THE NARRATIVE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS


Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen. -George Orwell
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reagan. Show all posts

Monday, February 23, 2015

WHAT HAPPENED TO RONALD REAGAN'S HOLLYWOOD?

The Hollywood red carpets were once home to Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, and they're now the land of Matt Damon & Michael Moore. How did we wind up here?



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Friday, February 6, 2015

REAGAN FLASHBACK, 1964: A TIME FOR CHOOSING

Nancy and Ronald Reagan in 1964, the year he delivered "The Speech"




























In honor of President Ronald Reagan's 104th birthday, here is the entire televised speech he gave on October 27, 1964 on behalf of the Goldwater campaign.  It was titled "A Time For Choosing" and now remembered simply as "The Speech."  The name of the program was "A Rendezvous With Destiny."  The speech raised $1 million for Goldwater's campaign and is considered the event that launched Reagan's political career.

Among other things, it is remarkable (and frightening) how eerily similar the problems he addressed on that day are to the problems we face on this day, except that today they are even more acuteAnd the rhetoric of the liberals is also quite familiar to us.  During the speech, Reagan uttered this famous quote:
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things -- we're never "for" anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.


You can read the complete transcript of the speech here.  I would strongly suggest that you take the time to listen to the entire speech and also read the transcript.  It is a magnificent example of why Reagan was known as the "Great Communicator" and it needs to be read as well as heard.  Here is an excerpt:
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."
Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government" -- this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.
"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so."

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Thursday, November 27, 2014

RONALD REAGAN'S 1985 THANKSGIVING MESSAGE



A Prayer for Thanksgiving
Lord, we thank you
for the goodness of our people
and for the spirit of justice
that fills this nation.
We thank you for the beauty and fullness of the
land and the challenge of the cities.
We thank you for our work and our rest,
for one another and for our homes.
We thank you, Lord:
Accept our thanksgiving on this day.
We pray and give thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Thanksgiving Symbolism

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving

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Monday, November 10, 2014

THIS DAY IN TWITCHY: NOVEMBER 9, 2014



How disgusting is Salon? THIS disgusting

Salon sneers in disdain at veterans, but look who it called a hero (It's enraging)


Don't look now vets-sneering Salon, but you are being schooled by Montel Williams (and it's awesome); Updated with brutal challenge


'20 points behind and acting like he's ahead': David Gergen puts blame on Obama for Dem losses; Obamabots go nuts


'Pure awesomeness': NFL fans love the 'hilarious' new Rob Lowe commercials


'They never, ever stop. Ever.' Al Gore thinks it's time for a 'national policy on food'

Nicki Minaj dancing with snakes: Out; Nicki Minaj channeling Hitler: In?



Good News: The Baltimore Ravens cheerleader injured today has been released from the hospital


She 'is not above keeping a shit list.' Pres. Obama won't like this 'devastating' mag piece on adviser Valerie Jarrett



'Such a sad, dishonest little hack.' Jonathan Chait writes that the GOP is trying to 'kill' people




25 amazing photos to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago today






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Friday, February 7, 2014

THIS DAY IN TWITCHY: FEBRUARY 6, 2014



'What a load of crap': After HHS crackdown on nuns, POTUS stresses importance of religious freedom

'Shoots and scores!' Politico: 'Does Obama have a Harry Reid problem?' Stacey Dash's reply slays

Former Obama speechwriter makes case against Woody Allen on child molestation claim

Did Lizz Winstead write Rep. Donna Edward's 'painful' comedy speech?

'I want my donation back': Wendy Davis backing open carry gun law rattles supporters

'How do you sleep?' UniteBlue prog gloriously mocked for defending Wendy Davis' support of open carry

Florida's 'Pop-Tart bill' would ease schools' zero-tolerance gun policies

Sean Hannity makes good on bet, grills steaks for 'The Five'

'Her heart will go on': Wendy Davis' campaign logo looks hilariously familiar

'Gave us hope and changed the world': Happy 103rd birthday, President Reagan!




Thursday, February 6, 2014

FLASHBACK 1964: A TIME FOR CHOOSING

Nancy and Ronald Reagan in 1964, the year he delivered "The Speech"




























In honor of President Ronald Reagan's 103rd birthday, here is the entire televised speech he gave on October 27, 1964 on behalf of the Goldwater campaign.  It was titled "A Time For Choosing" and now remembered simply as "The Speech."  The name of the program was "A Rendezvous With Destiny."  The speech raised $1 million for Goldwater's campaign and is considered the event that launched Reagan's political career.

