When Our Government Works Against The Interests Of The Voters

On November, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the partnership between an agency in the Department of Homeland Security and several university centers to identify online content worthy of censorship. Why is our government working with universities to censor free speech? Might that be part of the reason our colleges have become indoctrination centers?

The article reports:

An agency within the Department of Homeland Security partnered with several university centers to identify online content worthy of censorship, according to a new report from the House Judiciary Committee.

The report, a project of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, detailed how the federal government formed a partnership with the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, and other groups. Titled the “Election Integrity Partnership,” the consortium aimed to identify election-related content that needed to be censored.

The report said the partnership was established in July 2020 by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a small agency within the Department of Homeland Security. The partnership then worked with social media companies to throttle content that questioned the integrity of the election process.

“The federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions,” the report said. “This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefited one side of the political aisle: True information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors.”

The article also notes:

The report named several prominent politicians, people, and conservative news outlets that had been targeted for censorship, including former President Donald Trump, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the Babylon Bee satire site, and Newsmax.

“Stanford and others, in collaboration with the federal government, established the EIP for the express purpose of violating Americans’ civil liberties: Because no federal agency ‘has a focus on, or authority regarding, election misinformation originating from domestic sources within the United States,’ there is ‘a critical gap for non-governmental entities to fill.’ CISA and Stanford created the EIP to bridge this ‘critical gap’ — an unconstitutional workaround for unconstitutional censorship,” the report said.

The report contained numerous screenshots of emails between government officials and employees of Twitter, Facebook, and the university “misinformation” centers, many of which included direct requests to censor content.

One of the things that was censored was any reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Government agencies knew the laptop was real and probably anticipated the information on it being reported before the election. The letter from the retired intelligence agents came out in October 2020, just before the election. Any valid information on the laptop was censored. At some point, American voters are going to realize that they have been manipulated and lied to by their own government. That will be interesting to watch.

The Constitution Provides A Way To Protect Gun Rights Currently Under Fire

On Saturday, Breitbart posted the following headline:

The Congressional Review Act Gives GOP House Opportunity to Stop ATF Stabilizer Brace Rule

The article reports:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) announced the finalization of its stabilizer brace ban on Friday, and within hours, members of Congress were talking about using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to block it.

The CRA was put in place in the 1990s as part of Speaker Newt Gingrinch’s (R) “Contract with America.” It grants Congress the ability to review a major rule and vote to block the implementation or effectiveness of the rule.

…The U.S. Government Accountability Office explains the CRA thusly: “The CRA allows Congress to review ‘major’ rules issued by federal agencies before the rules take effect. Congress may also disapprove new rules, resulting in the rules having no force or effect.”

Keep in mind that according to the Constitution, rules and laws were made in Congress and only in Congress.

The article reminds us that the ATF has attempted this ban in the past:

In July 2021, when the pistol brace rule was at the proposal stage, Rep. Richard Hudson (R) led 140 members of Congress in suggesting the proposed rule was a tax on “disabled combat veterans.”

Hudson called for the stabilizer brace proposal to be withdrawn, noting that the ATF had many times explained its position that such braces were “legitimate”:

The ATF has repeatedly stated, “the brace concept was inspired by the needs of disabled combat veterans who still enjoy recreational shooting but could not reliably control heavy pistols without assistance. Consequently, ATF agrees that there are legitimate uses for certain ‘stabilizing braces.’” If this is the stance of the ATF, then…[the proposed AR-pistol rule] is not an attempt to curb gun violence as suggested by this proposed guidance, but a direct tax on disabled combat veterans.

The article concludes:

The Congressional Review Act is in place for moments such as this and is apropos if, in fact, the stabilizer brace ban meets all the criteria of a “major” rule.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office explains: “The CRA allows Congress to review ‘major’ rules issued by federal agencies before the rules take effect. Congress may also disapprove new rules, resulting in the rules having no force or effect.”

A rule passed by un-elected bureaucrats who are not accountable to the voters should be immediately null and void.

 

How Freedom Of Speech Dies

On Friday Newt Gingrich posted an article illustrating the discrepancies in the censorship policies of Facebook.

The article reports:

The hypocrisy of Facebook’s so called internal “supreme court” decision to uphold former President Donald Trump’s ban from the platform is astounding. However, this decision will ultimately help President Trump because it makes him a martyr for standing in defense of constitutional American freedoms.

Every American should take note of this decision. If the Facebook oligarchs can silence someone who served as President of the United States and received nearly 75 million votes, then they can silence anyone.

But to understand the depth of the hypocrisy and anti-Americanism of the Facebook elites, it is more revealing to look at who they are not removing from the platform.

The article lists the people who have not been removed from Facebook:

Let’s start with the Chinese Communist totalitarian dictatorship. Xinhua News Agency– a state-run propaganda outlet – has 90.2 million followers on Facebook. The People’s Daily and the Global Times, which are Chinese Communist Party propaganda outlets, have 86.5 million and 62.9 million followers, respectively. The state-run television network, China Central Television, and its international arm, China Global Television Network, have 49.8 and 116.8 million followers. All of these organizations have been designated by the U.S. State Department as foreign missions.

To Facebook, a former American president is more dangerous than the Chinese Communist dictatorship, which is actively committing genocide and religious persecution, has taken over Hong Kong and threatened Taiwan, and openly says it intends to be the world’s dominant superpower by 2049.

The article notes that The “Movement in Support of Vladimir Putin” page has 3.1 million followers.

The list continues:

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, representing a country where its Congress openly chants “death to America,” has 883,829 Facebook followers. The corrupt Venezuelan dictator, President Nicolás Maduro, has 1.2 million followers on Facebook. Raul Castro’s replacement as the leader of Cuban Communist Party, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermudez, has 24,261 Facebook followers.

The article concludes:

This is just a sample. It is disgusting that Mark Zuckerberg – who was made a billionaire by the freedom found in the United States, who has relied on the stature of this country, and whose business exists because of the freedom of speech – would preside over this phony, dishonest process in order to keep President Trump off of Facebook, while allowing real dictators to post freely.

This should be a national scandal. Zuckerberg and the Facebook oligarchs have violated fundamental American freedoms and betrayed their own country.

