Locked in a tough re-election battle with Mitt Romney, President Barack Obama aimed to energize his core supporters – African American voters – by delivering a rousing speech and unveiling a new executive order at the Urban League’s annual convention in New Orleans Wednesday night.
The president told the largely African American crowd of roughly 3,700 people that the executive order will seek to improve educational achievement for African Americans at all levels “so every child has greater access to a complete and competitive education from the time they’re born to the time, all through the time they get a career” the president said to cheers.
An administration official tells NBC News the order will create a new White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans that will “work across Federal agencies and with partners and communities nationwide to produce a more effective continuum of education programs for African American students.”
President Obama addresses the National Urban League in New Orleans, La., on Wednesday. "If you still believe in me ... stand with me," he said.
The official added that the initiative would be housed in the Education Department, which will work with the Executive Office and other Cabinet agencies to identify practices that will improve African Americans’ achievement in schools and colleges. The administration official did not yet know how much funding the program would receive but said more information would be released Thursday when the president signs the executive order.
The president has previously received criticism from some black leaders for not doing enough to help the African American community as rates for school dropout and unemployment among African Americans continue to be higher than the national numbers.
For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the dropout rate for African American students ages 16 to 25 was 8 percent in 2010; by comparison, white students in that age range had a 5.1 percent dropout rate. Further, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 14.4 percent, significantly higher than the national average of 8.2 percent.
Last August, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) told a crowd of Congressional Black Caucus members in Detroit, “We want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he’s prepared to lead on. But our people are hurting and the unemployment rate is unconscionable.”
Obama has in the past responded to such criticism. In an interview on BET last September he answered a question about why he didn’t create more policies specifically targeted at African Americans: “That’s not how America works,” the president replied, “America works when all of us are pulling together and everybody is focused on making sure that every single person has opportunity.”
When asked if this latest executive order is timed to mobilize African American voters ahead of the election, one White House official said it is “one more step along a path that the president has been walking.” The official cited the fact that the president enacted the Race to the Top initiative and new flexibility on No Child Left Behind, actions aimed at improving educational opportunities for all students including minorities, according to the Official.
On Tuesday, the president admitted there was still a lot more work and asked the Urban League crowd for their continued support: “If we don’t keep fighting for better jobs and a better future, who will? That’s our challenge. We don’t quit.”
From the Romney camp, spokeswoman Tara Wall responded to the speech, saying, "As black Americans, we all take pride in Barack Obama's historic election - but unfortunately his performance as president has not matched that enthusiasm."
Exit polls show that 95 percent of African American voters supported president Obama in 2008. Analysts believe he will need them to turn out in similarly large numbers if he hopes to win key swing states such as Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina.
The president wrapped up his remarks with a familiar plea for voters to turnout in November; “I still believe in you and if you still believe in me I ask you stand with me. March with me. Fight with me and … I promise we will finish what we started, turn this economy around, seize our future and remind the world why the United States of America is the greatest nation on earth.”


How many times is the guy going to circuvent the legislative process ,as put forth i the Constitution regarding how spending programs are to be implemented.These proclamations are not even legal.When will somene in Congress stand up for ALL and EVERY citizen.I'm so tire of this manipulation of our legal process ,I want to get a gun and go to the hills!
mas098--short of taking money from ONE education program, to fund this, this EO is toothless, and IMOHO, solely pandering for the vote.
Way to keep racism going President Obama. racism in America is never going to go away, when our president is doing crap like this. He should be focused on ALL children getting and education, not just African Americans. the whole education system needs to be fixed. by doing this he's just set us ALL back decades.
I think your folks have already done enough of that Mr. Obama. We are now approaching 3rd world status.
That is unless you are referring to your continued war in Afghanistan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. deaths, injured and MIA in the last 100 years
Democrat wars:WW I,WW II,Korea,Vietnam --- 1,779,055
Republican wars:Iraq,Afghanistan ------48,433
This is just more distraction form Obama and Lame stream media.. They know Obama is toast and are still trying to protect this American hating racist.
I just read this book where the author said he loke the black Obama but he hates the white Obama! Maybe thats' what we should do.hate the white Obama!
