" is a rich, vulgar banker who preaches an updated version of the gilded age's "gospel of wealth": "Money is power … Money made this country, built its great and glorious cities, created its industries, covered it with an iron network of railroads." The banker is wrong, the story makes clear, but his vision of America is winning. Feeling increasingly alienated, the protagonist, Marston, finds himself musing on the meanings of America, and especially its eagerness to forget history: "Americans, he liked to say, should be born with fins, and perhaps they were – perhaps money was a form of fin. In England property begot a strong place sense, but Americans, restless and with shallow roots, needed fins and wings. There was even a recurrent idea in America about an education that would leave out history and the past, that should be a sort of equipment for aerial adventure, weighed down by none of the stowaways of inheritance or tradition." The buoyancy of modern America depended on its being unanchored by history or tradition, and this is the America we have inherited. Historical amnesia is certainly liberating – so liberating that America is once again diving into free fall, unmoored by any critical or intellectual insight into its own myths, or even into the histories of the debates that we think define our moment.

Marston eventually decides that there is no place for him in the crass society symbolised by his rival, but he will not relinquish his faith in the ideals that America can represent. As Marston sails for Europe, watching America recede into his past, Fitzgerald offers a closing meditation nearly as incantatory as the famous conclusion of Gatsby: "Watching the fading city, the fading shore, from the deck of the Majestic, he had a sense of overwhelming gratitude and of gladness that America was there, that under the ugly débris of industry the rich land still pushed up, incorrigibly lavish and fertile, and that in the heart of the leaderless people the old generosities and devotions fought on, breaking out sometimes in fanaticism and excess, but indomitable and undefeated. There was a lost generation in the saddle at the moment, but it seemed to him that the men coming on, the men of the war, were better; and all his old feeling that America was a bizarre accident, a sort of historical sport, had gone forever. The best of America was the best of the world … France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter – it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart."

Wall Street crashed 10 days later.

And finally, Fitzgerald foresaw the doom and gloom of the Depression and the war long before they happened:

Two years after The Great Gatsby appeared, a reporter was sent to interview the famous author. Meeting "the voice and embodiment of the jazz age, its product and its beneficiary, a popular novelist, a movie scenarist, a dweller in the gilded palaces", the reporter found instead, to his distinct hilarity, that Fitzgerald was "forecasting doom, death and damnation to his generation". "He sounded", said the reporter, like "an intellectual Sampson" predicting that the Plaza Hotel's marble columns would crumble. Fitzgerald's absurd prophecy was that America would face a great "national testing" in the very near future:

"The idea that we're the greatest people in the world because we have the most money in the world is ridiculous. Wait until this wave of prosperity is over! Wait ten or fifteen years! Wait until the next war on the Pacific, or against some European combination! … The next fifteen years will show how much resistance there is in the American race."

"There has never been an American tragedy," Fitzgerald ended. "There have only been great failures."

It was 1927. The reporter was vastly amused.

Perhaps Scott was forecasting his own personal doom and gloom and projecting that onto the country.

Alcoholics with dysfunctional personal lives and families sometimes do that.

Nonetheless, Fitzgerald's critique of America and American culture was quite apt.

I think I shall seek out some Fitzgerald stories this weekend.

NY Post Says Custodian Denies Seeing Mulgrew And Guidance Counselor "Tooling Around" In School

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Pretty much a slam dunk that this case will be dismissed:

UFT chief Michael Mulgrew was accused in court papers last week of selling out union members’ work protections in order to cover up a 2005 sexual tryst with a colleague in a Brooklyn school — a charge his spokesman dismissed as “absurd.”

...

The lawsuit filed by Queens high-school teacher Andrew Ostrowsky alleges that Mulgrew rendezvoused in a classroom with guidance counselor Emelina Camacho-Mendez, when both were working at William Grady HS in Brooklyn.

The up-and-coming labor leader brought his alleged paramour up the union ladder with him.

The mayor and schools chancellor colluded in a coverup of the incident — gaining contract give-backs from the union in exchange for remaining silent, according to the rambling federal court papers.

Ostrowsky claims it was the erosion of work rights that prohibited him from successfully challenging a recent negative rating.

“Everything in the lawsuit is false,” Mulgrew said yesterday, speaking directly about the claims for the first time. “It really does read as a book of crazy fiction.”

Ostrowsky’s lawyer, Joy Hochstadt, admitted in the court papers that she had no concrete proof of the alleged sexual tryst — but says it was witnessed by the former principal and a custodian.

Yet the custodian whom sources identified as the witness in question flatly denied to The Post yesterday that he had seen any tooling around in the shop room.

“The guy didn’t do nothing in front of me. If they did do something like that, I would have thrown them out,” said retired custodial helper Donald Herb.

So the filing of the lawsuit has been used by the NY Post (and now the Daily News and the mayor) to humiliate Mulgrew, to compare this lawsuit based upon hearsay to lawsuits the union has filed against school closures, and to once again smear a teacher in the press as a "perv."

Of course, this time the teacher is actually a former teacher and a current labor leader.

A mess all around.

The only thing that I hope comes out of this is Mulgrew now realizes how horrific it is to be smeared in the papers and comes to the defense of his members when the Post or the Daily News turns their smear lenses on them.

But I won't hold my breath for that.