The Silicon Valley is looking a lot more like the Silicon Swamp—hostile to Americans and friendly to dictatorships.

One wonders if those responsible for making decisions on banning people from Facebook have thought through the implications of those decisions.

An Expert Opinion

Regardless of how you may feel about him, Newt Gingrich is a brilliant political mind. He posted an article at Fox News today about the move to impeach President Trump. I recommend that you follow the link to read the entire article, but I will try to highlight it here.

The article reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats’ tunnel-vision focus on impeaching President Trump puts all of us, as Americans, at risk.

This may sound extreme, but I lay it all out in this week’s episode of “Newt’s World.”

Since the day Trump was elected president, Democrats have been formulating and executing the plot we have been watching unfold. After Trump won a massive electoral majority, Democrats started digging.

They have been determined to find something – anything – they can use to attack him. The central focus of all of this is to describe and define Trump as a corrupt president so often that people begin to accept the narrative. It’s not only the elected Democrats. Much of the intelligence community has been equally determined to “uncover” something on President Trump from the beginning.

The article continues:

As this plot against Trump has continued, the American system has been bypassed, ignored, or misused to the point where it has been put it in jeopardy. Democrats, political operatives, American intelligence officials and the media have been forcing a manufactured narrative on the American people. Specifically, a group of these intelligence officials are breaking the law by leaking secrets to the media (whose members gladly overlook these crimes so long as it lets them accuse the president of something new).

We have seen this pattern with the so-called Trump Towers in Moscow scandal, the Robert Mueller investigation, and now the Pelosi-Adam Schiff impeachment effort.

Make no mistake: This is not politics as usual. It’s a concerted effort by one political party, the Washington bureaucracy, and the media to overrule the American people.

The continuing attack on President Trump is dangerous to our Republic. This is an attempt to overthrow the results of a legitimate election. If those responsible are not brought to justice, our government will constantly be in chaos because false charges can be filed against any elected official at any time in an effort to remove him from office.

When The Politics Of Personal Destruction Became Acceptable

Many Americans look around at the political scene and wonder how we got to the point where anyone who disagrees with those in the media (and any liberal) is a horrible person probably guilty of hate speech. The concept of personal destruction has been with us for a while, but there are a few moments in American history that we can point to as watershed moments. One is the confirmation hearing of Robert Bork in 1987.

Robert Bork was recognized as a qualified conservative judge. In 1962, he became a law professor at Yale. In 1982, Ronald Reagan appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. In 1987, he was nominated for the Supreme Court. His nomination hearing was one of the low points of American history. The unfounded attacks on him were a shadow of things to come.

Yesterday PJ Media posted an article about Joe Biden’s role in the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork.

The article notes:

During the fourth Democratic debate on Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden — the ostensible moderate in the race — bragged about his role in the acrimonious political attack that first made Supreme Court confirmation battles as vicious as they are today. While Democrats often blame House Speaker Newt Gingrich for coarsening America’s political rhetoric, the character assassination of Robert Bork first ignited the partisan political warfare that hit a fever pitch with Trump.

Biden is campaigning on a platform of “restoring the soul” of America, aiming to reverse the influence of Trump, whom he blames for the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Va. Yet the former VP played a key role in the political declaration of war that turned Bork’s last name into a verb. On Tuesday, he bragged about that.

Asked about abortion, the former senator — and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman — bragged, “When I defeated Robert Bork, I made sure we guaranteed a woman’s right to choose for the better part of a generation.”

So the smearing of Robert Bork (also the smearing of Brett Kavanaugh) was actually about abortion. It worked the first time; it didn’t work the second time–Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed–Judge Bork was not.

The article continues:

Yet bragging about Bork is a bad strategy, especially for a candidate who aims to present himself as a return to political civility.

As Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) wrote in his excellent book Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal, the “Borking” of Robert Bork helped create the “angry constituency” that spurred on (Newt) Gingrich’s success.

…Biden played a large role in the character assassination.

Stage management was a key part of this made-for-tv political drama, and one of the central cast members was the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Delaware Senator Joe Biden. His former staffers later admitted that chairman Biden hatched a plan to work with outside advocacy groups to heighten the visibility of the Bork hearings. Biden thought a Supreme Court fight could be a key lever to boosting his name recognition in advance of the 1988 Democratic primary.

Because character assassination worked in that instance, the Democrat party has tried it on other occasions. It wasn’t until they tried it on President Trump that they met someone who was willing and able to fight back. That is one of many reasons that the Democrats are trying to remove him from office–their normal bag of tricks is not working on him.

There Are Very Few People Who Actually Want To Clean Up Washington

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the uniparty that current controls Washington, D.C. The uniparty is made up of the professional republicans and the professional democrats. Their common enemy is Donald Trump.

The article reports:

The same UniParty dynamic is visible in the way the FBI/DOJ and aggregate intelligence community were weaponized against Donald Trump – with Democrats and Republicans participating in the unlawful processes.   Now, in the downstream consequence phase, we see a UniParty defense approach to block Trump from revealing what happened.

I’m not sure people fully completely understand this dynamic within “spygate”.  It was not a targeting operation by democrats; republicans were just as complicit. The ongoing goal to eliminate candidate and president Trump is *not* partisan.

Which brings me to the current state of the advisers around the executive.  Remember, there are trillions at stake here – and the downstream benefactors are both Republicans and Democrats who make up the UniParty.

Within the UniParty dynamic, in order to retain full financial benefit, the political class need to align with Wall Street priorities.  That alignment means the UniParty needs to eliminate Main Street priorities that are adverse to their interests.

The article concludes:

Border controls and immigration enforcement are adverse interests to the UniParty. Additional cross party alignment to benefit Wall Street surrounds: •budgets and massive government spending; •government controlled healthcare retention; •government controlled education (common core); •and most importantly the removal of any national economic and trade policy that would threaten the structure of the multinationals.

On all of these issues the Democrats and Republicans have identical outlooks, common interests and mirrored legislative priorities. It is not coincidental that US Chamber of Commerce President Tom Dohonue also outlined these issues as primary priorities for his massive lobbyist spending.

