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In Barack Obama’s July 2, 2008 speech calling America to national service, Obama proposed “a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military. This has prompted some in the blogosphere to raise the specter of a huge new domestic paramilitary organization. Others suggest that he may have been talking about our “current non-military security agencies - FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, DHS, etc.” I think that both interpretations are probably wrong. If you listen to the whole speech –- or even the couple minutes before his security force proposal — I think...

The stunning comments from Democrat Sen. Barack Obama that the United States needs a "civilian national security force" that would be as powerful, strong and well-funded as the half-trillion dollar United States Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force have mysteriously disappeared from published transcripts of the speech. In the comments, Obama confirmed the U.S. "cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set." Campaign officials have declined to return any of a series of WND telephone calls over several days requesting a comment on the situation. Nor have they posted a transcript...

With all the reporters covering the major presidential candidates, it amazes me no one ever seems to ask the right questions. For several days now, WND has been hounding Barack Obama's campaign about a statement he made July 2 in Colorado Springs – a statement that blew my mind, one that has had me scratching my head ever since. In talking about his plans to double the size of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the size of AmeriCorps and the size of the nation's military services, he made this rather shocking (and chilling) pledge: "We cannot continue to rely...

On Thursday, we talked a lot about Liberal Fascism. Apparently, it wasn't a moment too soon. "[W]e are going to grow our foreign service, open consulates that have been shuttered and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy," said Obama. "We cannot to continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we have set. We have got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." (link) LOL WUT? Obama's going to create a civilian national...

WASHINGTON -- Since Sept. 11, Americans have found a new spirit of national unity and purpose. Forty years ago, at the height of the cold war, President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to enter into public service. Today, confronted with a challenge no less daunting than the cold war, Americans again are eager for ways to serve at home and abroad. Government should make it easier for them to do so. That is why we are introducing legislation to revamp national service programs and dramatically expand opportunities for public service. Many tasks lie ahead, both new and old. On the ...

Barack Obama's national plan for voluntary community service clearly illustrates his audacious goal to become the Nation's Community Organizer. "Barack Obama's Plan For Universal Voluntary Citizen Service" is subtitled "Helping All Americans Serve Their Country." "Universal" and "All" are only slight exaggerations. As president, he'd offer voluntary service programs for everyone except pre-schoolers through 5th grade. A substantial cafeteria of federal programs already serves this cuisine. But Obama plans to lengthen the serving line, considerably. Grab a tray and we'll sample some of his new dishes, plus some old plates he plans to enhance. Peace Corps A favorite since 1961....

September 15, 2003 Do the nation a service   Newsweek Senator John McCain   The attacks of September 11, for all the terrible suffering they caused, did have one good effect. For a time, they encouraged Americans to remember that as citizens of this good and great country we have responsibilities as well as rights that require our attention.   More than any time in recent years, Americans were unified not just in appreciation for our founding political convictions and the opportunities, prosperity and happiness they engender, but for patriotism that asks more of us than symbolic gestures of allegiance....

AmeriCorps Blowup by: Bethany Stotts, February 25, 2008 With a burgeoning achievement gap for minorities and low-income students, and American students performing poorly on international tests, many agree that America needs significant educational reform. For Center for American Progress (CAP) affiliates, at least, the front lines of that reform start with the AmeriCorps... CAP panelists... all praised the AmeriCorps for its vital role in education, highlighting essential tasks performed by members such as • mentoring, • conflict resolution or mediation, • monitoring recess, • and tutoring.... A 2006 Washington Post article estimates that non-NCCC AmeriCorps members each cost the government...

NASHUA, N.H. - Aiming to create the first generation in which all Americans serve their country, Democratic presidential hopeful Chris Dodd is offering a range of initiatives to encourage — and in some cases compel — community service. "All Americans should serve our country," the Connecticut senator said in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday. "Endowed as we are with so many gifts, is it too much to ask that we each give something back to this remarkable place?" He proposes making community service mandatory for all high school students, doubling the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 and expanding...

Weary taxpayers are looking to President George W. Bush and Congress to reduce the tax burden and set a course toward a balanced budget. The President has already proposed a bold plan to reduce the high tax rates currently weighing down the economy, and an overhaul of the 44,000-page U.S. federal tax code may also be proposed. Lower tax rates will reduce barriers to working, saving, and investing, and therefore promote long-term economic growth. Taxing Americans less also means that Washington must learn to spend less. Lawmakers courageously restrained spending in the mid-1990s but have since abandoned fiscal responsibility in...

Today: March 08, 2005 at 15:26:21 PST Court OKs AmeriCorps, Catholic School Link ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court Tuesday endorsed the use of federal AmeriCorps money to place young teachers in religious schools, reversing a lower court judge who said the program crossed the constitutional line separating church and state. The government is not promoting religion and AmeriCorps creates no incentives for participants to teach religion, Appeals Court Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote in a 3-0 decision. The AmeriCorps program trains participants, offers them $4,725 in financial aid and has them teach some of the nation's...