The UFT leadership, from Randi Weingarten to Michael Mulgrew, have been only too happy to throw their own members under a bus for political expediency.

That policy is so ingrained at the UFT that I cannot imagine this Mulgrew episode will change it.

But at least Mulgrew now gets a "Walk A Mile In Someone Else's Shoes" moment.

Daily News Editor-In-Chief Colin Myler May Be Called Before Parliament For Punishment

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Does Colin Myler still get to run the Daily News now?

Three former News International executives accused of lying to parliament have been referred by MPs to a Commons committee that has the power to recommend punishment.

Ex-News of the World editor Colin Myler, the paper's former legal manager Tom Crone and one-time News International chairman Les Hinton were accused of misleading the culture, media and sport committee during its investigation into phone hacking.

All three deny giving misleading testimony and further action will now be decided upon by the standards and privileges committee after MPs passed a Commons motion on Tuesday afternoon.

Therese Coffey, a Conservative member of the culture committee said: "We are the parliament of the people, we should not be lied to."

Labour MP Chris Bryant said parliament should consider fining or even imprisoning the men.

"I simply think we were hoodwinked, indeed for a long period politicians were so nervous and frightened of what the press would say about us we effectively put the hoodwinks on ourselves," he said.

"It is time we asserted the freedom of parliament, the rights of parliament … if parliament is lied to we can not do our job on behalf of our constituents."

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, the chair of the culture committee, John Whittingdale said: "The conclusions we've reached have serious repercussions. I'm not sure what they are but these are serious matters.

The vote to refer the three men to the standards committee was supported by both the government and Labour front benches.

Parliament hasn't fined anybody since 1666.

The last non-member of Parliament called to apologize before Parliament was in 1957.

And the last time Parliament imprisoned a non-member of Parliament was in 1880.

But Myler, Crone and Hinton face all three of those possibilities.

In addition, it is believed that Hinton may eventually face criminal charges related to the News Corporation hacking scandal as well.

I wonder, can Colin Myler run the New York Daily News from a British prison cell?

President Obama's Commencement Speech To Joplin, Missouri Seniors

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President Obama, giving the commencement speech to graduating seniors in Joplin, Missouri, the town destroyed by a tornado last year, stunned the crowd when he said:

"Secretary of Education Duncan once said the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina, because it gave us a chance to start over with the education system there. I couldn't agree more. And folks, the best thing that could have happened to Joplin, Missouri was for a tornado to come around and wipe out the old education system and take those failing teachers with it, because we now have a golden opportunity to start over here too. Now that Mother Nature has brought accountability to this old failing school system and the bad teachers who once worked there, Secretary Duncan and I can help the Gates Foundation and Walmart and the hedge fund industry get down to business and really start educating kids here so this town can compete globally in the 21st century high tech, neo-feudal economy. We want you indoctrinated to expect 13 hour work days, garbage pay, no benefits and nothing but fear for the rest of your lives and by golly, charter schools are helping to bring that kind of America to fruition!"

Obama used the refrain "We're from the Gates Foundation and we're here to test you!" repeatedly to jazz the crowd up for his latest education reform program, Race to the Disaster Scene - a controversial program that gives the federal government $4 billion in aid money to charterize any school district that has suffered a natural disaster like a hurricane, flood, tornado or the Obama economic policies.

Jonathan Alter, official Obama biographer and current Bloomberg Views columnist, compared Obama's Joplin commencement speech to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

"Look, we know what works in education and this is it - bring Mother Nature in, destroy what stands, replace it with privatized, for-profit charters, and test, test, test! This president is just a rock star when it comes down to getting those ideas across. And look how cool he looks smoking his after-speech cigarette!"

This Obama speech was noticeably different from the one he gave at Barnard College last week, where he acknowledged that students who attend elite private schools like Barnard have not had to suffer under his education reforms like test-based accountability for teachers and 35+ high stakes tests a year for students.

"Yeah, there's no way we're doing that shit to kids like you," the president told the Barnard crowd. "You're being groomed to be 21st century leaders and innovators. It's the rest of the schmucks in this country, the one's who might try to Occupy, that we've got to brainwash with all that education reform bullshit."

Obama Barely Wins Kentucky, Arkansas Primaries

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From Political Wire:

President Obama barely eked out Democratic primary wins in Kentucky and Arkansas, Politico reports.

The president didn't even have an opponent in Kentucky, but took just 57.9% of the vote, with the remaining more than 42 percent of ballots cast for "uncommitted."

In Arkansas, his unknown opponent, John Wolfe (D), won 41% of the vote.

Washington Post: "Although the results haven't stopped Obama's march to renomination -- he officially clinched the Democratic nod on April 3 -- they remain an indicator of not-insignificant pockets of unrest within his party."

The Post article goes on to say that there are two reasons Obama is underperforming in these southern state primaries - one is race, the other is many Dems in these states feel the Obama administration has been too far to the "left" on many issues that affect them, especially environmental issues.

Perhaps.

But in my state, when the Democratic primary comes around, I too will be voting for a candidate other than Barack Obama.

I will then call the Obama campaign AND the Obama White House and let them know - the teacher bashing, the education privatization policies, the bank bailouts, the miserable HAMP mortgage program, the treatment of Bradley Manning, the use of drones to slaughter innocents around the world, the illegal surveillance - these are the reasons I am not voting for Barack Obama.