Funny how ignorant racists don't like being called "IGNORANT RACISTS!"
The last bastian of an ignorant person,especially one from the left leaning persuasion, is to call someone in disgreement with them, a racsist! If being opposed to someone like Obama is racsist,I'll gladly take that tag.But then wjhat is your tag,sir!
Glad you agree Obama is a Ignorant Racist
This is totally racist and more socialistic behavior by a President that will use the office of the presidency any way he can to buy, coerce, and manipulate votes. The Native Americans in this country have just as many issues in the classroom and does this president include this group of people in this proposal? No! Absolutely not!
WHAT ABOUT NATIVE AMERICANS??? ....The forgotten people!
I understand that all Indians want is a cold beer,tight shoes and a warm P***y!
mas098,
LOL
"a cold beer,tight p***y and some warm shoes".;)
The racism of this President is shining like the sun. Finally maybe the libbies will see it.
Hell even Stevie Wonder can see this BS.
let us start with fast and furious
If Obama is not Guilty why would he be blocking the investigation that Holder should have conducted with his orders (Not Issa)
Issa has all ready shown it at Holders offices with emails linking it directly to white house.
Obama signed money from the (Bailout funds for jobs) directly to go to buy guns.
Hillary, Obama, Napalatano, and Holder all made incrimidating speeches at the time of the fast and furious event and UN attacking guns sales. Specifically attacking these business that they infact were forcing to sale guns to know criminals.
There will never be equality as long as we perpetuate differential treatment based upon race. Attack what he considers the reason they lack education. If you believe it is a cost issue (poverty), then you come up with a program to assist the poor in getting education, but when you say that it is only for poor blacks, but not poor whites, what are you really saying?
It should not be an initiative for black people, it should be an initiative for all people. Take the color out of it and make it a neutral executive order. I did not vote by color, I vote by who gets the job done, and what he just did isn't getting the job done, it slams the other citizens of this country to the ground that he thinks blacks need more help the say latino's or whites or purple people eaters for god sakes. It's not about color you idiot, it's about doing it for everyone!
A little desperate, Prezie?
It's cowardly to personally insult the President of the United States only because he's a black man. Please!!, ...Don't continue to hide behind "politics," ...You look and sound foolish!
Painful to watch... but Obama still sucks less.
This is nothing less than discrimination of the taxpayers of the United States.
Fact
The US cannot afford Obamanation Hope and change
16.4 Trillion and growing at 1.4 trillion
even if we stop his spending today it will be 40 years before we can even pay the bills of today.
I teach in an inner city school, which is about 70% black and have done so for many years. It is a job I enjoy because I feel like I am making a difference somehow. I can make some objective comments based on what I have seen through my own experiences over the years. Students who want to learn will do so, by attending classes, doing assignments, and demonstrating the proper respect for teachers and administrators. I have seen both white and black students make this choice and experience success. Students who do not wish to learn will not. This was nothing more than a political move by a failing president to try to regain the trust of many black voters who now realize they made the wrong choice 4 years ago. The majority of black students who attend my school demonstrate the belief that they are owed passing grades, etc. without doing the work. Then when they don't get what they want, they and their parents are very quick to blame the white community. This is not a racist statement. It is what really happens in the trenches, like it or not. The poor choices the students are making are the reason so many successful black men and women are frustrated with the current state of the black community. Every young man or woman, regardless of race, is capable of making good decisions or bad ones. When bad decisions are made, they face negative consequences. These come in the form of failing grades, low test scores, high suspension rates, etc. They must stop blaming everyone else for this and take the responsibility to fix it. The crime rate is higher among blacks because they commit more crimes. The unemployment rates are higher because many will not work. This behavior starts in schools just like mine, is fostered (and taught) in many homes, and is reinforced by many in the black community including the media. A change does need to be made, but like so many times before it is neither the president's business nor his responsibility to make it. One of the reasons I am respected in the education field is that I tell the children the truth. I teach them (or try to teach them) to take responsibility for their own actions and not to blame others when they make poor choices. No one owes them anything.
