Education in the US today

With a highly motivated and caring 26 years old daughter in her second year of teaching school in the Bronx, one becomes more aware of the myriad problems in the education world than possible without that contact. Since our three children all went to private schools with the exception of 2 years at middle school (7th and 8th grades) when there was no private alternative to the local public schools, I cannot lay claim to knowing much about the public system that serves 95% (or more) of the public at large. Given that not everyone a) wants to send their children to private schools, or b) can afford private education, it's probably a good idea for the wellbeing of the country that the public education system operates at a high level of efficiency and achievement. Sadly it is very clear this is not the case in the US today, for many reasons. Before getting into at least some of the reasons the system doesn't work very well now, let me add that there are many, probably very many school districts where the system does work quite well.
Since public school funding is based on taxes, good schools are obviously located where the revenue base is higher, right? Guess again. Not always the case! Per capita funding for Washington DC school districts is at the highest percentile in the country and the performance of the students in this district is in the bottom percentile. Obviously much more is at work in terms of student and school performance than just funding. Democrats don't want to recognize this fact, and that is why they routinely oppose school choice vouchers which allow parents to take the tax allocated amount per student per year, and find a better alternative than their non performing current school in the private world. The introduction of market based competition is anathema to democrats and their single biggest constituency, school teachers. Teachers unions are formidable lobbying machines and they are committed to the democrat party. I recall reading once that the majority of all the several thousand delegates to the Democrat Convention (where the party platform is determined) in one recent year were school teachers. Contrast this with the delegates to the Republican convention where, I'm going to guess here, you could count the school teacher delegates on one hand. The public school system in the US has been inhibited, rendered inefficient and unaccountable by its unions, and therein lies the bulk of the problem of making improvements that could make a difference in the quality of the product offered to students and their parents. The negative influence of unions, in our economy at large and specifically on the quality of the education now offered to children K-12, is highlighted in the following quote from the head of the Patriot's Website, Mark Alexander. (While somewhat lengthy, this quote presents the extent of the unions's negative influence on our school system quite clearly.)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Labor Day State of the Unions

In 1983, the first year for which the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics filed comparable union data, 20.1 percent of employed wage and salary workers were union members. In 1950, that number was estimated at 35 percent. According to the most recent data from the BLS, fewer than 12 percent of employed wage and salary workers are union members, down from 12.5 percent in 2005.

Government-worker (oxymoron?) unions are, of course, the fastest growing, because there is little fiscal accountability in government. Per capita, government unionization is five times that of the private sector, because the government is not subject to free-market accountability. Worse yet, the highest rate of government unionization is among those in education, training and library occupations. These are the folks entrusted to educate the next generation of voters.

Today, some 15.4 million Americans belong to labor unions—and many would rather not. I fall into that latter category. Yes, I confess. I, Mark Alexander, was once a union member.

A decade ago, in another life, I was hired to provide consultation for a big-screen production about Russian organized crime and nuclear terrorism—a subject I know a bit about (not because of any association with jihadis or Russian crime syndicates).

In order to work on this project, which included some script writing, I had to join a screenwriters’ union; I had no choice in the matter. Of course, I objected strenuously, but they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

My experience with the writers’ union provided some real insights into why union demands have destroyed so many private-sector companies. For example, on short notice, I was sent to Moscow to meet with screenplay writers. My first-class seat cost almost $8,000 (that’s eight large!). A seat in coach cost about $1,300. Union rules required the production company to fly me first class. Of course, since I had to “endure this benefit” one way or the other, I asked if I could fly coach and benefit by pocketing the difference. Of course not.

Once in Moscow, union rules also required five-star hotels—at $800 per day. (Ironically, a big chunk of our lodging and meal per diem probably went straight to the same Russian crime syndicates we were investigating.)

Here I’m reminded of a speech a former Screen Actors Guild president gave back in 1957: “Some of us came toe to toe with this enemy, this evil force in our own community in Hollywood... Back in the thirties, a man, who was apparently just a technician, came to Hollywood to take a job in our industry, an industry whose commerce is in tinsel and colored lights and make-believe. He went to work in the studios, and [it was later discovered] that he came to our town on direct orders from the Kremlin. When he quietly left our town a few years later, the cells had been formed and planted in virtually all of our organizations, our guilds and unions. The framework for the Communist front organizations had been established.”

That was, of course, Ronald Reagan.