Not in the primary, not in the general.

And they're not going to scare me with the alternative.

Sorry, whether Mitt Romney brings us to feudalism at 100 MPH or Obama brings us there at 80 MPH, we're still getting to the Feudal State.

Oh, and last but not least - as soon as Obama is re-elected, he plans on going after Social Security and Medicare.

One more reason not to vote for this corporatist.

John King Attacks Adults Who Oppose Pearson Field Tests

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Buried at the end of a Wall Street Journal article on rising parent and teacher opposition to the field tests Pearson plans to administer next month in 4,000 elementary and middle schools around the state is this quote from John King:

Mr. King said he's concerned the reaction from parents misses a larger point. "Reading a passage and answering questions, or doing a set of math problems is an ordinary part of life of school," he said. "The environment around standardized testing has become so acrimonious that we've forgotten that adults need to set a positive tone for students around assessment as a natural part [of education]."

When you use standardized tests to bludgeon students, teachers and schools, when you create an environment where FEAR over these tests rules the day, what do you expect the reaction is going to be?

King makes it sound like parents and teachers opposed to the Pearson field tests are against "Reading a passage and answering questions or doing a set of math problems."

No, they're not.

What they're against is making those activities so high stakes that the outcomes - the scores - become the only thing that matters.

This is especially so when the tests have been so badly devised and the scoring rubrics have been hammered as "amateurish."

And we haven't even gotten around yet to the value-added measurement they're going to use on the teachers - the one with the wide swings in stability and huge margins of error.

Can't wait to see that put into place.

I can't decide if our dear NYSED commissioner truly doesn't understand why there is such acrimony over his testing regimen or if he's just playing dumb.

Either way, he had better get used to this opposition to his testing regimen and his education philosophy at the NYSED.

Because as the state starts to roll out the Common Core exams in the next few years, and the local districts start to roll out the local exams and students have to sit for 35+ high stakes standardized exams a year so that their teachers can be evaluated in the new "scientific" and "objective" Cuomo/King/Tisch/Iannuzzi/Mulgrew system, the opposition to what they're doing is only going to grow.

Supermarket deserts by the numbers

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Gina Kolata in the New York Times this week cast doubt on claims that supermarket deserts contribute to the obesity epidemic.  The start of her article cites recent research that finds no association between supermarket deserts and risk of obesity.  It notes that residents of low-income urban neighborhoods have as much access to supermarkets as residents of higher-income neighborhoods have. 

This fact at first seems counter-intuitive to most people concerned about supermarket deserts, but it is easy to understand with some further reflection.  Low-income urban neighborhoods commonly have high population density, and they contain many medium-income residents along with the impoverished residents, so they sometimes offer too big a market for retail chains to overlook. 

The NYT article generated some controversy.  Conservative pundits, as you might imagine, falsely claimed that food deserts are a "make-believe issue" and an "Obama lie."  The liberal website Media Matters debunked the conservative coverage with typical thoroughness.  Media Matters also found "food experts" to characterize the NYT article as "misleading," which I think was too harsh a description for reporting that seemed basically sound. 

My favorite authoritative statistics about the extent of supermarket deserts put the problem into quantitative perspective, without exaggeration.  The key thing to understand is that most Americans, rich and poor, shop in supermarkets and supercenters.  Likewise, most Americans, rich or poor, shop by automobile.  Supermarkets and supercenters are fundamentally an automobile oriented retail format, and if we pretend that most people walk to the grocery store we will misdiagnose the problem.

USDA's 2009 Report to Congress about supermarket deserts emphasizes statistics showing how many households are far from a supermarket and lack access to a vehicle:

• 2.3% of U.S. households live more than 1 mile from a supermarket
  and lack vehicle access.
• 5.7% of U.S. households live more than 0.5 miles from a supermarket
  and lack vehicle access. 

One gets much higher percentages by ignoring vehicle access, but that approach is misleading.  One cannot ignore vehicle access, because, even in low-income areas, most grocery trips are by automobile.  The USDA report finds (in Table 2.9):

• In low-income areas with high access to food retail, about 65.3% of
  grocery trips are by automobile.
• In low-income areas with poor access to food retail, about 93.3% of
  grocery trips are by automobile.

Naturally, neighborhoods with adequate retail have a higher concentration of people without cars.  And in rural areas without adequate retail, even most low-income Americans shop by car.

My best summary of the evidence is that perhaps 2 to 6% of U.S. households lack good supermarket access.  Food retail access is a serious concern for people without vehicle access.  Possible remedies to improve local food retail have some merit, but should be carefully targeted based on need, and one should not expect these remedies to carry much of the burden of solving the obesity epidemic for the population as a whole.

Some low-income neighborhoods are supermarket deserts and some are not.

Progress for Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)

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Here in Boston this month, during the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' rainy march at the corporate offices for Stop and Shop supermarkets, with the way into the offices blocked by corporate representatives, hopes soared briefly.

And then, just at that moment, a man emerged from the double doors of the towering Stop & Shop headquarters, behind the representatives standing watch, and approached the group. “I'm a systems analyst from floor six—and I support you.” His expression was determined, unflappable. “May I escort you inside for a conversation on floor ten with executives?”