WASHINGTON - The federal agency that oversees AmeriCorps must stop financing programs that place volunteers in Catholic schools, a judge has ruled, saying it unconstitutionally crosses the line between church and state. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler sided with the American Jewish Congress, which argued that federal money was being used improperly to pay for teaching of Christian values through programs such as the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education. Kessler's decision late Friday was posted on the court's Web site Tuesday. The Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs AmeriCorps, argued that its funding was awarded...

Hilary Andersson, of the BBC's Panorama programme, reveals how thousands of youths are being taught to rape, maim, torture and kill in Zimbabwe's terror training camps - and now Robert Mugabe intends to make the camps compulsory for all the country's young men and womenIt should have been just another shopping trip for Debbie. She needed a few vegetables, so headed off into one of Bulawayo's markets. On that November morning back in 2001, she had no premonition that her life was about to be wrecked. In the market was a large gang of Mugabe's youth militia chanting Zanu-PF slogans....

HONOLULU (AP) - A science teacher who tried to break into the cockpit of a Hawaii-bound Northwest Airlines flight - screaming the world was coming to an end - told a judge Friday he was on a mission to see the beach. Brandon Gabriel Rines was charged Friday with interfering with a flight crew. During his court appearance, Rines was talkative, erratic and disruptive - arguing with his public defender and U.S. Magistrate Barry Kurren. "My sole purpose on this mission was to see the beach," the 31-year-old Tennessee man said. "I have not seen the ocean. I have not...

WASHINGTON -- After a year of management problems and budget woes for AmeriCorps, congressional negotiators agreed last week to give the troubled national service program $444 million for fiscal 2004. The funding, part of the $328 billion year-end spending bill that House and Senate negotiators recently completed, exceeds President Bush's budget request by $11 million and should be enough to meet his public pledge to expand AmeriCorps to 75,000 participants. Congress is expected to vote on the bill in December. The money, if approved, "would result in a significant increase for AmeriCorps that would allow more Americans than ever to...

<p>Hobbled by management and money problems, the AmeriCorps national service program stands to get a huge funding boost from Congress that could swell its ranks of volunteers next year.</p> <p>Rolled into the $373 billion spending bill worked out by congressional and White House negotiators this week was $444 million for AmeriCorps -- an increase of more than 50 percent over the past fiscal year. It's also about $10 million more than the amount requested by President Bush for the struggling program.</p>

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean on Thursday offered a plan to provide college students with $10,000 a year in federal financial aid as part of his $7.1 billion higher education program. Arguing that President Bush's tax cuts have resulted in cuts in Pell grants and other financial help, Dean proposed that students be entitled to $10,000 for post-secondary schooling, whether at a traditional college or university or in high-skills training. Dean would finance his plan by repealing all of Bush's tax cuts. "When he signed the Higher Education Act of 1965, Lyndon Johnson said, 'A high...

Thu Sep 4, 6:28 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo! By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites) says President Bush (news - web sites) is breaking a "president-to-president" promise made to her husband to protect one of the Clintons' favorite programs, AmeriCorps.   "I personally know that there is a tradition among presidents when they succeed one another," Clinton told AmeriCorps supporters Wednesday. "When my husband spoke with the present President Bush as they were changing the leadership of our country, the only thing my husband asked...

WASHINGTON - Supporters of AmeriCorps, the federal program that provides stipends and scholarships to mostly young people in exchange for community service, began a 100-hour speech-a-thon Tuesday in an effort to win more funding. "I want to serve, I'm ready to serve," said Juan Perez, 20, a Garden City, Kan., volunteer who works from a wheelchair because of muscular dystrophy. He also won't be able to spend another year tutoring Spanish-speaking children unless Congress increases the program's funding. The rally, which began in a Senate office building and was to run around-the-clock through Saturday afternoon, will feature more than 600...

"Enemies will use any weapon at their disposal," warned Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at a Brookings Institution event last week, as part of an ideological "attack on things that we believe in." Was he talking about al-Qaeda? Ba'athist hardliners, perhaps? No, the senator's words were directed at a more insidious foe: congressional opponents of AmeriCorps, the Clinton-spawned national program of "paid volunteerism," which was recently d enied $100 million in emergency funding by a narrow vote in the House. The panelists at the Brookings forum spoke with a single voice to condemn the Grinchian stinginess of representatives who, to hear...

Repairing hiking trails in Acadia National Park. Tracking lobsters aboard fishing boats. Publishing an environmental newsletter for 5,000 teachers statewide. These conservation-related programs and numerous other activities are bracing to do without scores of volunteers funded by the federal AmeriCorps program. Congress has been unable to resolve disputes over whether to funnel $100 million to the financially troubled agency. Now the uncertainty threatens to undermine the entire program because organizers say they must know by Aug. 1 how many volunteers to recruit and hire for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Congress almost certainly cannot approve any funding until...