Among other things, it is remarkable (and frightening) how eerily similar the problems he addressed on that day are to the problems we face on this day, except that today they are even more acuteAnd the rhetoric of the liberals is also quite familiar to us.  During the speech, Reagan uttered this famous quote:
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things -- we're never "for" anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.



You can read the complete transcript of the speech here.  I would strongly suggest that you take the time to listen to the entire speech and also read the transcript.  It is a magnificent example of why Reagan was known as the "Great Communicator" and it needs to be read as well as heard.  Here is an excerpt:
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."
Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government" -- this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.
"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so."

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

REAGAN OR OBAMA? LOL! IT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE...



Because obviously!

Presidential poll: Ronald Reagan's the greatest, Obama the worst
Former President Ronald Reagan has edged out Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy as the nation's greatest president in over a century, and President Obama was rated the biggest failure by a sizable margin over George W. Bush, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, according to a new poll.
The YouGov/Economist rankings just released found that more adults, 32 percent, put "the Gipper" in the "great" category. Of the 1,000 polled, FDR followed at 31 percent and JFK at 30 percent. Just 14 percent rated Obama as great.
Instead, 37 percent graded Obama a "failure," more than Bush at 32 percent, Nixon at 30 percent and Jimmy Carter at 22 percent.
The survey looked at presidents since Theodore Roosevelt, the first of the 20th century. Those surveyed were asked to rate each president in six categories: great, near great, average, below average, failure, and don't know.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

WHEN REAGAN SPOKE AT THE BERLIN WALL

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall, symbol of an atheistic, totalitarian empire that robbed millions of basic human dignity and freedom, and delivered one of the great speeches of the 20th century. More than a quarter century earlier, Soviet-backed East Germany had built the wall to keep its people from escaping Communist rule. Reagan, who knew his words would be heard on the other side of the wall, spoke directly to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

Monday, April 22, 2013

NIXON'S DREAMS ARE NOW OBAMA'S REALITY

There is an unintentionally hilarious article at CNN.com — written by a religion professor at Boston University — saying there were "echoes of President Ronald Reagan" in President Obama's speech at the interfaith service at Boston's Catholic cathedral on Thursday.
After the 2012 election, and particularly after Obama's second inauguration, many pundits started to refer to him as the "Liberal Reagan." Just as Reagan made it OK to be conservative in the 1980s, Obama now seemed poised to make it OK to be liberal. He seemed less worried about failure and more comfortable with his convictions. I see this "Liberal Reagan" in Obama’s outrage at the Senate's rejection on Wednesday of even the most milquetoast gun control legislation.
But I heard Reagan himself in Obama's speech at the interfaith prayer service.
Reagan's success as a president turned on his optimism and his resolve. In a sense, these two rhetorical notes are at odds. Optimism can be seen as soft, even wishy-washy. Who but a fool (or a liberal) can be optimistic in the face of communism or terrorism or a difficult Congress? The other is hard and unbending: the resolve to face up to communists or terrorists or Democrats at home whose policies seem designed to drive American society to the brink of extinction.
Yet together optimism and resolve served Reagan well, transforming him into one of our most popular presidents, despite the often polarizing positions he took on domestic and foreign policies alike.
Was Reagan polarizing?  Not at all.  He ran against Jimmy Carter's poor record and carried 44 states in the 1980 presidential election.  He followed up in 1984 by running on his own accomplishments in office and captured 49 states.  Only by carrying his home state of Minnesota did Mondale narrowly avoid a humiliating clean-sweep.  That's what we like to call a mandate - a real mandate, not the phony "mandate" that the Obama Media Group likes to imply from time to time.

No, Reagan wasn't "polarizing."  He was simply loathed by liberals.  Contrary to what liberals tell themselves, they were (and still are) the ones with the problem, not Reagan.  While I can certainly understand the psychic need of liberals to associate Obama with a popular and successful president like Ronald Reagan, the comparison is ridiculous.  Reagan gave us "morning in America" while Obama has us mourning for America.