Despite the system analyst's courage, negotiators from the Florida-based farm labor group were unable to proceed further.

Yet, it seems likely that the setback will be only temporary.  On a visit to CIW offices in Immokalee this week, my family (including my two children, wife, and parents) enjoyed speaking with labor organizers about their successes since the time of my previous visit in 2009.  The biggest victory has been a new relationship with tomato growers, who previously had refused to participate in the CIW's penny-a-pound bonus program, in which leading branded supermarkets and restaurant chains agree to pay workers a better piece rate for tomato harvest.

The CIW's "ask" from branded companies seems profoundly reasonable.  Here in New England, I suspect Stop and Shop will give way in the next several months, as have Taco Bell, McDonald's, Burger King, and the tomato growers themselves in previous campaigns.  As a regular Stop and Shop customer, let me mention here that customers like me are following this issue closely, and a sensible negotiating position would generate a pile of customer goodwill and loyalty.  If Stop and Shop negotiates, I will of course give the news effusive coverage in this space.

Source: CIW.

How to read organic agriculture debates

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The journal Nature (link may be gated) recently had an interesting meta-analysis -- or quantitative literature review -- about yields from organic agriculture.

The accompanying summary says, "conventional agriculture gives higher yields under most situations."  This is probably true.

Yet, even environmentalists are overreacting to the study.  A recent article by Bryan Walsh at Time Magazine's Ecocentric blog is titled, "Why Organic Agriculture May Not Be So Sustainable."

The evidence Walsh presents fails to support the headline, though the article does begin with two good points:

• Organic agriculture commonly has a yield penalty per unit of land (see the Nature article above).
• Environmentalists should care about efficiency.  Getting more output for lower resource cost is good environmentalism.

Mostly, though, Walsh repeats common overstatements of the advantages of conventional agriculture.  

Conventional industrial agriculture has become incredibly efficient on a simple land to food basis. Thanks to fertilizers, mechanization and irrigation, the each American farmer feeds over 155 people worldwide. 

Environmentalists discussing conventional agriculture should remember several key themes:

• Not all productive technology improves the environment.  Many technologies used in conventional agriculture are designed to save labor, not to save land.  In Walsh's quote above, huge mechanized combines elevate the number of people fed per American farmer, but they make little difference to yields per unit of land (the key environmental issue addressed by the Nature study).  From one sentence to the next, Walsh conflates food per American farmer with efficiency "on a simple land to food basis."
• Yield is not the same as efficiency.  Organic agriculture commonly requires a tradeoff, giving up some yield and undertaking some additional labor and management cost in order to gain something of value for the producer and for the environment.  Advocates for organic agriculture say the tradeoff is efficient -- getting the most output for the lowest resource cost when all environmental costs are accounted.  Walsh's first sentence boasts of the "efficiency" of industrial agriculture, but the following argument fails to support the boast.
• Producing more grain is not the same as feeding the world.  Any time the high yields of U.S. corn production are mentioned, it should be noted that most U.S. corn goes to ethanol and animal feed.  Walsh seems to think that Iowa corn farmers do well at feeding the most people possible for the least land, which is false.  If the goal is to feed the world, then most of the calories produced in Iowa corn fields are squandered already, and this loss matters more than the organic yield penalty matters.

Most hard-headed well-grounded advocates for organic agriculture already understand the yield tradeoffs, and they already value efficiency.  For example, Rodale studies over the years have always claimed that lower chemical input costs offset modest yield penalties -- a claim that may be nearly consistent the new Nature study.

One sometimes meets beginning organic farmers who are dismissive of yields and efficiency.  But one never meets an organic farmer who has been in business for five years and remains dismissive of yields and efficiency.

There is one lesson in this whole argument for organic advocates.  It is important to speak plainly about yield penalties and about efficiency.  Perhaps Walsh was not sufficiently familiar with hard-headed well-grounded research on organic practices, but instead may have been reading some excessively optimistic pro-organic public relations.  Then, when the PR message was contradicted by the Nature study, Walsh overreacted.  It is best all around to state the relative advantages of environmentally sound production practices plainly and precisely from the start.

Reuters: Washington soft on childhood obesity

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From yesterday's long report by Duff Wilson and Janet Roberts at Reuters:

At every level of government, the food and beverage industries won fight after fight during the last decade. They have never lost a significant political battle in the United States despite mounting scientific evidence of the role of unhealthy food and children's marketing in obesity.

Lobbying records analyzed by Reuters reveal that the industries more than doubled their spending in Washington during the past three years. In the process, they largely dominated policymaking -- pledging voluntary action while defeating government proposals aimed at changing the nation's diet, dozens of interviews show.

Healthy food not more expensive

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In contrast with the conventional wisdom that healthy food costs too much, USDA's Economic Research Service this week reports:

For all metrics except the price of food energy, the authors find that healthy foods cost less than less healthy foods (defined for this study as foods that are high in saturated fat, added sugar, and/or sodium, or that contribute little to meeting dietary recommendations).

The argument turns largely on three different methods of measuring the cost of food:

• price per unit of weight ($ / 100g of edible weight)
• price per serving ($ per cup or ounce equivalent)
• price per unit of food energy (cents per Calorie)

Based on the third method, people frequently say healthy food is too expensive.  Based mainly on the first two methods, USDA argues instead that healthy food is reasonably inexpensive.