There are trillions of dollars at stake; and we must never discount how far the Big Club participants will go to ensure the White House counselors are shaping their advice toward those objectives.

There are no MAGA lobbying groups in Washington DC advocating for policies that benefit economic nationalism. On this objective President Donald Trump stands alone.

We don’t need a third party in Washington DC, we actually need a second one.

This is a pretty good explanation as to why the promises that Republican Congressmen running for office made were broken–as long as President Obama was in power, they were safe promises–he was not likely to sign any law they passed that differed from Democrat ideas. When President Trump was elected, the Republicans had to put up or shut up. They chose to shut up in order to maintain their big donors and people they are beholden to other than the American voters. With a  few exceptions, we haven’t had Republican leaders in Congress since Newt Gingrich, and the establishment did a pretty good job of marginalizing him. If the Republican party continues on its current path, it will no longer exist in five years.

I Wish The Media Would Get The Facts Right

I just watched Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. I was a bit disappointed. Chris Wallace is generally a fairly even-handed newsman, but today he was not. He interviewed a Newt Gingrich about Donald Trump’s campaign and then a campaign spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The interviews were not at all even-handed. First of all, I like Newt Gingrich, and I respect him, but I have watched the mainstream media tear him down long enough to know that he may not be the best spokesman for Donald Trump–Newt Gingrich is a brilliant man, but his image needs repairing. Just the choice of Newt Gingrich to be interviewed to speak for Donald Trump is questionable. I am sure there were other choices. It was obvious that the Clinton spokesperson had not properly rehearsed his lines. He stumbled quite a few times when answering basic questions about Hillary’s honesty and other issues. Chris Wallace let most of those things slide, but when it came to questioning Newt Gingrich, Chris Wallace claimed that the statement that Hillary Clinton went to bed during the Benghazi attack was false. The record shows otherwise.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about Chris Wallace’s interviews on Fox News Sunday.

The article reports:

FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace defended Hillary Clinton today like the rest of the liberal media from Donald Trump’s attacks this week.

Wallace said Hillary did not go home and sleep during the Benghazi attack – parroting what the rest of the media has been reporting this week.

The fact is Hillary Clinton DID GO HOME AND SLEEP during the Benghazi attacks and there are records to prove it.

According to official watch logs on September 11, 2012 during the Benghazi attack on the US consulate the first note of the attacks (not protest, another Hillary lie) was posted after 4 PM on that Tuesday afternoon. And Hillary Clinton was home by 10:30 PM as US forces continued to come under attack at the CIA complex in Benghazi.

…There were no official records of any activity by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama after 10:30 that night. No calls to the Defense Department, no calls to the State Department, no calls to officials in Libya. Hillary was at home and in bed.

Before she went home though she plotted with Obama to blame the attack on a YouTube video – while the annex was still under attack!

The next morning Hillary and Barack blamed a YouTube video for the attack when she knew it was a terrorist attack.

This is what Donald Trump is up against. If voters are paying attention to facts, he will probably win this election. If voters are depending on the mainstream media for their information, Hillary Clinton will be President. That will not be good for the country.

 

The Truth Begins To Come Out

If you are reading this blog, chances are you voted in the primary election wherever you live–most of the people who read this blog are politically active. People who vote in primary elections believe that their vote counts and will make a difference. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

Because of the recent events in the North Carolina Republican Party, I am no longer registered as a Republican voter. I see very few differences between the parties at this point. I will be voting for Donald Trump because I don’t want Hillary Clinton picking Supreme Court Justices. However, I really don’t expect a lot of change in Washington regardless of who wins.

The Republican establishment is strong, and they are very capable of causing trouble for anyone who truly wants change.

The Daily Haymaker posted an article today about the real reasons behind the coup in the North Carolina Republican party that took place on Saturday. I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article. I will, however, provide a few excerpts.

The article was written by Brant Clifton and quotes Sammy Dodd, who was a delegate to the 2012 Republican Convention in Tampa.

Mr. Dodd writes:

In 2012 I was elected as a National Delegate to the RNC National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Many of the political hijinks that were pulled that year are well documented. Everything from the results of voice votes on a huge teleprompter before the vote was taken, changing the Party Rules to prevent Ron Paul from being nominated from the floor, disqualifying delegates from the State of Maine and replacing them with Romney delegates, and finally then Chairman Robin Hayes strong-arming the North Carolina delegation to support the Rules change.

Robin Hayes is the newly-elected Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party (after the coup that deposed Hasan Harnett).

Mr. Dodd continues:

In North Carolina, National Delegates are bound to vote in accordance with the results of our Primary. This is not only State Party rules, but State Law. The purpose of this law is to ensure that the Primary voters’ votes are represented at the Convention.

  Knowing that, in 2012 I pledged my vote and was bound to Newt Gingrich. At the time of the Primary, Romney, Paul, Gingrich, and Santorum were all in the race, so each candidate received a certain number of delegates according to the percentage of the votes. But before the Convention, Gingrich and Santorum dropped out. However, by State Law and Party Rules, Gingrich and Santorum delegates were still supposed to cast their votes accordingly on the first ballot. In fact, the NCGOP made me sign a pledge form, threatening legal action and up to a TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR fine for deviating from said pledge.

When it came time to cast that first vote, no one came to me and asked how I was voting or to give me a ballot to cast my vote. Instead, the North Carolina delegation “voted” 49 for Romney, and 6 for Ron Paul. So what happened to the Gingrich and Santorum votes? Simple. My vote was cast for me without my prior knowledge or consent. In essence, this vote was not only in violation of State Party rules, but violation of State Law!

Robin Hayes is, and was, directly responsible for how the North Carolina delegation was to be proportioned and bound.  Fortunately, I have not yet been held responsible for my law-breaking vote. The reason Ron Paul received votes was to appease his supporters and keep them at bay.

