"All the president’s Olympic cronies"

For Michelle Malkin's expose on who wins and who loses if Chicago wins the 2016 Olympics, click here.

September is proving to be a cruel month for the Transformer-in-Chief.

Early in the month Van Jones, President Obama’s czar in charge of “green jobs,” resigned after having been unmasked as an avowed Communist with Marxist ideas. Jones was fired in order to short-circuit scrutiny of Jones’ ties to Leftist front groups which in turn have ties to the President. Too late: thanks to the likes of Glenn Beck, the Jones affair opened up an avenue of inquiry into the Obama White House’s ties to radical activists and their incendiary political philosophy.

Next, Obama made his much hyped address to Congress to pitch his health care plan. The highlight of the speech was the “You Lie!” charge which earned Republican Rep. Joe Wilson a rebuke by Congress and about 2 million dollars in online contributions. But the accusation only put the spotlight on Obama’s fantastic assertions about his plan, causing the politicians to promise to remove language in the bill that Obama insisted didn’t exist in the first place.

Days later hundreds of thousands of Americans-- from all 50 states and of all colors and political orientations—gathered in Washington for what must have been the most easy-going protest rally in history. The trigger may have been the health “reform” cram-down effort, but the Tea Party rallies which culminated in the Washington march were about much more. Americans are fed up with the arrogance of politicians and the ambitions of government in all its many forms.

Then came the two kids with a hidden camera. These are the ones who vamped as a prostitute and a pimp through 5 ACORN offices across the country and caught a bunch of committed "community organizers" in the act of encouraging tax fraud, prostitution, and abetting the exploitation of minors. The Decrepit Media first ignored and then dismissed the revelations, choosing instead to aim their guns at the callow youths who took the videos (perhaps to distract us from the media's own shameful failures in the expose' department).

The politicians acted quickly to cover their backsides. ACORN has been thrown overboard by the Census Bureau, the IRS and even Barney Frank, and a major Administration ally in its Progressive war against Americans is now in disarray. More revelations are sure to follow.

By September’s end Obama’s largest domestic policy initiative was bogged down in the Senate, and the prospect of a catastrophic legislative failure led liberals to double down on their attacks on Americans as racists. Jimmy Carter, our nation’s worst white president, asserted that most who oppose Obama do so because he is black. This makes sense only if you believe Americans largely opposed Bill Clinton’s attempted health care overhaul in the 1990s for the same reason.

Barack Obama himself had to reel in the race bait on the Sunday talk shows by stating that he doesn’t agree with Carter’s assertion.

But where Obama has run into the choppiest waters is in foreign policy. In the last 2 weeks alone Obama has reneged on a deal by the previous administration to place land-based missile interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic, has signaled hesitancy about his Afghanistan strategy, and has groveled before the “tyrants of Teheran,” as Benjamin Netanyahu refers to the criminal regime in Iran. Even the Old Media has acknowledged the troubling policy confusion on the President’s part.

In the case of Afghanistan, Obama’s commitment to the “good war” is in doubt. During the campaign he promised to draw down troops from Iraq and send more to Afghanistan. Now that General McChrystal has asked for many thousands more troops to stave off a disaster in that war, Obama can’t seem to decide if it’s worth the risks. A decision to turn down the general’s request will rightly be seen as a failure to support his own policy.

President Obama now stands revealed for the panderer and appeaser of despotic regimes and authoritarian dictators that we suspected he is. His performance at the opening of the U.N. General assembly was dismaying and sickening, especially in contrast to the bracing and morally clarifying speech made by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While Netanyahu effectively called the U.N. a disgrace for failing to condemn Iran, Obama blamed his own predecessor for America's standing in the Arab world.

Obama fancies himself as mediator-in-chief, appearing to rise above his country's interests in order to bring the disparate factions of the world together in a new global order without nuclear weapons or global warming. But the Great Mediator sides with the socialist former Honduran strongman Zelaya over the country’s constitutionally appointed government. He offers to sit down with the duplicitous Iranian regime even yet says nothing in defense of the Iranian people who had their election stolen from them.

