In 2008, Alaska’s junior senator, Mark Begich won his seat by the slimmest of margins, barely edging out incumbent Senator Ted Stevens. “Uncle Ted”, as Alaskans were fond of calling him, and was the longest serving Republican member of the Senate of all time. What tipped the scales for this unlikely win?
Was it the huge infusion of DNC cash? Wifely support from Begich’s wife, Deborah Bonito (former Chair of Alaska’s Democrat Party)? Was the brotherly support of unions, including former APDEA union leader, Rob Heun (who later received a federal commission as a US Marshall) a big help? Or could it have simply been the “Shadow Bosses” factor?
One thing is certain. It was a lucky break for Mr. Begich, when 60 days before the election, Senator Stevens was hit with ethics and corruption charges. Begich supporters, the DNC, and highly organized Outside interests had been relentless and vociferous in condemning Stevens. Then just 8 days before the election, Senator Stevens was convicted of felony violations. In spite of this, Stevens’ popularity and reputation for standing up for the rights of Alaska almost won him re-election. But Mark Begich had managed to pull in enough votes for a win.
After the election, however, the many disturbing discrepancies in the prosecution’s case led to a review and a request by the Attorney General to Judge Emmett Sullivan to dismiss the indictment. The judge complied and appointed a special prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation of the federal prosecutors working on the Stevens case. It had been alleged that Senator Stevens had tried to conceal information on renovation of his modest Girdwood home on his senate financial disclosure form. The other counts concerned gifts, including a puppy from a charity event, a massage chair and a statue of a giant salmon. A key witness, David Anderson, came forward and acknowledged that he had provided false testimony. He admitted that the prosecution had allowed billing records from him to be entered into evidence even though they knew the records were not accurate. Bill Allen was convicted of bribery and conspiracy and was sentenced to 3 years in prison. A number of others were found guilty of lying and withholding information that would have cleared Senator Stevens.
The wrongful conviction of Senator Ted Stevens, just days before the election, was thrown out. But the damage was done. Alaska’s most experienced and ardent champion, a man who had served Alaska long before it had even achieved statehood, was gone from the senate. This powerful voice for Alaskans had been replaced by a man with little experience and few achievements.
We know Senator Mark Begich’s record in the senate. Other than being a deciding vote for Obamacare, he has accomplished little, getting just one bill passed… to re-name a courthouse in Anchorage. “…Begich is a junior figure, moving through the chamber’s power structure at the speed of a mastodon tapped in a glacier.” ~The Washington Post 7/13/14
A loyal party follower and self-described moderate Democrat, Begich gave Obama 105 of his 107 Senate votes. He voted to increase the debt limit 7 times, voted for the failed $831 billion stimulus plan, voted for a national energy tax known as Cap and Trade, and although he claims to be against EPA overregulation, Senator Begich voted against reining in the EPA’s power.
Although he claims credit for many accomplishments, it turns out that Senator Begich has stretched the truth a bit on those claims. He has taken credit for getting Veterans facilities built, but it was Senator Ted Stevens and others who got the ball rolling on them. He has claimed credit for bills sponsored by Alaska Senator Murkowski, on which he was merely a signer. He promised he’d fight Obama and open ANWR for drilling. ANWR is still closed. He has actually been chastised by Alaska Congressman Don Young, who said, “I don’t appreciate the ads being run on his (Begich’s) behalf. The road (into the National Petroleum Reserve)? Nah. Dena’ina Center? Nah. Merrill field? I don’t think so. Don’t take credit for something you didn’t do.”
From 1988-98 Mark Begich served on the Anchorage Assembly. During this period, his friend, Anchorage Police Department Employees Association President, Rob Heun convinced the general membership to approve the purchase of an entire building for a union meeting hall. Many felt this was an extravagance since the APDEA union executive board met only once a month. The realtor, Anchorage Assemblyman Mark Begich, reportedly received at least 50K in fees for the $375,000 sale. Additional remodeling costs, reportedly $675,000, went to Begich associate, Joe Murdy (now deceased). Many APDEA members, however, felt that the improvements, including installation of inexpensive indoor-outdoor carpeting, painting walls and adding red outside vinyl window awnings did not justify an expenditure of over two-thirds of a million dollars…especially since the general assembly meeting room was left with a hole to the outside in the south wall where an exhaust fan had been removed. In the end, it cost over a million dollars for this chilly and rarely used building.
In 2003 Begich was elected to a term as Mayor of Anchorage. But that hadn’t ended all that well. During Mark Begich’s tenure as mayor, he increased spending, proposed higher fees and fines, and proposed cuts to city services. Just before leaving office and without consulting the Anchorage Assembly, Begich agreed to generous labor contracts that the city couldn’t afford. In 2008, the Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously to audit those labor contracts that Begich made without their approval. The contracts furthered the financial mess Begich created as mayor while he headed to Washington, DC. In 2009, an independent review found Begich provided inaccurate information and never confirmed Anchorage had the funding for these new contracts.