…And how you may ask, does the Kangaroo “Trial” Court annihilation of Chairman Harnett on April 30th 2016 relate? Not only is the State Chairman unbound by virtue of his position, but also he has control of the delegation and its proportioning. By his actions in 2012, Hayes showed that he is the RNC’s puppet, and with a contested convention likely in Cleveland, the RNC needs their tool/agent/Chairman to control the North Carolina delegation. They knew Chairman Harnett would have followed Party Rules and State Law; Hayes will not.  So what occurred on April 30th had nothing to do with the bogus set-up hacking charge or State Convention fees. This was, and is, about the RNC and the NC Delegation all along.

Americans have given up their choice of President. I will be voting for Donald Trump because I feel that Hillary Clinton is a true radical. However, I will not rejoin the Republican Party until they change the way they do business.

 

The Current American Welfare System

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about the current state of American welfare spending. It seems that those leaders who believe that we should become more like Europe and Scandinavia in our welfare spending practices might want to take another look.

The article reports:

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its annual poverty report. Conventional wisdom holds that the U.S. has a small social welfare system and far more poverty compared with other affluent nations. But noted liberal scholars Irwin Garfinkel, Lee Rainwater, and Timothy Smeeding challenge such simplistic ideas in their book “Wealth and Welfare States: Is America a Laggard or Leader?”

Garfinkel and his colleagues examine social welfare spending and poverty in rich nations. They define social welfare as having five components: health care spending, education spending, cash retirement benefits, other government cash transfers such as unemployment insurance and the earned-income tax credit (EITC), and non-cash aid such as food stamps and public housing.

The authors find that in the U.S., social welfare spending differs from that in other affluent countries because it draws heavily on both public and private resources. By contrast, in Europe, government controls most of the resources and benefits. For example, in the U.S., government health care spending is targeted to elderly and low-income persons; the American middle and working classes rely primarily on employer-provided health insurance. The U.S. government health care system is, therefore, more redistributive than the systems of most other developed nations.

Note to Bernie Sanders–we are already redistributing wealth.

The article goes on to explain that ‘poor’ families in America usually have air-conditioning, a car, and cable or satellite television. Poverty in America looks very different than poverty in many other parts of the world.

The article concludes:

It is, of course, a good thing that left-wing claims of widespread deprivation in the U.S. are inaccurate. But government welfare policy should be about more than shoveling out a trillion dollars per year in “free” benefits. When President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty, he sought to decrease welfare dependence and increase self-sufficiency: the ability of family to support itself above poverty without the need for government handouts. By that score, the War on Poverty has been a $24-trillion flop. While self-sufficiency improved dramatically in the decades before the War on Poverty started, for the last 45 years, it has been at a standstill.

A decent welfare system would return to Johnson’s original goal of reducing poverty by increasing self-sufficiency. It would require able-bodied recipients to work or prepare for work if they are to receive benefits. It would reward, not penalize, marriage. In other words, it would be the exact opposite of the welfare behemoth we currently have.

We have lost the War on Poverty. We are spending billions of dollars to create generational dependency rather than to create economic independence. It is time to refocus and encourage working instead of collecting money from the government. This process was begun under President Clinton (with the assistance of Newt Gingrich), but halted under President Obama. It’s time to bring a work requirement back into the welfare program. Please  follow the link and read the TopRightNews article about what is happening in Maine to bring welfare programs back under control.

A Reasonable Evaluation Of The Letter

There has been a ridiculous amount of fuss about the open letter signed by 47 Republican Senators regarding the White House negotiations with Iran. The most balanced reporting of the letter and its significance was posted at USA Today yesterday. In case you missed it, the text of the letter is posted here.

The article cites a brief history of other letters and activities of Senators:

The White House of course objects to members of Congress getting involved in foreign policy, which it sees as the president’s exclusive domain. But the Cotton letter is part of the normal give and take of American politics, driven by the shared powers enshrined in the Constitution.

This is hardly unprecedented. Recall the “Dear Commandante” letter sent by Rep. Stephen J. Solarz, D-NY and nine other senior Democrats to Sandinista junta leader Daniel Ortega.The letter was a not-so-subtle critique of Reagan administration policy towards Nicaragua. At the time, Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. said the letter ”clearly violates the executive branch’s exclusive prerogative of negotiating with a foreign government.” The Obama administration could recycle Gingrich’s talking points today.

Members of Congress have gone farther than simply sending letters to try to influence foreign affairs. “Fact finding missions” to countries with sensitive relationships with the United States are a Congressional staple. Then Senator Hillary Clinton went to Iraq in January 2007 — her third trip to that country since the 2003 invasion — as a means of establishing a platform for criticizing Bush policies for her upcoming run for the White House. She joined then Sen. Obama in championing Congressional action to limit the “surge” policy that they quickly declared a failure.

Regardless of how you feel about the letter, this behavior happens on both sides of the aisle and it is part of the give and take of the American political system. It really is not a big deal that 47 Senators signed a letter which briefly outlined how two of the three branches of the American government are supposed to interact with each other.

Someone Is Finally Telling The Truth

One of the casualties of political correctness is honesty. We simply do not call things what they are for fear of causing offense or facing the consequences of what actually is.

Politico posted an article yesterday by Newt Gingrich commenting on recent events in the Middle East.

The article quotes Mr. Gingrich:

The president asserted we have to oppose “the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.”

Clinton reinforced his analysis when she said, “We condemn in the strongest terms this senseless act of violence.”

This concept of “senseless violence” is at the heart of the left’s refusal to confront the reality of radical Islamists.

These are not acts of senseless violence.

These are acts of war.

We can’t successfully deal with a situation until we realize what it is. One of the things pointed out in the article is the question of how this video clip reached Egypt and Libya. Does anyone actually believe that the film was responsible for these attacks? Have we forgotten the emphasis terrorists put on dates and the fact that the attacks occurred on September 11?

The article concludes:

It is no accident that the embassy in Cairo issued a groveling statement, apologizing to the haters for having inconvenienced them with American freedom of speech.

The embassy was simply following Clinton’s lead, set months earlier in her meetings with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The OIC has a long- term campaign to manipulate the U.S. government into defining any criticism or improper reference to Islam as unacceptable.

No one should be confused by this. As Andy McCarthy wrote yesterday, the Islamist definition of heresy would destroy American free speech.

The Obama administration is waging war on the Catholic Church while appeasing the most extreme elements of Islam.