For the record, I am a registered Democrat - one who is ashamed by the distorted direction this leader is taking my country. He, along with many liberals are constantly eroding the very foundation of America by supporting the "if it feels good, then do it" mentality. After all, who needs Christian morals anymore? I'll tell you who - the children that come into my school! That is the largest problem of all regarding the youth and their poor achievement and poor choices. Between now and November, I will do everything I can to get this man out of office and restore some sense of integrity to the White House.
Obama and his wife are sooo racist. Hard to believe people don't see it. I am tired of socialists like this dividing the country. He should be telling people to learn to work and depend on themselves. Not depend on someone else's money because money runs out.
I wonder if Michelle, and their daughters bellies are showing yet from their trip to Mexico ?
http://news.investors.com/article/617686/201207101851/doctor-discontent-with-obamacare-known-long-ago.htm
83% doctors plan on retiring due to obamacare
ObamaCare: News that 83% of U.S. physicians have thought about quitting over the president's health care takeover isn't as newsy as it seems. IBD revealed doctors' widespread discontent years ago.
Remember the sea of white coats in the Rose Garden back in October 2009, as "doctors from across the country" (as the White House described them) supposedly rushed to President Obama's side to support his health care reform plan?
The plan that was then making its way through Congress amounted to a radical transformation of health care that people liked less the more they found out about it.
"These doctors know what needs to be fixed about our health care system," Obama claimed then. "And they know that health insurance reform ... will go a long way towards making patients healthier and doctors and nurses to be able to perform . .. those tasks that are so important to them and led them into medicine in the first place."
It turns out, as the New York Times reported, that "the group that supplied many of the doctors for the Rose Garden event, Doctors for America, is a nonprofit organization that grew out of Doctors for Obama, which worked to help elect the president. But it also appears to be working closely with Organizing for America, Mr. Obama's political organization."
Now comes a new survey of 699 doctors randomly selected nationwide, commissioned by the nonpartisan Doctor Patient Medical Association, which finds MDs' attitudes toward ObamaCare to be altogether different.
A stunning 83% of physicians, answering by fax and online from April 18 to May 22, are thinking about quitting their profession, and 65% say government involvement is most to blame for current health care problems.
Some 72% say the ObamaCare mandate requiring Americans to buy insurance won't result in improved access to care, while 49% of respondents say they'll stop accepting Medicaid patients. And 74% warn they will stop taking Medicare patients, or leave Medicare completely.
Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast
As to solutions, 70% of the doctors polled say reducing government involvement is the single best fix.
If you're feeling some deja vu, that's because the month before the president's shameless Rose Garden photo op in 2009, an IBD/TIPP Poll of 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country found, among many other red flags, that 45% of doctors "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if ObamaCare became law.
For such prescience we were, at the time, skewered by the left-wing, George Soros-financed Media Matters, which charged that the poll was "not scientific."
The well-heeled activist outfit cited as authority statistician Nate Silver, a self-described "supporter of Barack Obama" and "rational progressive," which is an ideology Silver describes as "far left" on all but "a handful of issues," that "tends to view conservatism as immoral" and seeks "not reform but transformation."
Far from being unscientific, the IBD/TIPP Poll, America's most accurate in both the 2008 and 2004 presidential elections, was way ahead of the curve in discerning American doctors' grim diagnosis of the reform Obama wanted.
Long read but very well written. MSNBC could use writers like you.
I just happen to agree with your points as well.
This program is no different than the programs already run by the states that gives a free collage education to illegal immigrants.
Anything for votes is the norm for politicians, however African American voters are being told by their churches not to vote for Obama because of his immoral stances that has totally destroyed the family.
Thank God for President Obama! His entire record tells the story, ...He is a wonderful leader!, ...In spite of the GOP / Tea Party bigots!
I am not a Tea Party conservative and I live in the San Francisco bay area. This is absolutely ridiculous and any true liberal would not approve of segregation like this. It is a failure of policy that could lose him the election.
My belief is that this is what the 1960s was all about! Now, the present POTUS claims that he's going to do what has already been done, and actively attempt to garner credit for the past! Seems like a cold slap in the fact to Martin Luther King, and the trials and tribulations of the plight of the African American People! But that's OK, he's not an African American - he Half - African American! I think that the educated African American would be pissed off at this attempt! [:-(]
Democrats Refused to Ensure Overseas Military Have Their Votes ...
www.house.gov/apps/list/press/az02_franks/militaryvotingletter.html
Democrats Refused to Ensure Overseas Military Have Their Votes Counted in the November ... work in a bipartisan way to ensure that our military members overseas can vote ...