You might think this is a delightfully arcane and nerdy point of contention.  Yet, the new study has major news coverage today, including a surprisingly complete explanation of this whole units issue.  The Wall Street Journal quotes one of the report's authors, my colleague Andi Carlson:

Often, less-healthy food options are made up of empty calories, prompting people to eat even more, said Andrea Carlson, lead researcher of the report.

"Take a chocolate glazed donut which is 240 calories," she said. "You can easily eat one, if not two or three without any trouble at all. However, a banana, which has a lot of nutrients in it and will make you feel quite full, has only 105 calories. You will feel fuller if you eat the banana versus the donut."

I can think of reasons to like each measurement method in certain circumstances.  Beverages provide an example of a comparison where it seems the per-serving approach is sensible.  If we compare the cost of milk to sugary soda, a per-Calorie comparison makes soda look cheaper when it really just has more Calories.  The per-serving comparison better captures the choice consumers really face.

On the other hand, if you think of the cost of a day's food supply, consumers' bodies generally regulate total food energy intake.  For such comparisons, perhaps price per unit of food energy does make some sense.

For those who want more detail, here is a summary graphic from the USDA report.  It is a bit complex.  Generally, the high-carbohydrate category is fairly inexpensive, which corroborates the conventional wisdom.  But, the fruit and vegetable categories are less expensive than meat by the preferred second and third measurement methods, which is USDA's main point.

US House Slashes $35.8 Billion From Nutrition Programs With Passage Of H.R. 5652

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President pledges to veto; Dems blast the measure...
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed H.R. 5652, the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The measure slashes $35.8 billion from nutrition programs under Agriculture Committee jurisdiction. The White House on Wednesday issued a statement opposing the legislation, and pledging that President Obama will veto it, saying the bill's "unbalanced provisions fail the test of fairness and shared responsibility."

"At the same time as the House is advancing tax cuts that benefit the most fortunate Americans, H.R. 5652 would impose deep budget cuts that cost jobs and hurt middle class and vulnerable Americans – especially seniors, veterans, and children," the White House said.

The measure was designed to reduce the budget deficit, while also overriding deep cuts to the Pentagon’s budget included in last summer's debt deal, which are mandated to begin in 2013 because of the failure of the so-called Supercommittee to agree to a deficit-reduction plan. But the GOP focused solely on cutting social services programs. The vote was 218-99. 16 Republicans opposed it, as did 100% of the Democrats who voted.

“Today, my Republican friends have brought to the floor a reconciliation bill that actually makes sequestration look good,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass).

In the bill, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, aka Food Stamps) eligibility is tightened; the Social Services Block Grant, which funds Meals on Wheels, is ended; the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund under the 2010 healthcare law is ended; the Federal Medicaid match to states is reduced, and there are new stricter eligibility standards for Medicaid required. The bill leaves pending mandatory cuts in place, including cuts to Medicare. It overrides $72 billion in cuts to the Pentagon and on defense spending mandated by sequestration, but adds $315 billion total in new cuts.

The House passage sends the bill to the Senate, where Members have pledged it will not pass, in addition to the President's veto position.

U.S. House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn) voted against the bill, and issued a statement blasting the measure for slashing nutrition funding, and decrying it as a partisan divider.

“Everything must be on the table if we are going to have a serious conversation about getting our budget under control," Peterson said. "Refusing to consider large budget items like defense and choosing instead to slash nutrition programs that feed millions of hard-working families is not the way to balance our budget. Since we know this isn't going anywhere the only thing that will likely come out of this vote is an even more divided Congress."

“The farm bill expires this fall and while the Agriculture Committee has a strong history of bipartisanship I worry that if we continue down this partisan path it will be far more difficult to pass a farm bill this year.”

*The Committee Print of the bill [PDF]

A New Image From The Obamas' 2012 Seder

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The White House today released this new photo taken during President Obama's fourth annual White House Passover Seder, held on April 6th in the Old Family Dining Room. First Lady Michelle Obama lights the candles as the First Family and their 16 guests look on. Seated beside the President is Mrs. Obama's former Chief of Staff, Susan Sher. Daughters Malia and Sasha and their cousin Avery Robinson are beside Mrs. Obama. Read about the Seder here.

*Photo by Pete Souza/White House

Transcript & Video: First Lady Michelle Obama's Remarks, 2012 Joining Forces Mother's Day Tea

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First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden welcomed three generations of military families to the White House on Thursday afternoon for a Joining Forces Mother's Day Tea.

Read about the event and the menu here.

Mrs. Obama, Dr. Biden and special guest Jennifer Pilcher, founder of Military1Click.com, each spoke at the event, which included a craft-making session so the kids could present their moms and grandmoms with special gifts.  The event also marked Military Spouse Appreciation Day, which is on Friday, May 11.



The transcript:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the First Lady________________________________________________________________For Immediate Release May 10, 2012

REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADYAND DR. JILL BIDENAT MOTHER'S DAY TEA
East Room

2:07 P.M. EDT

DR. BIDEN: Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you all for being here. It’s great to have you at the White House. I want to thank my great friend and partner, First Lady Michelle Obama, who has done so much for military families. Thank you, Michelle. (Applause.)