This is the bizarre situation we now find ourselves in.

We need to remember–When America has a weak President, the world is a more dangerous place.

 

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Something To Think About As The Presidential Primary Races Continue

On Thursday, Byron York posted a column at the Washington Examiner that says a lot about where the campaign for the presidency has gone. If you are unhappy with the direction that President Obama and his administration have taken this country, this is a column you need to read carefully.

Remember, we are in a political war. The media is not on the side of conservatives. The media controls the dialogue both by the slant of the story and by what they do not report. They also control the debates by controlling the questions.

Byron York points out:

The days leading up to Wednesday night’s debate were filled with bad feelings, and the debate itself was filled with bad feelings. Santorum found himself the target of a media pile-on after reports of old statements about — astonishingly enough — contraception and Satan. Santorum’s advisers grew angry and frustrated, feeling he was being singled out for questions about religious views that were not also directed at Romney, Paul, and Newt Gingrich. Santorum lost precious campaign time explaining himself.

Byron York relates the story of another campaign event:

Santorum spoke at length about the Obama administration’s policies on Iran, Syria and Israel. He discussed his proposal to cut taxes for manufacturers and the more general issue of jobs. He talked a lot about immigration, both illegal and legal. He went into quite a bit of detail about energy — shale oil, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, oil sands, the Keystone pipeline, fracking, and more. He talked about values and families — “This is what I know gets everybody on the secular left bonkers about my campaign: I say America is at heart a moral enterprise” — but he did not revisit the battles of the previous 48 hours.

It was, in other words, an entirely normal and wide-ranging campaign speech, full of substance. When it was over, Santorum took two questions. The first was about the health of his daughter Isabella. The second was about Social Security. No contraception, no Satan.

Guess which event got the most publicity.

We are in a battle for America. We can elect someone who respects our Constitution or continue with someone who generally ignores it. Unfortunately, the debates have not dealt with issues that impact Americans–debt, budget, energy, Obamacare, etc. It’s time to end the debates and begin talking about the things that matter. The Republicans have the answers to the issues–those answers are simply not being reported. One major media person commented during the 2008 election that media bias generally adds about 10 percentage points to Democrat candidates. We need to work hard to overcome that bias.

Republicans win in 2012 on the issues. The media is working very hard to keep the discussion away from those issues.

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Drug Testing Welfare Recipients

A friend of mine lost his job before Christmas and thankfully has recently found a new job. He is fairly high on the chain of command, and I was rather surprised that even when you are a responsible adult family man with a good work history, you are generally required to take a drug test before being approved for employment.

That situation entered my mind when I began reading about the idea of drug testing welfare recipients. Just as my friend was drug tested before he could be gainfully employed, should welfare recipients be drug tested before they receive taxpayers’ money?

Townhall.com posted an Associated Press article yesterday about the move to drug test people who receive money from the government.

The article reports:

Data show that about 8 percent of the population uses drugs. And before a random drug testing program in Michigan was put on hold by a court challenge, about 8 percent of its public assistance applicants tested positive.

In years past such legal challenges had a chilling effect on state legislatures, but that seems to have thawed.

Michigan’s program was halted after five weeks in 1999, eventually ending with an appeals court ruling that it was unconstitutional.

For more than a decade, no other state moved to implement such a law.

Drug use is a problem. If people are drug tested to get a job, why shouldn’t they be drug tested to be paid money from the government?

The article states:

This year conservative lawmakers in 23 states from Wyoming to Mississippi _ where lawmakers want random screening to include nicotine tests _ are moving forward with proposals of their own.

Romney, in an interview this month in Georgia, supported the idea. “People who are receiving welfare benefits, government benefits, we should make sure they’re not using those benefits to pay for drugs,” Romney said to WXIA-TV in Atlanta.

Newt Gingrich addressed the topic with Yahoo News in November, saying he considered testing as a way to curb drug use and lower related costs to public programs.

Drug use can prevent people from being responsible and holding down a job. Why should we support the drug habit of someone who would rather stay home and do drugs than work? I object to the idea of testing for nicotine–cigarettes are still a legal product–but I think testing for illegal drugs is a good idea. If people who want to be hired for a job need to be drug tested, why shouldn’t welfare recipients also be tested?

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It’s Getting Hard To Sort The Truth From The Spin

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The Republican primary race seems to have come down to a contest between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. I am totally willing to admit, political junkie that I am, that I haven’t made up my mind yet. I am willing to admit that I think that both leading candidates have totally forgotten President Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment.

There are a few things I am watching in deciding who will get my support–who is supporting each candidate and who is opposing each candidate. It was obvious at the start of the campaign that the Obama campaign was preparing for Mitt Romney as their opponent. Romney was ‘the next in line’ which, unfortunately, seems to be the way the Republicans choose their candidates. It doesn’t work very well, but they keep doing it. The Occupy Wall Street movement was the perfect prelude to a campaign against Mitt Romney–the man is obviously wealthy–he has worked hard and accomplished many things to obtain that wealth, but an opposing campaign could overlook that and just characterize him as the ‘evil rich.’ Governor Romney seems to be the choice of the Republican ‘establishment.’ Newt Gingrich is the rebel candidate. He has been knocked down twice already and just seems to bounce back up. He seems to be the Tea Party candidate (although I seriously doubt he was their first choice). Newt is a bit of a loose cannon, but seems to have an ability to explain things so that ordinary people can understand them and to get things done (although he steps on peoples’ feet in the process). As I have posted earlier, the ethics charges against him in the mid 1990’s were later proven to be completely false by the IRS. I believe he was run out of the House of Representatives on a rail (so to speak) because he was a threat to both the Republican and Democrat Washington establishment. If he can make that case to the public, he will win the nomination and the election.

On Friday, January 27, Newsmax.com posted a short article discussing some of the attacks on Newt Gingrich. Ronald Reagan’s eldest son Mike Reagan has issued a statement regarding the claim that Newt Gingrich did not support Ronald Reagan.

The article posted the statement:

I am deeply disturbed that supporters of Mitt Romney are claiming that Newt Gingrich is not a true Reaganite and are even claiming that Newt was a strong critic of my father.