<p>The House adjourned for its summer break Friday without approving a $100 million supplemental to expand AmeriCorps. Mark this down as a rare example of Congress refusing to be railroaded by a media spending campaign.</p> <p>Reporters and other advocates of larger government have been pounding the Bush Administration for not adequately funding this Clinton-era "volunteer" program. The idea seems to be that "compassionate conservatism" always requires more money. But conservatism, compassionate or otherwise, also means not wasting money on poorly executed good intentions.</p>

<p>Supporters of AmeriCorps yesterday pleaded with Congress to provide the beleaguered program with an extra $100 million this year after House appropriators rejected a proposal to do so Monday.</p> <p>The talk among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, however, was that AmeriCorps will end up getting some of the extra money.</p>

AMERICORPS, the 10-year-old Bill Clinton initiative that uses federal tax dollars to pay people to do humanitarian work, is fighting for extra cash on Capitol Hill this week. Meanwhile, two small New Hampshire programs in which young people actually volunteer to help others are thriving. WorkCamp is a small program run by the Manchester Christian Center. Teenagers pay $265 to spend a week repairing the homes of people in need. You read that right. The kids pay for the program themselves. Seacoast Work Camp, based at Portsmouth Middle School, brings teenagers from around the country to do home repairs for...

<p>The House Appropriations Committee refused Monday to provide AmeriCorps with an extra $100 million it says it needs to keep its volunteer corps intact, but the financially troubled agency may eventually get much or all of the money anyway.</p> <p>By a near party-line, 34-24 vote, the Republican-led committee rejected an amendment by Rep. David Price, D-N.C., that would have provided the added funds. Price was trying to add the money to a measure providing an extra $2 billion this year for coping with natural disasters, dousing wildfires and other programs.</p>

AmeriCorps needs money to continue By Rob Varley / Staff Writer With the future of the AmeriCorps national service program unclear, state politicians are urging an additional $100 million to prevent cutting volunteers. Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District Director Jim Hotaling said the additional money is critical to sustaining AmeriCorps locally, noting the program is vital in smaller communities. "If they don't do this, we won't have a program," he said. Created in 1993, AmeriCorps is a branch of the Corporation for National and Community Service. It currently has more than 50,000 volunteers engaged in education, public safety,...

When Alexis de Tocqueville surveyed an infant nation early in the 19th century, he found a people dedicated to the public good. Americans were uncommonly generous with their time and money, de Tocqueville noted, building parks, libraries, soup kitchens and orphanages. "I have often admired the extreme skill they show in proposing a common object for the exertions of many and inducing them voluntarily to pursue it," he wrote. His observations hold true even now. Americans remain charitable, organizing to build houses for the poor, clean up abandoned lots, comfort the dying in hospices and welcome refugees fleeing war and...

POLITICS & PEOPLE By AL HUNT Lots of Conservatism, Little Compassion In a week we celebrate patriotism, George Bush has been positively eloquent, starting with his praise for the brave men and women in uniform. However, he has noted, there's more than "just being strong militarily . . . the American spirit understands that being a patriot means serving something greater than yourself." The president was talking about Zach Deitrich of New Hampshire, who teaches job and life skills to adults in need. He similarly praised Ricardo Rios, an Indiana school teacher; Erika McCroskey, who works on environmental issues in...

It was May 2000, and the guy at Al Gore’s polling firm seemed baffled. A Yale political-science major, I’d already walked away from a high-paying consulting job a few weeks earlier, and now I was walking away from a job working on a presidential campaign to do . . . what? Well, when push came to shove, I didn’t want to devote my life to helping the rich get richer or crunching numbers to see what views were most popular for the vice president to adopt. This wasn’t what my 17 years of education were for. My doctor parents had...

Last week we mentioned Antonio Gramsci very briefly. Because of the tremendous impact which his doctrines have had on the 20th century, it is imperative that society understand exactly how and why that impact has taken place. Gramsci was born in 1891 on the island of Sardinia. Although he came from a humble family, he went on to study philosophy and history at the University of Turin. While there, he was converted to Marxism and helped found the Communist party of Italy. He also founded his own newspaper called The New Order. (Does that sound familiar?) About this time, Mussolini...

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. In all of the trials we have faced this past year, countless acts of generosity and sacrifice have revealed the good heart of our nation. Time and time again, our country has shown the strength of its character by responding to acts of evil with acts of good. And in coming weeks, I ask all citizens to answer the call to help those in need, and make this month a September of Service.I created USA Freedom Corps, a single organization, to encourage and assist Americans in finding service opportunities both locally and around the globe;...

<p>One of the most gratifying responses to the tragedies of 9/11 was the sudden desire of millions of Americans to give something back to their country for the blessings of democracy and freedom. Many citizens, especially young ones, would do much more if given the opportunity to serve. A system of voluntary national service would harvest this new growth in our civic capital by mobilizing to meet the big challenges facing our country, including the urgent new one of homeland security.</p>

President Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps - a federally funded network of paid "volunteers" - was once a favourite punching bag for conservatives, with the Heritage Foundation, among other right-wing forces, denouncing it as a $575 million boondoggle. Yet President George W. Bush has pledged to "expand and improve the good efforts of AmeriCorps [and] recruit more than 200,000 new volunteers." A few limited-government types expressed outrage, but, as the left-wing American Prospect gleefully noted, many Republicans have suddenly embraced AmeriCorps. James Bovard, who documented the program's follies in "feeling your pain": The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore...