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Weekly Address: President Obama – Paying Tribute to our Fallen Heroes this Memorial Day

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The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

 

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama commemorated Memorial Day by honoring the brave men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our country. As we stand with our veterans and military families this weekend, the President underscored our commitment to uphold our nation’s sacred trust with our veterans and ensure they get the benefits and opportunities they deserve and have earned.

Transcript: Weekly Address: Paying Tribute to our Fallen Heroes this Memorial Day

Hi, everybody.  It’s Memorial Day weekend – a chance for Americans to get together with family and friends, break out the grill, and kick off the unofficial start of summer.  More importantly, it’s a time to remember the heroes whose sacrifices made these moments possible – our men and women in uniform who gave their lives to keep our nation safe and free.  

From those shots fired at Lexington and Concord more than two centuries ago to our newest generation of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our history shines with patriots who answered the call to serve.  They put their lives on the line to defend the country they loved.  And in the end, many gave that “last full measure of devotion” so that our nation would endure.

Every single one of us owes our fallen heroes a profound debt of gratitude.  Because every time we cast our votes or speak our minds without fear, it’s because they fought for our right to do that. Every chance we get to make a better life for ourselves and our families is possible because generations of patriots fought to keep America a land of opportunity, where anyone – of any race, any religion, from any background – can make it if they try.  Our country was born out of a desire to be free, and every day since, it’s been protected by our men and women in uniform – people who believed so deeply in America, they were willing to give their lives for it.



We owe them so much.   So this Memorial Day, we’ll gather together, as Americans, to honor the fallen, with both public ceremonies and private remembrances.  And I hope all Americans will take a moment this weekend to think of those who have died in service to our nation.  Say a prayer in their memories and for their families.  Lay a flower where they’ve come to rest.  Reach out to service members, military families or veterans in your community, or families who have lost loved ones, and let them know that their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Most of all, let’s keep working to make sure that our country upholds our sacred trust to all who’ve served.  In recent weeks, we’ve seen again how much more our nation has to do to make sure all our veterans get the care they deserve.  As Commander in Chief, I believe that taking care of our veterans and their families is a sacred obligation.  It’s been one of the causes of my presidency.  And now that we’ve ended the war in Iraq, and as our war in Afghanistan ends as well, we have to work even harder as a nation to make sure all our veterans get the benefits and opportunities they’ve earned.  They’ve done their duty, and they ask nothing more than that this country does ours – now and for decades to come.

Happy Memorial Day, everybody.  May God watch over our fallen heroes.  And may He continue to bless the United States of America.

Bolding added.

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9 comments

  1. JanF



    Transcript

    The first time most Americans heard this man speak is when he gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention almost two years ago.  And they saw this young guy, a pretty good speaker, not bad-looking — (laughter) — talk about how America is the only place where his story could even be possible.  And I watched, and I thought, “That’s not bad.”  (Laughter.)

    But the people of San Antonio have known about Julián and his brother, Congressman Joaquin Castro, who is here today, along with Leader Pelosi and Congressman and Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Hinojosa — they’ve known about him for a long time.  As mayor, Julián has been focused on revitalizing one of our most wonderful cities — planning thousands of housing units downtown, attracting hundreds of millions of dollars of investment.  He’s built relationships with mayors all across the country.  He’s become a leader in housing and economic development.

    No, not bad at all. 🙂

  2. JanF

    The Veterans Affairs Scandal Was Decades in the Making (Yes, you should be angry. But at whom?)

    It’s been more than six months since CNN and then the Arizona Republic began reporting about veterans dying while they were waiting for medical services-in some cases, on secret lists that clinics were maintaining to hide the long delays from authorities in the Department of Veterans Affairs. It’s not clear how many of these people died because they were waiting for care. An initial examination of 17 deaths, in Phoenix, suggested that none were the product of delays. Then again, it’s not clear how much such nuance should matter. People who really need medical care shouldn’t have to wait for it, especially when those people have served their country. Everybody in Washington seems angry. For a change, they should be.[…]

    The process for getting veterans into the government’s health system-and then getting them seen by VA medical professionals-has a long history of problems, dating back decades. And while the Obama Administration obviously hasn’t solved them, it’s presided over significant improvements in these and other areas of veterans services-at a time when the need for care from wounded veterans is growing.

    ~

    Why Veterans Still Love The VA

    A 2005 survey from the RAND Corporation similarly found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up.” The VA also outperforms the nation’s health care system in delivering chronic and preventive care, treating diabetes.

    A 2013 survey released by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs found that 93 percent of veterans who use the VA health care system have a favorable impression of it. […]

    Ultimately, the problem is one of access, not care – and it’s been plaguing the agency for decades.

    “This is not a new problem, this is a decades old problem,” Lauren Augustine, an Iraq War vet and Legislative Associate with IAVA, said. “And yet it hasn’t been adequately addressed because it keeps happening. There’s a lot of problems with access,” she admitted. “The VA has very outdated technology that it uses to not only work with veterans, but schedule appointments with veterans.”

  3. JanF

    The discussion centers on this article by Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Case for Reparations.

    Adam Serwer, MSNBC: The case for reparations and the lies we tell ourselves

    Contemporary black poverty is not an accident of history or simply a failure of blacks to inculcate themselves with the virtues of thrift, modesty and diligence from their betters. It is rooted in public policy. As Coates writes, “The kind of trenchant racism to which black people have persistently been subjected can never be defeated by making its victims more respectable. The essence of American racism is disrespect. And in the wake of the grim numbers, we see the grim inheritance.”

    By the way, for those who continue to glorify the confederacy and who insist that it has nothing to do with racism, try this history on for size:

    Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens famously declared that his government “rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”

    ~

    Jamelle Bouie, Slate: Reparations Are Owed (Here are a few ways to pay the bill.)

    Black families paid taxes and black soldiers fought for democracy in Europe and the Pacific, but-from low-interest home loans to money for education-they were barred from the benefits of the G.I. Bill. Indeed, the same federal dollars that built the suburbs were used to keep blacks out of them. It was the federal government that “pioneered the practice of redlining,” writes Coates…

    As a matter of public policy, America stole wealth from black people, denied them a shot at prosperity, and deprived them of equal citizenship. […]

    If anything, what Coates wants is truth and reconciliation for white supremacy-a national reckoning with our history. As he writes, “More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders.”

    Still, even if “no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in America,” there’s still value in imagining a concrete scheme for reparations, if only to have a sense of the bills we owe.

  4. JanF

    Greg Sargent, WaPo: Obama slams ‘false equivalence’ media

    At a fundraiser last night, President Obama unleashed a surprisingly spirited and comprehensive attack on both-sides-to-blame media coverage.

    “You’ll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, there’s gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible.  And there’s a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses.  But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific.  We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid …”

    “So the problem…is not that the Democrats are overly ideological – because the truth of the matter is, is that the Democrats in Congress have consistently been willing to compromise and reach out to the other side …

    “So when you hear a false equivalence that somehow, well, Congress is just broken, it’s not true.  What’s broken right now is a Republican Party that repeatedly says no to proven, time-tested strategies to grow the economy, create more jobs, ensure fairness, open up opportunity to all people.“

    I’m not sure Obama has ever gone so directly at the idea that today’s GOP has become what some of us have been calling “post-policy”; that the basic imbalance resulting from that is the primary cause of reigning Washington dysfunction; and that on a fundamental level, press coverage is failing to reckon with these realities. I would note, though, that in his remarks, he also said the only remedy for the problem is for Democrats to vote out Republicans, which is to say, it’s on Democrats to fix by winning elections.

     

  6. JanF

    Measures Aimed At Keeping People Out Of Jail Punish The Poor

    Electronic monitoring devices provide an alternative to sending someone to jail. For a defendant, an ankle bracelet means returning to family and work. For corrections officials, it saves money by reducing overcrowded jails and prisons. But those devices are expensive.[…]

    [Tom Barrett] was arrested after he stole a can of beer from a refrigerator in a gas station convenience store in 2012. He pleaded “no contest” and a judge sentenced him to 12 months of probation and said Barrett could be released as long as he wore an ankle bracelet. But when he didn’t have the money to pay for it, he was sent to jail.

    The bracelet, which is a kind of Breathalyzer strapped to his ankle, was expensive. It cost $12 a day. In addition, there was a $50 set up fee, a $39 a month fee to the private probation company that supervised his release, and the money to install a land-line phone for the system to work. It totaled more than $400 a month.

    He lived in a $25 a month subsidized apartment that he paid for by selling his blood. The State of Georgia did not want to pay for his monitoring.

    … the fees went unpaid. After almost six months, Barrett was called back to court. He faced going back to jail.

    Only this time, he found an attorney, Jack Long, who challenged the fees. Augusta Superior Court Judge Daniel Craig then ruled that Barrett’s monitor should be removed and he didn’t have to return to jail.

    Last September, Craig expanded his ruling and put a temporary stop to forcing people to pay for the devices. The Supreme Court of Georgia will take up the issue later this year.

    Here are the bloodsuckers tapping into the mood of the politicians in our libertarian states:

    Companies that make the devices – in their marketing materials – tell courts, and probation and parole agencies they can charge the users of those electronic monitoring devices.

    “It’s very easy for jurisdictions to pass the cost on to the offender,” says George Drake, a consultant to government agencies that want to set up electronic monitoring systems. “No one wants to raise taxes on the public. Politicians – it’s the last thing they want to do.”

    Maybe the public would not mind if the alternative is building bigger jails, hiring more people to staff those jails, and paying to incarcerate a guy for stealing a can of beer. Penny wise and pound foolish comes to mind.

  7. JanF

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has some inkling:

    The legislation [requested to be passed by unanimous consent by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)], is straightforward: it gives the VA secretary the power to fire anyone in senior executive service at the department. These are the highest-ranking civilian federal employees, who normally enjoy a great deal of job protection under federal civil service rules. But this bill would give the VA secretary the power to dismiss them hastily, as the Defense secretary can do with generals, or as a CEO in the private sector could do to his or her employees.

    “It is one thing to say-which I agree with-that if a hospital administrator is incompetent, the secretary should be able to get rid of that administrator without a whole lot of paperwork. I agree with that,” said Sanders. “It is another thing to say that if a new administration comes in, whether it is a Democratic or Republican [administration], that somebody sitting in the secretary’s office can say, ‘I want to get rid of twenty or thirty or fifty hospital administrators because we have other people that we have in there, and we can just get rid of them,’ and they don’t have a right to defend themselves. I worry about that.” […]

    Sanders noted that Republicans filibustered his comprehensive legislation earlier the spring, which would have extended healthcare, education and job training to hundreds of thousands of veterans, and improved both the care offered at the VA and the oversight of that process.

    In a bit of legislative turnabout, he asked unanimous consent to attach his failed bill as an amendment to the VA accountability act. Rubio objected, citing the cost.

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