“Recently I endorsed Newt Gingrich for president because I believe that Newt is the only Republican candidate who has both consistently backed the conservative policies that my father championed and the only Republican that will continue to implement his vision.

“It surprises me that Mitt Romney and his supporters would raise this issue — when Mitt by his own admission said he opposed my father in the 1980s claiming he was an ‘independent,’ and later supported liberal Democrat Paul Tsongas for president.

“As governor of Massachusetts, Romney’s achievement was the most socialistic healthcare plan in the nation up until that time.

“Say what you want about Newt Gingrich but when he was Speaker of the House he surrounded himself with Reagan conservatives and implemented a Ronald Reagan program of low taxes and restrained federal spending.

“Newt’s conservative program created a huge economic boom and balanced the budget for the first time in more than a generation.”

Mike Reagan concluded: “I would take Newt Gingrich’s record any day over Mitt Romney’s.”

Beware of the spin! Listen to the people who are closest to the events and have nothing to gain or lose by telling the truth.

 

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Some Further Information To Add To The Pile

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As I have stated, I am not supporting any particular Republican candidate right now. I am, however, concerned about the circular firing squad the Republican candidates seem to be forming. The debates seem to be saving the Democrats a lot of time and effort when it comes to future opposition research.

On February 9, 1999, Brent Bozell posted a column at Creators Syndicate about the charges against Newt Gingrich.

The column states:

The judgment is in. After three and a half years of investigation, the IRS has cleared Newt Gingrich and his allied nonprofit groups of any violation of the tax laws in the controversy over his television history course “Renewing American Civilization.”

So after having run countless news reports highlighting the accusations that ultimately forced Gingrich to pay a $300,000 fine, did the media correct the record with a decent airing of the decision? Are you ready? ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted exactly zero seconds to Newt Gingrich’s vindication. Only CNN’s Brooks Jackson filed a decent TV report, on the early-evening show “Inside Politics.”

No wonder no one knows that he was cleared of the charges. It seems to me that if the truth ever comes out, those who are still claiming that Newt is guilty of something will look worse than Newt!

The column goes on to detail some of the press coverage of the events and contrasts them with other situations involving Democrats. The bias is obvious. We need to understand that the press is no longer maintaining any semblance of impartial reporting. When the facts get in the way, they simply fail to report them.

 

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Another Inconvenient Truth

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Yesterday Real Clear Politics posted an article containing a quote from Nancy Pelosi regarding Newt Gingrich:

“There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him that’s their prerogative. I don’t even think that’s going to happen.”

Aside from the blackmail and veiled threat aspect of this statement, there are a few other aspects that need to be examined.

Newt has responded to Ms. Pelosi before:

“First of all, I want to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift,” he said at a press conference in New York.

“Well, if she suggested that she’s going to use material that she developed when she was on the ethics committee, that is a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope that members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it,” he continued. “I think it shows you how capriciously political that committee was when she was on it.”

Byron York posted an article at the Washington Examiner yesterday detailing what happened in the House investigation of Newt Gingrich in the 1990’s. Please follow the link to the article and read the details. The bottom line is that this was a political witch hunt driven by a man who had lost an election to Newt Gingrich (Ben Jones) and had a bone to pick. I also think that part of the problem was that Newt was a threat to both the Republican and Democrat establishment and neither one liked the changes he was making. I have not yet made up my mind who I am supporting in the Republican Primaries, but the fact that Newt is a threat to the Washington establishment works for him rather than against him in my book.

This is a quote from the Byron York article that describes the events that led to the end of Newt’s term as Speaker of the House:

Two days before Election Day 1994, with defeat in sight, Jones hand-delivered a complaint to the House ethics committee (the complaint was printed on “Ben Jones for Congress” stationery). Jones asked the committee to investigate the college course, alleging that Gingrich “fabricated a ‘college course’ intended, in fact, to meet certain political, not educational, objectives.” Three weeks later, Jones sent the committee 450 pages of supporting documents obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act.

That was the beginning of the investigation. Stunned by their loss of control of the House — a loss engineered by Gingrich — House Democrats began pushing a variety of ethics complaints against the new Speaker. Jones’ complaint was just what they were looking for.

At some point Americans have to grow up and do their own research. To accept blindly the charges being leveled at Newt Gingrich is naive at best and dangerous to the electoral process at worst. In recent years, the media has been working in concert with the Democrat Party on the politics of personal destruction. They have been very successful. If we the public continue to allow that to happen, a lot of good candidates will decide not to run for office. We need to remember that when President Obama won his election for the Senator from Illinois he did it by exposing highly personal irrelevant information on his major opponents in order to drive them out of the race. That has been his strategy in the past, we need to prevent him from using that strategy in the future. It is our job as voters to be careful what we believe and to refuse to accept blindly what we are told is the truth.,

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The Three Ring Circus Called The Republican Primary Debate

My source for this article is the CNN story posted about the debate. I do, however, have a few of my own comments.

I understand the need to reach a wide audience, but why are the Republicans debating on CNN when Fox gets higher ratings? Why are the Republicans putting up with stupid questions instead of discussing serious issues?

The question right out of the box tonight was to Newt Gingrich about an interview done with his ex-wife. First of all, what do you expect to hear from someone’s ex-wife? Second of all, where was the media investigation of John Edwards before the National Enquirer forced his mistress into the open? Would we have ever heard about Monica Lewinski without Matt Drudge and his knowledge of the blue dress? The double standard is going to be an obstacle to having a fair campaign.

I guess the debates are giving the Republican candidates television time so that the American people can see them and draw conclusions, but I wish there were some substance in the discussions. This isn’t ‘Dancing with the Stars;’ this is a campaign for President of the United States.

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President Obama And Food Stamps

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about the increase in the number of Americans using food stamps during the past four years. This is the graph:

The problem with with the food stamp program is that there is not enough oversight of the program. As Senator Jeff Sessions has stated:

The agriculture bill we are considering this week…would result in a quadrupling of food stamp funds from their 2001 levels. At a proposed $80 billion a year, food stamps are becoming one of the largest items in our budget….