As it turns out, a much more appropriate comparison for Obama would be another Republican president, Richard Nixon 

In February I joined those making the comparison between Obama and Nixon regarding hostility to journalists, particularly [former] liberal icon, Bob Woodward.  Naturally the Obama Media Group swung into action to destroy Woodward on behalf of Dear Leader.  But the obvious comparisons persist - and they're not just coming from political opponents.

Jonathan Turley is a left-leaning civil libertarian lawyer.  He's certainly no right-winger or Fox News personality.  But last month he unloaded on Obama with a laundry list of complaints in an article with the headline "Nixon Has Won Watergate."  The secondary headline read "Barack Obama's imperial presidency is just what his predecessor wanted."
This month, I spoke at an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal with some of its survivors at the National Press Club. While much of the discussion looked back at the historic clash with President Nixon, I was struck by a different question: Who actually won? From unilateral military actions to warrantless surveillance that were key parts of the basis for Nixon's impending impeachment, the painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be.
Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an "imperial presidency" with unilateral powers and privileges. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments.
Statements like that coming from a Limbaugh or a Beck would be blasted immediately and repeatedly by the Establishment Media, no matter how factually correct the statements might be.  But a man like Turley, who used to appear on MSNBC all the time, is an entirely different matter. He goes on to state:
Nixon was known for his attacks on whistle-blowers. He used the Espionage Act of 1917 to bring a rare criminal case against Ellsberg. Nixon was vilified for the abuse of the law. Obama has brought twice as many such prosecutions as all prior presidents combined. While refusing to prosecute anyone for actual torture, the Obama administration has prosecuted former CIA employee John Kiriakou for disclosing the torture program.
Other Nixonesque areas include Obama's overuse of classification laws and withholding material from Congress. There are even missing tapes. In the torture scandal, CIA officials admitted to destroying tapes that they feared could be used against them in criminal cases. Of course, Nixon had missing tapes, but Rose Mary Woods claimed to have erased them by mistake, as opposed to current officials who openly admit to intentional destruction.
Obama has not only openly asserted powers that were the grounds for Nixon's impeachment, but he has made many love him for it. More than any figure in history, Obama has been a disaster for the U.S. civil liberties movement. By coming out of the Democratic Party and assuming an iconic position, Obama has ripped the movement in half. Many Democrats and progressive activists find themselves unable to oppose Obama for the authoritarian powers he has assumed. It is not simply a case of personality trumping principle; it is a cult of personality.
Let me be clear.  I don't necessarily agree with much of Turley's views on these issues.  I do not, for instance, think that the Bush-era CIA should have been prosecuted for "war crimes."  That's just silly.  But Turley's point is that Obama is a hypocrite.  That I might agree with some of the results of that hypocrisy doesn't change the fact that Obama cannot be trusted.  It's a conclusion that Turley and I definitely share.

It's not just in matters of policy that Obama so closely resembles Nixon.  Like Nixon, Obama is notoriously aloof and disengaged.  Like Nixon, he relies heavily on the counsel of his wife and a tiny handful of loyalists for his perspective.  Arrogant, aloof, and unprepared is how Bob Woodward portrays Obama in his latest book The Price of Politics.
The book portrays Obama as a man of paradoxical impulses, able to charm an audience with his folksy manner but less adept and less interested in cultivating his relationships with Reid and Pelosi. While the president worries that he can’t rely on the two leaders, they are portrayed as impatient with him. As the final details of the 2009 stimulus package were being worked out on Capitol Hill, Obama phoned the speaker’s office to exhort the troops. Pelosi put the president on speakerphone so everyone could hear.
"Warming to his subject, he continued with an uplifting speech," Woodward writes. "Pelosi reached over and pressed the mute button. They could hear Obama, but now he couldn't hear them. The president continued speaking, his disembodied voice filling the room, and the two leaders got back to the hard numbers."
In the same vein, Woodward portrays Obama's attempts to woo business leaders as ham-handed and governed by stereotype. At a White House dinner with a select group of business executives in early 2010, Obama gets off on the wrong foot by saying, "I know you guys are Republicans." Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon, who "considers himself a progressive independent," retorted, "How do you know that?"
Nonetheless, Seidenberg was later pleased to receive an invitation to the president's 2010 Super Bowl party. But he changed his mind after Obama did little more than say hello, spending about 15 seconds with him. "Seidenberg felt he had been used as window dressing," Woodward writes. "He complained to Valerie Jarrett, a close Obama aide. . . . Her response: Hey, you're in the room with him. You should be happy."
He is vindictive.  He has always been obsessed with leaks, except when he's doing the leaking for his own benefit.  He delights in using dirty tricks - including getting sealed court documents mysteriously unsealed by friendly judges - to advance his career.  