Many of you know that I’m a proud military mom and grandmother, and I’m always honored to be in the presence of military families. My son, Beau, is a major in the Delaware National Army Guard, and when he deployed to Iraq it was a tough year for our family.

I know many of you in this room have faced similar challenges. Grandparents, moms and dads worry through deployments. Kids miss their parents. Throughout their service, children have to change schools, make new friends, join new sports teams. It can really be hard. I want all of you to know just how much we appreciate everything your families do in serving our country.

That’s why Michelle and I started our Joining Forces initiative to give something back to all of our nation’s military families. We’re working with Americans all across the country in every sector of society to find new ways to show our support. And Mother’s Day gives us a special opportunity to say thanks to the mothers who have shaped and supported us.

Now it is my great pleasure to introduce a military spouse and mom, Jennifer Pilcher. Jennifer’s husband, Eddie, is a pilot in the Navy who has been assigned to six different duty stations in the past 12 years. With each reassignment, Jennifer has packed up their home, their two children, and started over in a new community, all while enduring Eddie’s multiple deployments.

On top of all that, Jennifer recently co-founded militaryoneclick.com, a website that connects military families with important resources. You’ve been busy. (Laughter.) Jennifer, thank you for being here today, and thank you for your service. Happy Mother’s Day. (Applause.)

* * * * *

MRS. OBAMA: Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the White House. It is a beautiful day. And I hope you all like your Mother’s Day surprises because they worked really hard on them in there. Very focused, very diligent, very creative. And if you want to know what the black stuff on their mouths are, they had a few of the cookies -- couldn’t help it. (Laughter.)

Well, let me start by thanking Jennifer for that very kind introduction and for everything that you and your team do for your family, for your community, and more importantly, for our entire country.

I also have to thank my partner in crime, Jill. She has been just a amazing friend and a role model for me of what it means to be a strong military mom. She is terrific and we have to give her a round of applause. (Applause.)

And it wouldn’t be a Mother’s Day tea if I didn’t thank my own mommy. Mommy -- there you are, who is here today. (Applause.) And it’s a big deal when grandma does anything. (Laughter.) So the fact that she’s sitting in that chair is a big testimony to her respect and admiration for all of you.

But I have said it before and I will say it again -- I would not be standing here if it weren’t for her. My mom is my rock, as many of you all know, and as many of these young people will understand what being a mom is. She is my rock. She has taught me to believe in myself, and more importantly, to pick myself up whenever I stumble.

She is always a shoulder to cry on and talk to, and I do that a lot. And she has always inspired me -- something I think is amazing for my mom -- to push myself to dream even bigger than anything she could ever dream for herself, and she has always done that. And it’s true today.

So for me, when I think of Mother’s Day, I think of my own mom. And this day wouldn’t be the same for me without her here. So when we were planning this event today to honor our nation’s mothers, we wanted to make sure that all of you could bring along those special people in your own lives, as well. And we’re thrilled to have a really wonderful group of moms and grandmas and sons and daughters who are here with us today at the White House.

As Jill and Jennifer pointed out, we have got military mothers here. And some of you are in our country’s uniform, as you can see. Some of you are married to someone who does wear a uniform. But all of you are outstanding role models for your children, for your communities and for this country.

For all of you -- and I say this a lot -- service isn’t just something that you do once in a while or during the holidays, it’s how you live your lives. Whenever there’s something going on in the community -- an opening on the PTA, or they need a leader to drive for the local car pool, or someone asks for volunteers, and then you’ve got that uncomfortable silence in the room -- (laughter) -- we all have been there. You all are the first ones to speak up and say, how can I help? No matter how busy you are with your own lives, you’re always filling in those gaps for your families and for the broader community. So let’s give a big round of applause to all of our military moms here today. (Applause.)

And another -- here’s to the grandmas here today. I want to say a special thank you to all of our grandmas here. Obviously, you all are mothers too, or else you wouldn’t be grandmothers. (Laughter.) That would be one of those obvious points that Malia would say, duh. (Laughter.) So, Sarah, my speechwriter -- duh. (Laughter.) And I can't begin to imagine what it must feel like to have your baby be far away from home and in harm’s way.

But your sons and daughters, their choice to serve this country is really a reflection of your love. It is. It’s a reflection of your strength and all the good decisions that you made in raising them. That we know. And I know that when a mom or dad is deployed, it often means that all of you grandparents, you're stepping up to help take care of your grandchildren -- you’re the first phone call when mom or dad gets tied up at work, and you’re often spending long weekends away from your own homes, filling in wherever needed. I know that's the case in our household.

But no matter what, you all are always, always there. And that is not just important for us as parents, but for the connection that you make with the next generation. It is so powerful. For that, this whole country is grateful. And that also means that you all are -- have earned the right to spoil your grandchildren as much as you want, which happens in my house. (Laughter.) What happens to the grandmothers, you know? You turn into just pieces of mush. (Laughter.)

Yes, I tell my children to eat my vegetables, and Grandma is like, why. (Laughter.) Why can't they have whatever they want? (Laughter.) And I’m like, these were the rules you -- these were your rules. (Laughter.) Don't you remember? No, no, I don't remember ever making you eat vegetables. Ever. (Laughter.) How many people have grandmas like that? (Laughter.) So, to all the grandmas, thank you. We love you. (Applause.)