Hannity & Limbaugh LIE about disenfranchising military voters ...
www.democrats.com/node/18
... is to falsely claim Democrats prevented active duty military voters overseas ... All that Rendell has refused to do is resend overseas ... to make sure the military can vote…
Voting and the American Military « MilTalk's Blog
miltalk.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/6
Oct 21, 2010 · ... by Democrats, refused to pass a law permitting soldiers to vote by ... for each military voter to send ... on military and overseas citizens’ absentee voting ...
Democrats.org
www.democrats.org
DoJ stalling on protecting voting rights of military? « Hot Air
Hotair.com
Send illegals back yourself ... 2,400) mostly from soldiers overseas. Military ... At least 1,527 valid military ballots were discarded in Florida by Democratic vote ...
Will military ballot access impact key Congressional races? « Hot Air
Hotair.com
Wisconsin refused to change dates, saying ... is a chance that the 15,000 or so overseas military ... entirely a different situation if military voters were all voting democratic.
Federal Voting Assistance Program - Home - To Vote Absentee, …
fvap.gov
DoD Awards Grants for State & Local Military/Overseas Voting Systems; FVAP Employment ... 2012 Absentee Mailing Days; Where to Send Forms; Information on Absentee Voting
This is a typical stunt by the liberals to keep the vote of the ignorant. Obama was never about Change and Hope, he is about divide and conquer. The more Americans are split between left and right the weaker we are as a nation. We need to work together not segregate.
Nader: Impeach Obama for 'war crimes' - The Hill's Blog Briefing …
Thehill.com
Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader says President Obama should be impeached for committing "war crimes" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The consumer …
Ralph Nader: Obama ‘Should Be Impeached’ For ‘Committing War ...
www.mediaite.com/tv/ralph-nader-obama-should-be-impeached...war-crimes
Accountability for torture by Bush regime taboo under Obama: "Last ...
asiantribune.com
Home » Accountability for torture by Bush regime taboo under Obama: "Last War Crime" movie and torture documents
Vets For Peace Votes to Impeach Obama for War Crimes ...
Counter Punch
Veterans for Peace (VFP), a progressive organization if ever there was one, took the courageous step of voting for the “impeachment of President Barack H. Obama for ...
Pat in Boston ! Are you kidding me? You talk about banning people who speak their mind! All your post defending your own ignorance is laughable. Obama (Have never recognized this egomaniac as President), Speaks the same empty rhetoric as yourself and with equal eloquence. You make mention of accomplishments? Each bullet point you make are references to half assed accomplishments all of which will need to either be reworked or simply dismissed. None of which have had a success rate above 20%.
Obama has pandered to the GBLT the Marijuana advocates the hispanic & now black communities to name a few all promises made equate to the same empty rhetoric from his 6 year campaign. Obama is not only racist he is Cracist (Crazy Racist).
Lastly, purportedly Obama is 1/2 white & 1/2 black. So the real question I have for the cracist criers is which group wins?? Now as for democrats, please show me where in history tis party has worked for The People?
If Obama were to mention his record to date, manning up and taking responsibility verses blaming everyone but himself for his floundering lack of leadership and knowledge of both National and World Politics he woudl find himself flipping burger in a greasy spoon. Instead he takes on the persona of an addict deny he has a problem and blaming everyone under the sun for his ignorance, addiction to his ego and the fact his report card to date is a huge Failure.
Explain any differents between Libya, Syria, and Iraq????
Thus if you said Bush was a war criminal so is Obama
Obama did not even try and get Congress approval
Obama on Libya: 'We have a responsibility to act' - Chicago Defender
Chicago Defender
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vigorously defending American attacks in Libya, President Barack Obama declared Monday night that the United States intervened to prevent a ...
hate this guy as much as i hated bush,and dislike romeny when are we gonna get a prez for the people.
anthony420007===Anyone but Obama!!