And he puts Israel on the “chopping block” (John Bolton’s words) by ensuring that any failure of “peace talks” between Israel and the Palestinians will be blamed on Israel.

So September has indeed been a cruel month for the President. As his poll numbers plummet, his centerpiece legislation languishes on Capitol Hill. His efforts to blame Republicans for the Democrats’ failure have fallen flat. His foreign policy is in disarray.

In the meantime the threat from Iran and other terrorist regimes grows with each passing day. If something isn’t done about it soon, there will be more cruel months ahead.

Not just for Barack Obama, but for all of us.

"Turning the Senate into the Chicago City Council"

Newt Gingrich on the Democrat's threat to use the reconciliation process to jam a health bill
through the Senate:

“Using the budget reconciliation process to pass health reform and climate change legislation…would violate the intent and spirit of the budget process, and do serious injury to the constitutional role of the Senate.”

These are not the words of a Republican or a conservative activist.This is a warning issued on April 2 of this year from the former Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate, Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.). He was referring to a dangerous assault on American freedom as it is protected by the constitutional balance of power -- an assault that is being considered by the Obama Administration right now.

“We Pour Legislation into the Senatorial Saucer to Cool It”

The Founding Fathers designed the Constitution and our government to guard against political power grabs by slowing down the process of making laws.They insisted that the Senate had to be a deliberative body to slow down the passions of the House and stop mob rule from destroying freedom.

In a famous conversation between the two presidents, Thomas Jefferson is said to have asked George Washington why the Framers had agreed to a second chamber in Congress at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?" Washington asked him. "To cool it," said Jefferson. "Even so," said Washington, "we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it."

The Founders Relied on the Senate to Carefully Consider Before They Commit Us to a New Law.

One of the key means by which the Senate slows down the legislative process is through the filibuster. Unlike in the House, in the Senate, even a small group of senators can hold up a bill by threatening to continuously debate it.

It takes the votes of three-fifths of the Senate, or 60 senators, to end a filibuster. This means that it effectively takes 60 votes to pass a controversial piece of legislation or nomination.And again, this is for good reason. The Founders looked to the House to more directly reflect the will of the people. They relied on the Senate to take a step back and carefully consider a bill before they commit the American people and our resources to it.

A Revolutionary Act Worthy of a Third World Country

I have taken this brief tour of American constitutional history to make an important point: The Obama Administration clearly has concluded it cannot get a big government health plan through the Senate if they accept the traditional, historic requirement of a 60-vote majority.

It is also clear left-wing activists would cheerfully destroy the integrity of the Senate and the freedoms it protects if that is what it takes to get a government-run, bureaucratic health care system which would expand their power and increase the importance of Washington.Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Democratic majority leader, has warned that a failure to get 60 votes would lead him to try to force through a bill with 50 senators and Vice President Joe Biden breaking the tie.

Changing one-sixth of the American economy with 50 senators voting yes would be a revolutionary act worthy of a third world country.

Senator Byrd: “Reconciliation was Intended to Adjust Revenue and Spending Levels in Order to Reduce Deficits”

The Obama Administration and Sen. Reid are considering getting around the 60-vote majority rule in the Senate by using a process called “reconciliation.” Under reconciliation, just 51 votes are required to pass a bill.

Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, whom I quoted at the beginning of this message, has unique authority on reconciliation. Not only is he the author of a remarkable history of the Senate (four volumes published between 1989 and 1995), he was, as he wrote, “one of the authors of the reconciliation process,” which was created in 1985.

Here is what he said about using reconciliation to pass things like health care reform: “I can tell you that the ironclad parliamentary procedures it authorizes were never intended for this purpose. Reconciliation was intended to adjust revenue and spending levels in order to reduce deficits.”

Sen. Byrd concluded with this warning: “The Senate cannot perform its constitutional role if senators forego debate and amendments. I urge senators to jealously guard their individual rights to represent their constituents on such critical matters.”