And to all of our kids -- (applause) -- our kids. All of this, this day, all we do is for you. All of this, it’s for you. Not for us. We don't care. We don't matter. It’s for you. (Laughter.) And you’re so cute, and you look so good. (Laughter.)

I want you all to know just how special you all are -- really -- each and every one of you. And for all the kids out there, the military kids out there who will see this, you all are so special. And I know it isn’t easy when mom or dad is away for so long. I know it’s tough to have to be so grown up sometimes and pick up and move across the country and try to make new friends again, and again, and again. I can't imagine how tough that must be.

But I want you all to know that what you do every day, all the good things you do, the way you handle your business -- as I tell my kids -- picking up extra chores when mom or dad is gone; taking care of your brothers and your sisters -- because we know you love them even if you act like you don't. (Laughter.) We know this. Staying on top of your schoolwork, just being good people -- all of that makes you all heroes for this country too.

So today, we are here to celebrate all of you. Yay for our children. (Applause.) Keep up the good work. And no matter what Grandma says, eat your vegetables. (Laughter.) Eat your vegetables.

So tomorrow is Military Spouse Appreciation Day. May is National Military Appreciation Month, and we’re just a couple of days away from Mother’s Day. So now is really the perfect time to thank all of you for your service to this country. Every single day, you all are an inspiration to Jill and to me. Whenever we think we’re tired, we just remember your stories and it gets us up. You all are an inspiration to our husbands, more importantly, and you all are an inspiration to the entire country. And today I think you deserve to celebrate.

And with that, I think Jill and I are going to come down there and we’re going to take some pictures with all of you. We’re going to go table to table and say hello to every one of you. You all, happy Mother’s Day. Enjoy this day and all those to come.

Thank you.

END 2:23 P.M. EDT
##

And The Winners Of The 'Obama, Clooney & You' Dinner Sweepstakes Are...

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UPDATE: The post about the dinner is here.
The two lucky female winners of the "Obama, Clooney & You" sweepstakes have backgrounds which perfectly fit with some of President Obama's key initiatives: The military, education, energy, and health care. They were chosen to meet the President this evening from a pool of fifty winners, and will rub elbows with 150 guests who paid $40,000 each to dine at George Clooney's Studio City mansion, which sits at the top of a secluded canyon that is currently laden with security. Celeb chef Wolfgang Puck is catering. Winner #1 is Beth Topinka, a military mother from Manalapan, N.J., who grew up in the swing state of Ohio and now teaches Middle School science. (Topinka, above)

Her son served in the U.S. Navy and attended Penn State on the new G.I. Bill, according to the Obama campaign. Topinka "supports the President’s work on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) initiatives, as well as his support for Pell Grants and student loan reform," the Campaign said.

She is bringing her husband Jerry Topinka as her guest, who according to the Campaign comes from Panama and is "a jazz guitarist who has played all over the world." He performs and teaches in New York and New Jersey.  Jerry's father served as a pilot in WWII.   His website is here.

Jerry "comes from a Republican family, but voted for Obama in 2008," the Campaign noted.

Winner #2 is Karen Blutcher, 45, who lives in the crucial election state of Florida. She is mother to a child with Down syndrome, and her husband and dinner guest, Patrick Blutcher, retired from the Coast Guard. She works as a communications coordinator for a local utility company in St. Augustine.

Karen "feels passionately about the President’s work to reform health care and applauds the First Lady’s focus on childhood obesity," the Campaign said. "For ten years, she’s worked for the public utility company, and before that she worked at a youth non-profit. She appreciates the President efforts to help those who are working hard to support their families and is proud that her career has provided her the opportunity to help others."

Patrick "was a basketball player in high school, who earned a scholarship to play in college, but opted to enlist in the military instead. He made a career out of avionics – electronic systems used on aircraft – both in the military, and then after he retired as a member of the National Guard," the Campaign said.

The prize packages for the lucky winners included coach-class airfare and a one-night hotel stay in Los Angeles. They will be taxed at the assigned retail value of the dinner, which is $1,600.

*Click here for links to all Clooney posts.

*Photo from Topinka's Twitter profile, @Btopink

First Lady Obama & Dr. Biden Honor Military Moms At Joining Forces Mother's Day Tea

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Three generations visit the White House for crafts and celebration...
First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden treated military mothers, grandmothers and children to a special Joining Forces Mother's Day Tea at the White House on Thursday afternoon. Against a backdrop of lush flowers, presidential china, and tiny finger sandwiches, Mrs. Obama spoke movingly about the challenges of military families, and hailed her own mother's influence on her life. The 1:30 PM event also included a craft session for the kids, so they could make gifts and cards for their moms and grandmothers. (Above: Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden help the kids make crafts)

The menu included Tuna Tartare and Blueberry Scones with White House jams, coconut cake and cookies shaped like First Dog Bo. The White House chefs were busier than usual: They led the craft session, too.

As her guests enjoyed the tea party in the East Room, Mrs. Obama, clad in a sleeveless shift with a sunshine yellow top and a pale gold brocade skirt, hailed the three generations for their homefront service.

"All of you are outstanding role models for your children, for your communities and for this country," Mrs. Obama said.

 She thanked the mothers and grandmothers for taking on the many challenges of multiple deployments and frequent re-locations to new posts.  Military parents and spouses, she said, are the first to volunteer at schools and in their communities, where they "fill in the gaps" when other parents won't step up.