So, some sixty years later, a labor guild, seeded by a Soviet Union pawn of the Communist proletariat, is mandating that I travel first class—to Moscow. Go figure. Only in tinsel town, where extreme profligacy is now routine, could such extravagance survive free-enterprise accountability.

I am pleased to report that today the only union card I carry is from the American Conservative Union! But many friends, who are teachers, defense workers, freight drivers and the like, are stuck with organized-labor-union cards.

Monday is Labor Day, and it is certainly fitting that we honor American laborers each year by relaxing with brew and burnt offerings on grills (or completing honey-do lists around our house). However, the word “labor” no longer refers solely to those who produce goods and provide services. These days, it also refers to organized crime, er, uh, “labor.”

Now, I do not oppose “the right of the people peaceably to assemble,” as outlined in the First Amendment to our Constitution, but what about the commensurate rights of those who want not to assemble?

Currently, only 21 states are “right to work” states, those states which do not allow unions to force employees, in companies where unions have established a foothold, to join those unions. As for the other 29 states, congressional conservatives have revived the National Right to Work Act (H. 697, S. 1301), which stands no chance of passage under current leadership.

Not only do Democrats oppose any legislation that might interfere with campaign donations from unions, they are trying to cut the budget of the Office of Labor Management Standards, which monitors disclosure forms from unions, and provide members access to information about how their dues are spent.

According to a recent OLMS report evaluated by The Wall Street Journal, “[I]n 2005, the National Education Association gave $65 million to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and dozens of other liberal advocacy groups that have nothing to do with the interests of teachers. In 2006, 49 individuals employed at the national AFL-CIO headquarters were paid more than $130,000.”

OLMS also played a key role in obtaining convictions against 775 corrupt union leaders and court-ordered restitution to union members of $70 million in illegal dues payments over the last six years. No wonder union-beholden Democrats want to slash the OLMS budget.

One union watchdog organization, Union Facts online, reports, “Of the AFL-CIO’s $82 million in discretionary disbursements from July 2004 to June 2005, only 36 percent went to representing members in labor negotiations—which is what unions were created to do. A whopping $49 million, or 60 percent of its budget, instead went to political activities and lobbying, while another $2.4 million went to contributions, gifts and grants.”

Union Facts reports further: “The National Institute for Labor Relations Research estimated that total union political expenditures reached $925 million in the 2004 cycle. Over time, this has added up: According to The Center for Responsive Politics, eight of the top ten all-time political contributors are labor unions... CNN exit polls showed that 38 percent of union members voted for President Bush in the 2004 election, but more than 95 percent of union funds went to support Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.”

Ah, yes, Jean-Francois Kerry, that 400-million dollar, seven-mansion, 500-buck hair-styled man of the people.

Unions also spend a lot of their members’ dues on Leftist state and local political initiatives their members do not support. For example, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “California unions spent $88,000 opposing Proposition 22, a state ballot initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.” Yet a Los Angeles Times exit poll found that 58 percent of union households had voted “yes” on the measure.

So what of the future of labor organizations? The good news is that because free-market accountability is putting downward pressure on private-sector unionization, those unions may bargain their membership right out of existence. The bad news is, because government unions are not subject to any free-market accountability, the sky’s the limit.

Let’s see—government unions seize and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Democrat campaigns. Democrats then seize and spend hundreds of billions of dollars enlarging government, thus, enlarging unions. Where does that lead?

Ronald Reagan punned, “Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” The same can be said of government unions.

Happy Labor Day!

For further information on Unions, visit Union Facts online, the National Right to Work Committee and the National Legal and Policy Center’s union corruption update index.

Quote of the week

“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy... What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good? Not really great ones because if you’re really smart you go, ‘I can’t win’.” —Apple CEO Steve Jobs on how technology in the classroom will do little to improve education without the reining-in of the power of the teachers’ unions."
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PaulJacob/2007/09/02/stop_the_bus,_my_kid_is_getting_off

It is safe to say the education crises is largely in the lower income category of families and for this reason some of the factors aside from the negative union influence at work creating the problem are worth looking at. First, based on my daughter's experience last year in a "projects" school in the Bronx (which serves the lowest income category of student) the biggest hurdle for the system to over come is the single parent family. In my daughter's first grade class of 30 students last year none of the children were the porduct of a two parent family. All were ator below the poverty level which triggers free lunches. Many of the fathers were serving jail time. There was almost no parental involvement in the school,(little or no attendance at parent - teacher conferences), and no interaction between the students and their parents with homework assignments and the like. In other words the children were on their own and the teachers were left to make up the parental shortfall as best they could.

As regards the teachers, all were black and/or hispanic (as were the students), with the exception of my daughter and one or two others who were a part of the Bloomberg plan instituted several years ago to bring talented outsiders in to the system in an attempt to stimulate the lifer-teachers who essentially managed the behaviour of students in the classroom in lieu of of any serious attempt to teach. My daughter told story after story of teacher indifference and even neglect and the hostility directed towards her for her enthusiasm and diligence. Mostly the lifer-teachers give out assignments on the board and retreat to the hallways where they chat and socialize with each other instead of staying in the classroom and working with those who may be having difficulty with the assignment. Keeping motivated teachers and ridding the system of the lifers should be one of the major objectives of a reform movement And yet as this article from the Seattle Journal suggests, attracting and keeping the motivated teachers is not an objective of the education establishment here. Overcoming the union influence and protection of mediocre teachers (which is most of them) is an unstated objective of the Bloomberg reform plan. My daughter, now in her second year of teaching, is involved in one of these reform projects. While still located in the Bronx, she is no longer teaching in the "projects" Bronx but in a part of the Bronx of mostly single family housing where many of her sixth graders come from two parent homes. Her new school was designated as a failed (non-performing) school by Bloomberg's administration and declared subject to radical changes or closure. She is one of a team of teachers selected by a new principal to take over the failed school in a phased manner. The radical change is a new principal responsible for selecting all the teachers for the school, and the implementation of programs the principal and teachers feel will advance the learning of the students.

The WOT perfectly explained

I just received the following "essay" from a friend. The friend's comments precede those of the author of the "essay". I concur completely with my friend's comments regarding the cogency and urgency of these remarks, which speak forcefully and to my mind accurately about the threat this country and the West faces from the Muslims who want us all dead. Everyone should read and think about the thoughts expressed here because our fate and the future of our children and grandchildren are at stake. As regards the political fallout from this threat, I am now leaning toward supporting Rudy Gulliani for POTUS (after contributing cash to Mitt Romney's campaign), because I think Gulliani's experiences as Mayor of NYC during and after 9/11 may very well best qualify him to recognize the seriousness of our predictament and help provide the moral clarity to do what is necessary to defeat the Muslims and neutralize their idiot sympathizers wherever they are.

> This is the most cogent and powerful essay on the
> threat of Islamic terrorism I have seen. Dr.
> Vernon Chong is without a doubt the most articulate
> and convincing writing I have read regarding the War
> in Iraq . If you have any doubts please open your
> mind to his essay and give it a fair evaluation.
> It's also eerily applicable to other current issues
> such as Iran 's nuclear program, immigration,
> NAFTA's impact on American jobs, trade deficits,
> etc.. I had no idea who Dr. Chong is, or the
> source of these thoughts, so when I received them I
> almost deleted them, as well- written as they are.
> But then I did a Google search on the Doctor and
> found him to be a retired Air Force surgeon and past
> commander of Wilford Hall Medical Center in San
> Antonio .
>
> If you would like to see who this fellow is, go to
> this Air Force web site and look him up:
> http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5000
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Subject: Muslims, terrorist and the USA : A
> different spin on Iraq war:
>
> This WAR is for REAL!
>
> Dr. Vernon Chong, Major General, USAF, Retired
>
> To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go
> through it. Our country is now facing the most
> serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that
> we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which
> includes WWII).
>
> The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by
> the fact that there are very few of us who think we
> can possibly lose this war and even fewer who
> realize what losing really means.
>
> First, let's examine a few basics:
>
> 1. When did the threat to us start?
>
> Many will say September 11, 2001. The answer as
> far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22
> years prior to September 2001, with the following
> attacks on us:
>
> * Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979;
> * Beirut , Lebanon Embassy 1983;
> * Beirut , Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983;
> * Lockerbie , Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York
> 1988;
> * First New York World Trade Center attack 1993;
> * Dhahran , Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military
> complex 1996;
> * Nairobi , Kenya US Embassy 1998;
> * Dares Salaam , Tanzania US Embassy 1998;
> * A! den, Yemen USS Cole 2000;
> * New York World Trade Center 2001;* Pentagon
> 2001.
>
> (Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001
> there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide).
>
> 2. Why were we attacked?
>
> Envy of our position, our success, and our
> freedoms. The attacks happened during the
> administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush
> 1, Clinton and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the
> Republicans or Democrats as there were no
> provocations by any of the presidents or their
> immediate predecessor, President Ford.
>
> 3. Who were the attackers?
>
> In each case, the attacks on the US were carried
> out by Muslims!
>
> 4. What is the Muslim population of the World?
>
> 25%.
>
> 5. Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful?
>
> Hopefully, but that is really not material. There
> is no doubt that the predominately Christian
> population of Germany was peaceful, but under the
> dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also
> Christian, ?), that made no difference. You either
> went along with the administration or you were
> eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians
> killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including
>
> 7,000 Polish priests).
>
> (see http://www.Nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm
>
> Thus, almost the same number of Christians were
> killed by the Nazis, as the six million holocaust
> Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of
> anything other than the Jewish atrocities. Although
> Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no
> hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of
> exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world -
> German, Christian or any others.
>
> Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the
> world on the US , but kill all in the way -- their
> own people or the Spanish, British, French or anyone
> else. The point here is that just like the peaceful
> Germans were of no protection to anyone from the
> Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may
> be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist
> Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on
> doing -- by their own pronouncements
> -- killing all of us "infidels." I don't blame the
> peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice
> was shut up or die?
>
> 6. So who are we at war with?
>
> There is no way we can honestly respond that it is
> anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to
> be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this
> conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to
> win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate
> who you are fighting.
>
> So with that background, now to the two major
> questions:
>
> 1. Can we lose this war?
>
> 2. What does losing really mean?
>
> If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two
> pivotal questions:
>
> We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous
> as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is
> that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer
> to the second question - What does losing mean?
>
> It would appear that a great many of us think that
> losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the
> troops home and going on about our business, like
> post-Vietnam. This is as far from the truth as one
> can get.
>
> What losing really means is:
>
> We would no longer be the premier country in the
> world. The attacks will not subside, but rather
> will steadily increase. Remember, they want us
> dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us
> quiet, they would not have produced an increasing
> series of attacks against us, over the past 18
> years. The plan was, clearly, for terrorists to
> attack us until we were neutered and submissive to
> them.
>
> We would, of course, have no future support from
> other nations, for fear of reprisals and for the
> reason that they would see; we are impotent and
> cannot help them.
>
> They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations,
> one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for
> them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't
> matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to
> withdraw its troops from Iraq . Spain did it
> because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and
> told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else
> they want Spain to do will be done. Spain is
> finished.
>
> The next will probably be France . Our one hope
> on France is that they might see the light and
> realize that if we don't win, they are finished too,
> in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists
> without us. However, it may already be too late for
> France . France is already 20% Muslim and fading
> fast!
>
> Without our support Great Britain will go too.
> Recently I read that there are more mosques in
> England than churches.
>
> If we lose the war, our production, income,
> exports and way of life will all vanish as we know
> it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us
> if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can't
> stop the Muslim terrorists, how could anyone else?
>
> The radical Muslims fully know what is riding on
> this war, and therefore are completely committed to
> winning, at any cost. We better know it too and be
> likewise committed to winning at any cost.
>
> Why do I go on at such lengths about the results
> of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of
> losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our
> thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going
> to take that 100% effort to win.
>
> So, how can we lose the war?
>
> Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war
> by "imploding." That is, defeating ourselves by
> refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose,
> and really digging in and lending full support to