For 20 Years, I Was Told to Be Patient When Conservatives Couldn’t Muster 60 Votes

For 20 years as a member of the House, I was told to be patient when conservative reforms could not muster 60 votes or a conservative nomination could not get 60 votes.

For the last decade I was told to be patient when reforms conservatives wanted and personnel conservatives wanted were blocked by the lack of 60 votes in the Senate.

Now after a lifetime of sustaining the constitutional role of the Senate, we find that the left wants to suspend the normal constitutional process so they can ram through a gigantic government run health program immediately.

Every American Who Cherishes the Institutions That Have Preserved Our Liberty Will Tell Their Senators to Fight

We are being told the Obama agenda is so important we should destroy the Senate and make it more like the House of Representatives.

This radical action may make sense to President Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior strategist David Axelrod, all of whom come from Chicago and are used to seeing the Chicago City Council muscled by a strong mayor on behalf of a machine.

However, every American who cherishes freedom and appreciates the institutions that have preserved us from tyranny will be telling their senators to preserve the integrity of the Senate and preserve the protections of American liberty.

This fight over process may turn out to be even more important than the fight over the substance of the big government, big bureaucracy, high-tax health bill they want.

When both process and policy are wrong there is something very bad going on.

Leno Lays an Acorn...

...and its pretty funny. Take a look here.

I saw that Jon Stewart actually made fun of the "mainstream" media for sitting on their thumbs while a bunch of young conservative punks with a hidden camera and a couple of hundred dollars exposed the Acorn scam. He said "I am a fake journalist and I'm embarrassed!"

Its pretty sad when a bunch of comedians and clowns breaks more news than professional journalists. Come to think of it, the mainstream media is a joke, so I guess journalists are clowns too.

"Banks back from the Brink"

That was the pronouncement I saw crawling across the screen this morning on CNBC. The "brink" is the near collapse of the financial system and credit markets which were (supposedly) triggered by the demise of Lehman Brothers a year ago.

Its nice to know that CNBC--not known for the depth of its financial analysis or
its economic forecasting prowess--thinks that the banking system is on the mend.

Perhaps. But liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz has a different view. The iconoclastic former World Bank executive and Clinton economic advisor has been sharply critical of the government's failure to "fix" the banks. He says that the "too big-to-fail" banks have become even bigger since Lehman's demise, thanks to government bailouts, guarantees and the sweet credit spreads owing to the Fed's zero bound monetary policy.

In Stiglitz's view, the banks must shrink in size and their structures must be simplified in order for them to find their way to back to health. He also believes that executive compensation, bonuses and incentives need to be drastically curtailed through regulation--not surprising for a critic of free market economics. Despite the Obama administration's threatening tone regarding oversight of the financial sector, Stiglitz says Obama proposes nothing that will fix the problem.

I don't agree with Stiglitz's politics, his economic orientation or his solutions, which depend far too much on the regulatory machinery of the U.S. and foreign governments than on free market principles. But he is clearly right when he suggests that the banking crisis has not been solved or ameliorated by anything the government has done in the past year.

Stiglitz, a former advisor to President Obama, is reported to have said that whoever designed the Obama administration's bank rescue plan is “either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent." Maybe he was wrong. Maybe its both.

*****************************

Speaking of Lehman Brothers, the U.K. Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard admonishes media types who claim that the Lehman collapse caused the "great credit contraction" of 2008-2009. The demise of the investment bank--and the near collapse of Merrill, Goldman and Morgan Stanley--was the inevitable result of a western economy mired in debt and an Asian economy addicted to exports.

For its part, the western economies engaged in what he calls "Greenspanism--"

Central banks rescued assets each time there was a hiccup, but let booms run unchecked. They pulled "real" rates ever lower, creating addiction to monetary stimulus. Larger doses were required with each cycle, until we hit zero, and it is still not enough.

--while the Asian economies poured their 5 trillion dollars in reserves into western government bonds, accelerating the fall in interest rates and feeding the growing global credit bubble.