"Service isn’t just something that you do once in a while or during the holidays, it’s how you live your lives," Mrs. Obama said.

The First Grandmother, Mrs. Marion Robinson, was seated at a table and nodded and smiled as Mrs. Obama hailed her as "my inspiration" and "my rock."

"It wouldn't be a Mother's Day Tea if I didn't thank my own mommy," Mrs. Obama said. "It's a big deal when grandma does anything--the fact that she's sitting in that chair is a big testimony to her respect and admiration for all of you."

"She is my rock. She has taught me to believe in myself, and more importantly, to pick myself up whenever I stumble...and she has always inspired me--to push myself to dream even bigger than anything she could ever dream for herself."

Grandmothers are 'mush'...
Mrs. Obama segued into praising and thanking the other grandmothers in the room, noting they have a special role in the lives of military families. Grandmothers are constantly on call for their grandkids, she said, whether their own adult children are busy on post or deployed across the world.

"Your sons and daughters, their choice to serve this country is really a reflection of your love," Mrs. Obama said. "It’s a reflection of your strength and all the good decisions that you made in raising them."

Mrs. Obama also kidded the grandmothers for spoiling their grandkids in ways that parents never do, which got a big laugh from her guests.

"You turn into just pieces of mush," Mrs. Obama said. "I tell my children to eat my vegetables, and Grandma is like, why. 'Why can't they have whatever they want?' And I’m like--these were your rules. Don't you remember? 'No, no, I don't remember ever making you eat vegetables. Ever.'"



The First Lady closed by toasting the children as "the real heroes."

"I want you all to know just how special you all are," Mrs. Obama said. "Today, we are here to celebrate all of you."

She added, to more laughter, "and no matter what Grandma says, eat your vegetables."

The event also marked Military Spouse Appreciation Day, which falls on May 11. May is National Military Family Month.

Sweet treats and Kitchen Garden gifts...
Before Mrs. Obama's remarks, Executive Chef Cris Comerford led the kids as they made "tea satchet" gifts in the State Dining Room. These were little bags filled with chamomile leaves plucked from the Kitchen Garden, then dried, and sweetened with honey from the White House beehive. (Above: Comerford and two assistant chefs at the satchet station)

"They worked very hard on them, they were very focused, very creative, very diligent," Mrs. Obama said of the kids.

At a different station, chief florist Laura Dowling helped the kids make flower gifts. These were 5-inch-tall pots of wheatgrass, embellished with green orchids and big orange roses. (Above: A boy kneels to write a card)

Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses and Assistant Pastry Chef Susie Morrison helped the kids frost special cookies--and there was some nibbling going on, of course. Yosses was quick with a bottle of hand sanitizer, reminding the kids to clean up.

Staff also helped the children make Mother's Day cards, and tie their gifts with bows. There were many ooohs and ahhs as the boys and girls flooded into the East Room to present the gifts to the moms and grandmothers. There were about 32 kids, ages 5-12, and they were giddy but very well behaved. (Above: The kids were thrilled with the Bo cookies)

Dr. Biden also spoke, praising all, and said that as a military mother who endured a difficult year while her son Bo Biden was deployed in Iraq, she is honored to co-lead the Joining Forces campaign. Mrs. Obama was introduced by Jennifer Griffin Pilcher, the spouse of CDR Eddie Pilcher, a US Navy pilot currently stationed at VR-1 Joint Base Andrews, who has 16 years of active duty service. The family moved six times in 12 years, Biden told the audience. (Above: A longhsot as Dr. Biden speaks)

Pilcher co-founded Military1Click.com, which offers online support and services for military families, and thanked the First Lady and Dr. Biden for the intense job-creating push that has been a part of the Joining Forces campaign since it was launched last year. The Pilcher children, Katie, 9 and Griffin, 6, joined their mother at the Tea.

The First Lady and Dr. Biden went from table to table to greet guests and pose for photos after their remarks. Floral arrangements on the eleven tables for ten were hot pink, mauve and violet roses with lilacs and greens in low vases. Tablecloths were soft green with an embroidered floral pattern. The china pattern was the George W. Bush State China. Each table had tiny pots of White House honey for the guests to use in their tea. (Above: A flower arrangement)

After the party, the First Lady and Dr. Biden went to the Naval Observatory, the Bidens' residence, where they joined Congressional spouses in making care packages for Mother's Day on behalf of deployed soldiers. These will be gifted to the soldiers' mothers and spouses.

Joining Forces 2012 Mother's Day Tea Menu
Shaved Ham on Buttermilk Biscuits
with orange Marmalade

Tuna Tartare
with Toasted Rice Crispies

Cucumber Sandwiches

Mini Chicken Sandwiches

Mini Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Blueberry Scones
with White House jams

Fruit Tarts

Coconut Cake

"Bo" Sugar Cookies
with milk

Assorted teas and fruit juices

Above, a waiter carries plates with fingers sandwiches and baked treats to guests.

Update, May 13: On Mother's Day, the White House released a video of the kids doing crafts, and sending greetings to their moms, filmed in the China Room.



The transcript of Mrs. Obama's remarks is here.
*Photos and additional reporting by Helena Bottemiller for Obama Foodorama