> the war effort. If we are united, there is no way
> that we can lose. If we continue to be divided,
> there is no way that we can win!
>
> Let me give you a few examples of how we simply
> don't comprehend the life and death seriousness of
> this situation.
>
> President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary
> of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist
> attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and
> 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow
> profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this
> thing seriously? This is war! For the duration, we
> are going to have to give up some of the civil
> rights to which we have become accustomed. We had
> better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights
> temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of
> them permanently.
>
> And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We
> gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII, and
> immediately restored them after the victory and in
> fact added many more since then.
>
> Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton
> before him?
>
> No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can
> maintain all of our Political Correctness, and all
> of our civil rights during this conflict and have a
> clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words
> apply to war. Get them out of your head.
>
> Some have gone so far in their criticism of the
> war and/or the Administration that it almost seems
> they would literally like to see us lose.
>
> I think some actually do, I hasten to add that
> this isn't because they are disloyal. It is because
> they just don't recognize what losing means.
> Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to
> the enemy that we are divided and weakening. It
> concerns our friends, and it does great damage to
> our cause.
>
> Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the
> politicians and media regarding the treatment of
> some prisoners of war, perhaps exemplifies best what
> I am saying. We have recently had an issue,
> involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of
> war, by a small group of our military police. These
> are the type prisoners who just a few months ago
> were throwing their own people off buildings,
> cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues
> and otherwise murdering their own people just for
> disagreeing with Saddam Hussein!
>
> And just a few years ago these same type prisoners
> chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for
> the same reason. They are also the same type of
> enemy fighters, who recently were burning Americans,
> and dragging their charred corpses through the
> streets of Iraq . And still more recently, the same
> type of enemy that was and is providing videos to
> all news sources internationally, of the beheading
> of American prisoners they held.
>
> Compare this with some of our press and
> politicians, who for several days have thought and
> talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of
> some Muslim prisoners -- not burning them, not
> dragging their charred corpses through the streets,
> not beheading them, but "humiliating" them.
>
> Can they be for real?
>
> The politicians and pundits have even talked of
> impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this
> doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and
> understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are
> fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and
> the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing
> can.
>
> To bring our country to a virtual political
> standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look
> like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned --
> totally oblivious to what is going on in the real
> world. Neither we, nor any other country, can
> survive this internal strife. Again I say, this
> does not mean that some of our politicians or media
> people are disloyal. It simply means that they are
> absolutely oblivious to the magnitude of the
> situation we are in and into which the Muslim
> terrorists have been pushing us, for many years.
>
> These people are a serious and dangerous liability
> to the war effort. We must take note of who they
> are and get them out of office. Remember, the
> Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill all
> infidels! That translates into ALL non-Muslims --
> not just in the United States , but throughout the
> world. We are the last bastion of defense.
>
> We have been criticized for many years as being
> 'arrogant.' That charge is valid. We are arrogant
> in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and
> smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all
> those who attack us, and that with both hands tied
> behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the
> world! We can't!
>
> If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know
> it will not survive, and no other free country in
> the world will survive if we are defeated.
>
> And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout
> the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of
> thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the press,
> equal rights for anyone -- let alone everyone, equal
> status or any status for women, or that have been
> productive in one single way that contributes to the
> good of the world.
>
> This has been a long way of saying that we must be
> united on this war or we will be equated in the
> history books to the self- inflicted fall of the
> Roman Empire . If, that is, the Muslim leaders will
> allow history books to be written or read.
>
> If we don't win this war right now, keep a close
> eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next
> 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the
> Muslim population of France and continue to encroach
> little by little, on the established French
> traditions.
>
> The French will be fighting among themselves, over
> what should or should not be done, which will
> continue to weaken them and keep them from any
> united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?
>
> Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away
> from them by some external military force. Instead,
> they give their freedoms away, politically correct
> piece by politically correct piece.
>
> And they are giving those freedoms away to those
> who have shown, worldwide that they abhor freedom
> and will not apply it to you or even to themselves,
> once they are in power.
>
> Muslims have universally shown that when they have
> taken over, they then start brutally killing each
> other over whom will be the few who control the
> masses.
>
> What is happening in Iraq is a good example. Will
> we ever stop hearing from the politically correct,
> about the "peaceful Muslims".
>
> I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I
> said above. If we are united, there is no way that
> we can lose. I hope now, after the election, the
> factions in our country will begin to focus on the
> critical situation we are in, and will unite to save
> our country. It is your future we are talking
> about! Do whatever you can to preserve it. I
> reiterate. A national election is months away.
>
> After reading the above, we all must do this not
> only for ourselves, but our children, our
> grandchildren, our country and the world. Whether
> Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal and
> that includes the Politicians and media of our
> country and the free world!
>
> Please forward this to any you feel may want, or
> NEED to read it. Our "leaders" in Congress ought to
> read it, too. There are those that find fault with
> our country, but it is obvious to anyone who truly
> thinks through this, that we must UNITE!
>
> Lastly, I wish to add: At the risk of offending
> someone, I sincerely think that anyone who rejects
> this as just another political rant, or doubts the
> seriousness of this issue or just deletes it without
> sending it on, is part of the problem. Let's quit
> laughing at and forwarding the jokes and cartoons
> which denigrate and ridicule our leaders in this war
> against terror. They are trying to protect the
> interests and well being of the US and it's
> citizens. Best we support them.
>
> GOD BLESS AMERICA!
>