There is little if any oversight of the program, resulting in the extraordinary waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars. … In some cases, the only thing you need to become food-stamp eligible is have a brochure from the federal government be sent to you in the mail. …

This program is not being run honestly, effectively, or fairly. It is deeply disappointing and extremely telling that the Democrat-led Senate voted down even this modest effort to address the almost shameless mishandling of taxpayer funds. We’re in a fiscal crisis that is already killing jobs, and these bills just increase spending—and destroy confidence—that much more.

We have a corruption problem in our government, and many of our respresentatives in Washington are unwilling to deal with it. Meanwhile, we are cutting our national defense down to a level that is dangerous to our national security. We need to help people who are struggling to make ends meet. I have no problem with that. But we also need to make sure that government programs are not misused or taken advantage of.

The article at Power Line cites just a few of the abuses that have been discovered in the Food Stamp Program. We need to elect a Congress that will have the will to cut waste, fraud, and inefficiency in the Food Stamp program.

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The Experts Talk About New Hampshire

 

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National Review Online posted an article today by a number of its political pundits on the meaning of the results of the New Hampshire Primary. I will try to summarize, but please follow the link to the article–it is very informative.

Hunter Baker stated that Mitt Romney benefited by the winner in New Hampshire being declared early–more people saw him give his victory speech, and the speech was very effective.

Mona Charen pointed out that both Iowa and New Hampshire chose Romney. She also noted that the attacks on capitalism from Newt Gingrich may have helped shore up Mitt Romney’s conservative credentials. Regardless of how you feel about Mitt Romney, you have to admit that he is a capitalist!

Jim Geraghty points out that after the Romney win in New Hampshire, the only viable opponent to Mitt Romney is Rick Santorum. Mr. Geraghty wonders if Senator Sentorum will be able to overcome the Romney momentum.

Hugh Hewitt also agrees that Santorum is the only other candidate who could possibly beat Mitt Romney. He states that Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich ended their campaigns when they went after Romney and Bain Capital. Mr. Hewitt ends his comments with the question, “So who does Jim DeMint endorse?” Interesting question.

Kathryn Jean Lopez also comments that the attacks by Newt Gingrich helped Mitt Romney from his candidacy as a defense of capitalism. This is the beginning of the narrative Mitt Romney will use in his run against President Obama.

Grover Norquist takes a different approach. He has three suggestions for Mitt Romney–who to choose for a running mate, who to choose for a chief-of-staff, and to convince Ron Paul to speak at the Republican convention. He believes the Romney needs to include Ron Paul in order to insure that Ron Paul does not run as a third-party candidate.

Henry Olsen stated that the strong victory in New Hampshire almost assures that Mitt Romney will be the candidate. He makes an interesting observation though:

Jon Huntsman? He carried only four groups — those who consider themselves Democrats, those who strongly oppose the Tea Party, those who are satisfied with Obama, and those who are dissatisfied with the GOP candidates. ’Nuff said.

Great comment.

John J. Pitney commented on the morphing of Newt Gingrich into Michael Moore. Mr. Pitney states that he hopes Newt will go back to being the Newt we saw early in the campaign–focusing more on attacking President Obama than attacking fellow Republicans.

Cal Thomas notes that Mitt Romney is well on his way to being the Republican nominee for President. Although he is not universally loved, the other candidates will be running out of money and organization soon. Mr. Thomas notes that it is still a long way to the White House.

Now, my comments. I live in Massachusetts. Governor Romney was a good governor. He did not move the state in a conservative direction (it’s Massachusetts, I am not sure that is possible, we are one of two states that voted for George McGovern for President!) He is an honest, hard-working man. If he is elected, I am sure he will do everything in his power to rescue the American economy, and I believe that he has the knowledge and work ethic to do that. He is not my first choice, but I believe that he is a good choice.

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America’s Political Sage Sums Up The Debate

Late last night, Michael Barone posted an article at the Washington Examiner analyzing the night’s debate in New Hampshire. Michael Barone is the main author of The Almanac of American Politics, which is published every two years. He a very knowledgeable political observer and very accurate predictor of future political events.

Mr. Barone states in the article:

At about 10:28pm tonight, as Mitt Romney pivoted from a question on tax loopholes and started in with, “the real issue is vision,” I had recorded this thought in my notes, “He just clinched the nomination.”

Romney said, as he often has, that Barack Obama has put America on the road to decline and is trying to make America more like Europe. He made reference to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as he often has—which helps to explain why he polls about as well with supporters of the tea party movement, who revered and often reference the Founding documents, as with non-supporters—and proclaimed that the question in this election was whether America was going to remain “a unique nation”and whether it would “return to the principles on which it was founded.” To which Newt Gingrich then meekly concurred, adding some caveats.

The article goes on to detail the performance of each of the candidates in the debate. According to Mr. Barone, Mitt Romney moved forward in the debate, and Rick Perry positioned himself for the race in South Carolina. The other candidates pretty much stayed where they were before the debate.

I live in Massachusetts. I lived here when Mitt Romney was Governor. He did a good job considering the legislature he had to work with. I think Romneycare would have been a lot worse without Romney as Governor. I could easily vote for him in the 2012 election, although frankly he is not my first choice. I think his success in running against Barack Obama will largely depend on his choice of a running mate. There are a lot of very good options for him out there.

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An Interesting Turn Of Events

 

 

Big Government is reporting today on an interesting twist of events that has resulted in Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry being excluded from the Virginia Republican primary ballot. It seems that in the Presidential primaries of 2000, 2004, and 2008, 10,000 signatures were required, but those signatures were not checked.

The article reports:

The only reason the Virginia Republican Party checked the signatures for validity for the current primary is that in October 2011, an independent candidate for the legislature, Michael Osborne, sued the Virginia Republican Party because it did not check petitions for its own members, when they submitted primary petitions. Osborne had no trouble getting the needed 125 valid signatures for his own independent candidacy, but he charged that his Republican opponent’s primary petition had never been checked, and that if it had been, that opponent would not have qualified. The lawsuit, Osborne v Boyles, cl 11-520-00, was filed in Bristol County Circuit Court. It was filed too late to be heard before the election, but is still pending. The effect of the lawsuit was to persuade the Republican Party to start checking petitions. If the Republican Party had not changed that policy, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry would be on the 2012 ballot.