Evans-Pritchard notes that the bursting of that bubble continues to roil the global economy, as evidenced by contracting consumer credit in the U.S., a dearth of global demand for manufactured goods and a glut of industrial capacity. The dismal effects of all this have been masked--somewhat--by massive worldwide government stimulus.

At some point the limits of fiscal stimulus will have been reached. The question is: where do we go from there?

************************

As if to lend credence to Evans-Pritchard's thesis, Tim Congdon of International Monetary Research told the U.K. Telegraph that U.S. bank loans have shrunk by an annualized rate of 14% in the three months ended August 31. "There has been nothing like this in the U.S.A. since the 1930s," he told the Telegraph. "The rapid destruction of money balances is madness."

"Money balances" is a fancy term for "credit," which basically is defined as loans from banks and M3 money supply. The money supply has declined by a 5% annual rate.

The irony is that the effort by monetary authorities to inject massive amounts of capital into the banking sector in order to improve their balance sheets has had a "perverse consequence" of destroying credit.

Inflation may the worst nightmare of consumers and creditors. Not so the central bankers of the world. The thing that wakes them up at night drenched in a cold sweat is the prospect of chronic deflation in credit, wages and assets that no amount of printing and monetization can reverse.

If Evans-Pritchard and Congdon are right, then the world's central bankers may indeed have reason for worry.

Why Are Jews Liberals?

That question is often asked of me by non-Jewish friends and acquaintances. I am usually at a loss for an answer.

In a lucid and insightful piece in The Wall Street Journal, Norman Podhoretz, icon of what has come to be known as "neo-conservativism," gives his best shot at an answer. He admits that during the campaign of 2008 he harbored hopes that Jews would vote Democratic in significantly fewer numbers than usual owing to John McCain's strong and consistent pro-Israel stance and Barack Obama's troubling associations with an anti-Semitic pastor (Jeremiah Wright and a pro-Palestinian intellectual (Rashid Khalidi). Alas, Jews were undeterred, voting for Obama over McCain by 78% to 22%.

Podhoretz covers familiar ground in explaining that American Jewish fealty to the Democrat Party grew out of the religious-ethnic coalitions forged by FDR in the 1930s (itself almost inexplicable when one uncovers the true extent of FDR's antipathy towards Jews and his despicable Anti-Jewish Holocaust policies). But unlike all other members of that coalition save for blacks, Jews have steadfastly refused to break from the party of their hero, even as that party has drifted ever leftward.

Podhoretz hits his stride as he posits that without a belief in the Bible and a G-d who controls the universe, American secular Jews have created their own religion, with a liturgy and catechism all its own. That religion is liberalism, and its dogmas--"social justice," abortion, gun control, gay rights and environmentalism--are pursued with an evangelical fervor. (I would add that universal health care is the holy grail of liberalism, which is why its would-be deliverer is nothing short of a messiah). These Jews have convinced themselves that the pursuit of their beloved liberal ideals is the highest expression of "Jewish values."

Yet it is those Jews who are most familiar with real "Jewish values" as expressed in the Bible, the Talmud and the rest of the body of Jewish thought who are least likely to become smitten with liberal causes and thus most likely to vote Republican. Orthodox Jews are many times more likely to vote for conservatives and Republicans than are secular Jews precisely because they reject liberalism's supposed link to Jewish sensibilities. It makes you wonder whether non-religious Jews are so removed from the faith of their fathers and grandfathers that they have forgotten what "Jewish Values" really are. (Hint: abortion and gay rights are not among them).

Sadly, what American Jews share with many liberals is a deep distrust of American values and traditions. They see intolerance and injustice and oppression at every turn, and tend to look to other cultures and societies--even totalitarian ones--as models for our own. And yet, says Podhoretz, it is America that has offered Jews the greatest material and spiritual opportunity of any nation in history:

American Jewry surely belongs with the conservatives rather than the liberals. For the social, political and moral system that liberals wish to transform is the very system in and through which Jews found a home such as they had never discovered in all their forced wanderings throughout the centuries over the face of the earth...Surely, then, we Jews ought to be joining with its defenders against those who are blind or indifferent or antagonistic to the philosophical principles, the moral values, and the socioeconomic institutions on whose health and vitality the traditional American system depends.