He maintains a manipulative, co-dependent relationship with the media which, for several years, has exhibited symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome.  Like Patricia Hearst morphing into Tania, the Fourth Estate has turned into the Obama Media Group. The Establishment Media acts as a PR firm for Obama, not a watchdog for the people.  We need the media to closely examine what Obama is doing, not collude with him.

Back in February, during the controversy surrounding White House treatment of Woodward, another professional Democrat, Pat Caddell, wrote an article with the headline "Obama is the closest thing to Nixon we've seen in 40 years."  A remarkable public statement about a Democrat incumbent coming from a former Jimmy Carter adviser!
While Barack Obama may not share the Nixon pedigree, he and his White House are the closest thing to the Nixon regime of any that we have seen since then -- both in the extent of their paranoia and their willingness to suppress the truth and push the boundaries of law.
In my lifetime, in over 40 years in national politics, Mr. Obama is the only president who comes close to rivaling Richard Nixon for fundamental disingenuousness.
As the youngest person on Nixon's enemies list in 1972, I am particularly sensitive to a White House where they have utter disregard for trampling on dissent and on the rights of individuals.
Since Benghazi, when I raised the alarm about a media that was not only willing to blatantly support one political party or one political a candidate but for the first time seemed willing to suppress or ignore the facts and truth as related to a disaster of American foreign policy, my fear has been that we are now on a slippery slope. Almost everything since then has helped to realize that fear. Chuck Hagel, the sequester, Mr. Obama's speeches -- all of these have revealed a mainstream press that has absolutely decided to wear its bias openly as outriders of the Obama administration. Except for one issue -- when the president refused to allow reporters to cover him and Tiger Woods playing golf together. Now that's something they can get riled up about.
Nixon became public enemy No. 1 for the Left because of his "secret" bombing campaign against Cambodia.  We know how vilified George W. Bush was by the Left ("war criminal" and all...)But as the New York Times pointed out a year ago, Obama has become just as bloodthirsty as his predecessors.
He overthrew the Libyan dictator. He ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He became the first president to authorize the assassination of a United States citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and played an operational role in Al Qaeda, and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. And, of course, Mr. Obama ordered and oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The left, which had loudly condemned George W. Bush for waterboarding and due process violations at Guantánamo, was relatively quiet when the Obama administration, acting as judge and executioner, ordered more than 250 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2009, during which at least 1,400 lives were lost.
Compare Mr. Obama's use of drone strikes with that of his predecessor. During the Bush administration, there was an American drone attack in Pakistan every 43 days; during the first two years of the Obama administration, there was a drone strike there every four days. And two years into his presidency, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president was engaged in conflicts in six Muslim countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. The man who went to Washington as an "antiwar" president was more Teddy Roosevelt than Jimmy Carter.
While Nixon was eventually brought down by the Watergate scandal, Obama has managed to avoid the same fate, despite serious (and deadly) scandals of his own, primarily the Fast and Furious gun-running fiasco and the death of four Americans in Benghazi. 

Just as Nixon had his John Mitchell, so Obama has his Eric HolderAs a result of a dispute over the release of Justice Department documents related to Fast and Furious, Attorney General Holder became the first sitting member of the Cabinet of the United States to be held in contempt of Congress on June 28, 2012. Earlier that month, Obama had invoked executive privilege for the first time in his presidency over the same documents. Hiding behind executive privilege?  Nothing Nixonian about that, right?

A Coptic Christian filmmaker is languishing in prison because a video he made was deliberately and erroneously blamed by Obama officials as inciting the riots in Cairo and Benghazi.  Even though we now know this was totally false, the plight of the wrongly-accused filmmaker persists.  Why won't the government make the Benghazi survivors available for interviews or Congressional hearings?  Why is the White House intimidating them into silence?  

It's clear that Obama is hiding things from the American people.  But since most of the media these days is in the business of protecting the president rather than investigating him with all means at their disposal (as they did in Nixon's day), the former is still getting away with his coverups.

And, by the way, just like Nixon had Spiro Agnew, Obama has his own loud-talking, obnoxious, gaffe-prone buffoon in Joe Biden.  I rest my case.