As much as I would like to see both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry in the Virginia primary, I support the idea of checking signatures (I also support voter ID laws). I think we need to make sure that our elections truly do represent the idea of ‘one man, one vote.’

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The Most Dangerous Position For An American Right Now Is To Be The Frontrunner In The Republican Race For The Presidency

 

Yesterday The Hill posted a story about a recent statement by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Ms. Pelosi told Talking Points Memo:

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. When the time is right. … I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

Well, Newt responded quickly:

Gingrich reacted to Pelosi’s comments by thanking her for an “early Christmas gift.” 

He also said Pelosi would be violating House rules and abusing the ethics process if she disclosed anything from the ethics investigation.

“That is a fundamental violation of the rules of the House,” Gingrich said in New York following a meeting with Donald Trump. “She’s now prepared to totally abuse the ethics process.”

Releasing the material would show the “tainted ethics process the House was engaged in,” Gingrich said.

Ms. Pelosi then had to backtrack–her spokesman stated:

Responding to Gingrich’s comments, a spokesman for Pelosi said the former Speaker was “clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware.” 

A spokesman for the House Ethics Committee declined to comment on “current rules in the context of allegations concerning past conduct, or hypothetical future conduct governed by past rules.”

I don’t have a favorite among the current top three in the Republican primaries, but this incident indicates how much we need a candidate who not only knows and understands the law, but it willing to respond strongly when smeared. We all know that Newt has baggage. We also know that he was cleared on all but one of the charges brought against him. We also know that the whole ethics controversy was about politics-not eithics.

The other candidates need to take notes on how Newt handled this attack–they may need those notes for future reference.

 

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A Taste Of The Misinformation To Come

Hot Air posted a story today aimed at clearing up one of the attacks on Newt Gingrich that actually has no basis in fact. It is an attack (and talking point of the left) that has been around for at least twenty years, and it is really nasty as well as being untrue.

The story is that Newt Gingrich divorced his wife as she law in a hospital bed dying of cancer. His daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, has decided to set the record straight.

Ms. Cushman tells her story at a website called creators.com. She relates:

So, to correct the record, here is what happened: My mother, Jackie Battley Gingrich, is very much alive, and often spends time with my family. I am lucky to have such a “Miracle Mom,” as I titled her in a column this week. 

As for my parents’ divorce, I can remember when they told me.

It was the spring of 1980. 

I was 13 years old, and we were about to leave Fairfax, Va., and drive to Carrollton, Ga., for the summer. My parents told my sister and me that they were getting a divorce as our family of four sat around the kitchen table of our ranch home. 

Soon afterward, my mom, sister and I got into our light-blue Chevrolet Impala and drove back to Carrollton.

Later that summer, Mom went to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for surgery to remove a tumor. While she was there, Dad took my sister and me to see her.

It is this visit that has turned into the infamous hospital visit about which many untruths have been told. I won’t repeat them. You can look them up online if you are interested in untruths. But here’s what happened:

My mother and father were already in the process of getting a divorce, which she requested.

Dad took my sister and me to the hospital to see our mother.

She had undergone surgery the day before to remove a tumor.

The tumor was benign.

As with many divorces, it was hard and painful for all involved, but life continued.

As have many families, we have healed; we have moved on. 

It would have been nice of the people who spread this story to mention that Jackie Battley Gingrich is still alive and was not dying of cancer–nor did she die! Unfortunately divorce is a part of our society, we need to get past the habit of condemning the people who have gone through it.

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A Surprisingly Fair Article About Newt Gingrich

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As of right now, I am not willing to handicap the Republican race for the White House. However, I do think Newt Gingrich is one of the smartest candidates we have had in a while in terms of understanding American history and what America is. I think he has some interesting ideas, but I think he is extremely vulnerable to attacks from the left on many aspects of his personal life.

National Public Radio posted an article today called, “5 Things You May Not Know About Newt Gingrich.” It is not an earth-shattering article, but it is actually reasonably fair. The article is slightly skewed to relate things that some Republicans may have problems with–for instance, the fact that he was not the main force between the impeachment of Bill Clinton–but many Republicans will view that as the result of being politically astute. Please follow the link and read the entire article–there was actually some new information in it!

 

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Watching The Foxes Moderate The Townhall Meeting They Held With The Chickens To Discuss Security In The Chicken Coop

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Sorry, I couldn’t resist that. The fact remains that in order to get airtime on stations that cater to the left side of the political spectrum, Republicans are having to engage in some debates moderated by people who do not want them to win or to communicate their ideas to the American people. You are welcome to disagree, but that is the view from where I sit.

Byron York at the Washington Examiner posted his take on the debate early this morning. He felt that Rick Perry did well, but walked into two minefields that could be a problem for his campaign–in the past Governor Perry has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme (it is, but it’s not polite to call it that), and Governor Perry sees more value in boots on the ground at the border than a fence (true, but not always popular). Byron York sees the race as between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. I think that is generally the conventional wisdom.

During the debate, Governor Perry and Governor Romney discussed who had created the most jobs as governor. Guess what–nobody cares. We just want to know what you will do with the current unemployment situation.

Andrew Malcolm at the Los Angeles Times simply broke the debate into award categories. He listed both Rick Perry and Mitt Romney as winners. He also gave Newt Gingrich the award for most eloquent–noting that the loudest applause came when Newt chastised the moderators for asking questions to divide the candidates rather than contrast their views with the President’s.

To me, the debate illustrated the political and cultural divide we currently have in this country. When Brian Williams seemed concerned that the audience applauded the use of the death penalty in Texas, Rick Perry had to explain to him that they were applauding the concept of justice. There is a portion of our society that has lost the concept of justice and confused it with not being compassionate. I support compassion, but believe that without justice compassion is useless. I regret that a murderer is being executed, but I believe the family of his victim is entitled to justice. I don’t want to see a murderer back on the street in ten years. That almost guarantees future victims and is not compassionate.

All in all, I think the debate went well. I look forward to a debate in the future with a less biased moderator.

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