After suggesting that there are encouraging signs that American Jews are beginning to develop "buyer's remorse" when it comes to Barack Obama, Podhoretz concludes: "I am hoping against hope that the exposure of Mr. Obama as a false messiah will at last open the eyes of my fellow Jews to the correlative falsity of the political creed he so perfectly personifies and to which they have for so long been so misguidedly loyal."

Having waited myself for some sign of a Jewish awakening to reality, I share Mr. Podhoretz's hope. But I would suggest that neither of us hold our breaths.

Full article here.

"moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words"

The hard part about blogging is trying to come up with something to say that isn't being said better by someone else. This is especially true of something--anything-- said by Dr. Thomas Sowell, the brilliant columnist, thinker, author and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute.

Dr. Sowell has come up with perhaps the best post-Obama Health Care speech analysis I have yet seen. He proves through simple logic the lies at the heart of Obama's speech last night, lies so obvious that one wonders why he gave the speech at all.

Dr. Sowell's point can be summarized by the following grafs, pertaining to Obama's denials that ObamaCare will inevitable and necessarily lead to rationing and waiting times in the style of the U.K. and Canada:

Obama can deny it in words but what matters are deeds-- and no one's words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds-- whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists.

President Obama has also declared emphatically that he will not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations-- while telling the Israelis where they can and cannot build settlements and telling the Hondurans whom they should and should not choose to be their president.

And Sowell isn't the only one out there with a mighty pen. Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal wonders why, with unemployment heading to 10%, Obama is "draining a dwindling reservoir of presidential capital on health care?" (memo to Henninger: unemployment including discouraged job-seekers and part-time workers who can't find full time work is closer to 17%). Henninger doesn't say it, but a Republican who turned his back on an economy as fragiles as this one would be pilloried.

Henninger's point is Obama has not only failed to learn from the failure of Hillarycare but he has failed to inernalize James Carville's message posted on desks in the 1992 Clinton campaign War Room--"its the economy stupid." In the face of an economy which has 87% of the pubic dissatisfied, " Barack Obama's mad obsession with arcane health-insurance puzzles looks beside the point."

Henninger believes that Obama's single-minded focus on a new health-care bureaucracy and budget-busting entitlement program when the economy is on fire could lead to unprecedented losses for Democrats in 2010. Says Henninger, "this could be America's greatest failed presidency." (From his mouth to G-d's ears!).

And then there is radio talk show host and columnist Hugh Hewitt, who doesn't think people are as stupid as Obama apparently does. Hewitt believes that seniors hold the keys to the kingdom in the health care debate (did I say debate? I forgot; the time for debating is over). According to Hewitt:

Seniors know that you cannot drain $500 or more billion dollars from medicare and deliver the same benefits as are delivered today. You cannot make deep cuts in Medicare Advantage and not lower the standard of living for many seniors.

Seniors are afraid, and they are right to be afraid, and nothing the president said in his speech will make them less afraid because he did not discuss their fears --he dismissed them.

Hugh Hewitt thinks that "not a mind was changed" last night. I disagree--it is quite possible that once people who were on the fence digest the audacity and tone of Obama's speech and the internal inconsistencies therein, many will conclude that neither the government nor Obama can be trusted with their lives.

'Freeze Building and I Will Be Your Friend’

This is disgusting, if true. Especially this part:

Suffering a severe drop in support on his health reform plan, the war in Afghanistan and the issue of torture of prisoners, President Obama is anxious for a breakthrough in the stalled Middle East peace process.

So Israel has to pay the price for Obama's stupendous failures?

And this one:

The U.S. may agree to allow Israel to complete construction that already is underway but will refuse to agree to a thaw in the building freeze if negotiations sputter.

In other words, Israel has to agree to a permanent building freeze in all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem before the Palestinians will agree to negotiations. And if the talks "sputter," Israel takes it in the shorts.

