By Warner Todd Huston

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has launched a wonderful little feature that will run until Barack Obama takes the oath of office next month. They are calling it “Dear Mr. Obama” and it is a heartwarming exercise in child indoctrination and brainwashing. The Post-Gazette will be publishing letters from local students to Obama asking him for all sorts of global warming fixes, Iraq war enders, and big government programs.

Sadly, it appears that the government schools these kids have been subjected to have failed to teach their charges about anything like the American system, federalism, even science seems neglected. But they SURE taught their kiddies that government is there to spend, spend, spend, that government is to be treated like our collective parents, and that the war in Iraq is obviously an evil venture. Obviously.

And, yes little kiddies, The One, your very own Obamessiah, is flying to the rescue like a super hero. Cue the theme music – I’d suggest the theme to 2001, like Elvis used, is appropriate for the sentiment here. The Obamessiah has entered the building!

The tykes are all about the alternative energy these days. They are full of exhortations to The One that he should force upon us all a reliance on wind power and solar cells. Obviously these youngsters have not been taught that no alternative energy source has thus far been found that is cheaper than oil and the fossil fuels. These kids are under the illusion that just instituting a government program is all it takes to overcome the science of the matter and make them cost effective and feasible. Yes, all we need is a word from our new religious icon in Washington DC cum Obamalot.

The first letter was amusing for its complete fraud. It is supposed to be from a ten-year-old child, yet it talks about alternative energy, the war in “Irak” and lays out a fairly detailed idea for a new method of education. It is painfully obvious that no ten-year-old ever wrote this letter.

Also we see little Neil Pandya, age 10, who asked Obama to lower the age limit on driving. Apparently, Neil was not told that states are supposed to legislate that restriction, not the federal government. Sadly, states’ rights is not a subject taught to our young Mr. Pandya.

Several of the children are worried about mythical man-made, global warming and have been indoctrinated that Obama can control such things from the Mount Olympus of Washington. Here, for instance, are the worries of little Anna Devinney.

    The first one is pollution. A lot of animals are dying because of pollution. Fish are dying from garbage being dumped into their habitat. People are dumping barrels of toxins into the oceans and many sea animals are losing food.

    Another problem in the U.S. is global warming. In the future, all the land will be flooded with water because the icebergs are melting and the sea level is rising.

To be so misled by one’s teachers is so disheartening.

The thing we can take from this is that who ever said kid’s can’t learn is way off base. Unfortunately, what they are learning is a thorough left-wing agenda. To paraphrase a famous saying, it isn’t that our kids don’t know anything. It’s that what they know is all wrong.

Unfortunately, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, thinking it’s cute, is all too willing to display for all to see what a failed education looks like.

By Mark Finkelstein

Sure, its revenues might be plunging along with its share price, but the New York Times is still good for something.  In these somber days of winter, the Gray Lady, her name notwithstanding, can still inject the sunshine of humor—albeit of the unintentional variety.

Take its current editorial, Getting Immigration Right — please. With jobs at a premium and the collapse of the Big Three automakers attributable in no small part to the role of the unions, the Times naturally comes out in favor of:

• making it easier for illegals to get into the country to compete for what jobs are left, and
• granting the right of illegals once here to . . . unionize.

The teaser on the Op-ed web page drew me in: "In a time of economic crisis, it is especially vital to uphold workers’ rights, even for those here illegally."  The body of the editorial didn’t disappoint on the promise of more liberal looniness.  Annotated excerpts [emphasis added]:

[H]omeland security secretary Janet Napolitano of Arizona and commerce secretary Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who understand the border region and share a well-informed disdain for foolish, inadequate enforcement schemes like the Bush administration’s border fence.

That’s funny.  I don’t seem to remember Pres.-elect Obama praising the pair’s disdain for border fences at their announcement ceremonies.  Maybe some Republican senators will get into this during their confirmation hearings.

[The Bush administration’s] campaign of raids, detentions and border fencing was a moral failure. Among other things, it terrorized and broke apart families and led to some gruesome deaths in shoddy prisons. It mocked the American tradition of welcoming and assimilating immigrant workers.

We don’t want people to die gruesome deaths in shoddy prisons.  But the Times must be joking if it looks at the Bush years as ones of tough immigration enforcement.  As for the American tradition of welcoming immigrants, yes, by all means: in respect of legal immigrants.  Does the Times editorial board plan to spend spring break on the border, welcoming illegals as they slip into our country?

And finally, as promised in the teaser, the Times bemoans the fact that "illegal immigrant workers are deterred from forming unions. And without a path to legalization and under the threat of a relentless enforcement-only regime, they cannot assert their rights."

Let’s review.  Under the NYT’s immigration plan:

• border fences would be discarded.
• illegals would be welcomed.
• once in, they would be accorded worker rights including that of forming unions.

Could someone please explain how this is anything but an open-borders policy and an abandonment of national sovereignty?  The Times’ bleeding-heart liberalism could be cause for some much-needed mirth, but for the fact that the editorial goes out of its way to praise Obama’s pick for Labor Secretary,  Hilda Solis, as a "staunch defender of [illegal] immigrants" and someone who "promises a clean break" from Bush immigration policies.  Cheers!