Oh, by the way, Israel has also to agree to stop demolishing illegal Arab buildings in Jerusalem.

Get it? Israel must force Jews to stop building on legally owned or rented lands. Israel must permit Arabs to build illegally on land it doesn't own.

The sick thing is that Israel PM Bibi Netanyahu seems set to agree to this, according to reports. Maybe he has no choice, given the veto power the U.S. has over Israel's right to defend itself from an increasing nihilist Iran. But such an agreement is a fool's errand, for it will neither buy Obama's friendship nor further Israel's security interests.

In fact it will do the opposite, for once again Israel will have given up something of value in return for nothing. Not even promises.

And once Israel signals to a hostile world that the rights of Jews in the Jewish State are subject to negotiation and abrogation, there'll be no end to the attempts to nibble away at those rights.

This is bad. Very bad.

My Letter to the PTA and Schools re: Obamaganda

Sorry. I am still stewing over this brazen and unprecedented attempt by President Obama to indoctrinate our kids.

Here is an email I am sending to the PTA and the administration of the five schools that my kids attend:

To the Members of the PTA and Administration:

My son, ____ is a sixth grade student at _____.

I am sure by now you know that President Obama will be addressing all of our
nation's schoolchildren on September 8th at noon.

I am concerned and outraged by this unprecedented interruption of class or educational time for the injection of politics into our public schools.

I would be similarly outraged (as would be the entire academic, political and media establishment) if this had been attempted by a president of the opposite party.

Perhaps the speech itself will be an inspirational call to hard work and excellence, with no political subtext, no express or subtle call to action on the President's political agenda.

However, we have reason to be suspicious, given the timing of the event (i.e., the same week as the President's address to a joint session of Congress on health care
and the 8th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11, which President Obama wants to set aside as a National Day of Service).

Lending to the atmosphere of suspicion about the President's motives is the "menu of
classroom activities" prepared by the Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education.

I urge you review the attached "menu" of suggested classroom and follow-up activities and ask yourself whether it is appropriate for our students.

Even if you support President Obama and his agenda, would you be comfortable with this no matter the party or the the domestic priorities of the president or administration?

Please advise what actions if any the PTA/school is recommending for parents who are not comfortable with this attempt to politicize of our children.

Thank you.

Obama to Our Kids: "Can You Help Me?"

Here is the "Menu of Classroom Activities" sent to all elementary and high school principals nationwide along with a letter exhorting them to be part of "history" as President Barack Obama becomes the first president to directly address our nation's students:

Menu of Classroom Activities
President Obama’s Address to Students Across America
(PreK-6)

Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education

September 8, 2009

Before the Speech

· Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama. Teachers could motivate students by asking the following questions:

Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be president?
To whom do you think the president is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?

· Teachers can ask students to imagine that they are delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States.

If you were the president, what would you tell students?
What can students do to help in our schools?
Teachers can chart ideas about what students would say.

· Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech

As the president speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a “cluster web;” or, students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children could draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:

What is the president trying to tell me?
What is the president asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the president challenging me to think about?

· Students could record important parts of the speech where the president is asking them to do something. Students might think about the following:

What specific job is he asking me to do?
Is he asking anything of anyone else?
Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

· Students could record questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.

After the Speech

Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes, or place notes on a butcher-paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, such as citizenship, personal responsibility, and civic duty.

Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:

What do you think the president wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the president?

Extension of the Speech

Teachers could extend learning by having students:

· Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants, puzzle pieces, or trails marked with the following labels: personal, academic, community, and country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in that area. It might make sense to focus first on personal and academic goals so that community and country goals can be more readily created.

· Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. Teachers would collect and redistribute these letters at an appropriate later date to enable students to monitor their progress.

· Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
· Interview one another and share goals with the class to create a supportive community.
· Participate in school-wide incentive programs or contests for those students who achieve their goals.
· Write about their goals in a variety of genres, such as poems, songs, and personal essays.
· Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
· Graph individual progress toward goals.

Outraged yet?