In her statement to RCP, Palin appealed to revel in the act of sticking her thumb in the eye of the Republican “machine” that has coalesced around Cassidy, as she predicted that Louisiana would be “the epicenter of a political earthquake on Tuesday.”
“The GOP machine should never have broken promises,” Palin wrote in the statement. “They got involved in an open Republican primary because they don’t respect the wisdom of the people. They chose their guy, and now as they work against the Maness momentum they’re scurrying around with desperate lies in an attempt to swallow him up.”
Like a gator in the swamp, Col. Rob Maness may have been seen as sharply lurking, but is now ready to pounce. It is time. This is the election that will be the shocker on Tuesday.
The media bought into the false premise that this is a typical partisan establishment tiff between go-along-to-get-along politicians, Landrieu and Cassidy, and they’re missing the boat. Like that Louisiana alligator who can dominate the swamp, Maness is ready to be on top of D.C.’s food chain and devour the crony capitalism that runs wild in government. Status quo politicians like Landrieu had their chance to clean it up, but the establishment has partaken of the grub far too long, and voters know this.
The GOP machine should never have broken promises. They got involved in an open Republican primary because they don’t respect the wisdom of the people. They chose their guy, and now as they work against the Maness momentum they’re scurrying around with desperate lies in an attempt to swallow him up. Polls show the “expert” Washington consultants bet on the wrong horse. Their anointed candidate has a long record of liberal votes, many of those votes were quite recent. A survey I saw reveals Cassidy voted with Obama on 35 key votes, and he’s even voted for Sen. Landrieu, and dissed Ronald Reagan! Look, it’s most telling that the political machine’s deputized one won’t even show up at debates to defend his record. No wonder he’s slithering down in the polls and this race is slipping away from the GOP. It’s because Louisiana voters know they deserve better than Cassidy’s M.O.
I’ve been to Louisiana and seen the momentum — Col. Maness is the only conservative in the race and the clearest contrast and strongest pick to take on Mary Landrieu. His real life record of service, work ethic, positive policy ideas and commonsense resonates with voters. Here he’s fighting two powerful forces — two consummate politicians and both parties’ establishments — yet he’s the one showing real strength and keeping it positive. He’ll prevail because he’s fought and won tougher real life battles.
The momentum IS on Col. Maness’ side. The Louisiana primary system is the freest in the country and the GOP oppresses that freedom by working against him with false scare tactics and calling this good man a “spoiler” or “vote splitter,” and their attempts to shoot him down are backfiring. Louisianans are realizing there is little difference in voting for the two politicians in this race, and they’re looking to make their vote count and actually make a difference. They’re seeing they have the choice to send Washington a message, and that’s why I’m confident Louisiana will be the epicenter of a political earthquake on Tuesday with their vote for Rob Maness.
I don’t consider Sarah Palin a VICTIM of attacks. She is the OBJECT of hatred but she is not a victim by any stretch of the imagination. Sarah Palin is a leader. She is a very hands-on politician who is as tough as nails but as compassionate and loyal a friend as anyone I’ve seen in politics. Defending her does not mean (to me) accepting her as a victim. She’s better than that. Self-empowered, powerful and effective. That is not the definition of victim. Her appearance on Stuart Varney and Company following the one on Greta where she called Obama incompetent proves it yet again. (But do those of us who believe her need any proof?) 🙂
• Sarah Palin Warns Libs .. “I’m Gonna Bug The Crap Out Of Them” • Hints at Future Run • 10/28/14 •
Congratulations to Jeff Gaspin and Jon Klein for their entrepreneurial achievements over the years and for being pioneers in Subscription Television:
Jeff Gaspin and Jon Klein first met 20 years ago while pioneering reality television at NBC and CBS, respectively. They were ahead of the curve then, and they’ve stayed there – helping to usher in the era of online video in the 2000’s, and now turning their sights to media’s next frontier: subscription television.
As the readers and viewers may know, I expressed my interest in promoting the Sarah Palin Channel in Spanish here and here. I did not just do SPC clips, however. I did other news items which took an eternity to create, translate, edit and publish. I stated clearly it was all exploratory in nature. This allowed for a margin of error -not in the translations- but the actual publication themselves. I had a concern from the start about copyright. No one could guarantee one way or another if what I was doing would be okay. It was 50-50, in fact, so I went ahead and took a chance. Every time I posted a clip, people asked about the Sarah Palin Channel. I know I motivated at least a handful to sign up. But Tapp does not seem to want to generate more excitement. Celebrity is a magic bullet that will turn a profit for them without our help. Why get involved? It’s oh so time-consuming.
Tapp must not value my meager contributions for its promotional success either. After waiting one entire month for a reply (see the email I sent to Joanne at Tapp TV on September 29th at the bottom of this page), I decided to post the following on my timeline for the enthusiasts who supported my effort and idea:
Here’s a disappointing update on the Spanish clips. The video that received 713 views got pulled for copyright violation. I wrote the company Tapp who is not so nice customer service-wise and asked to make one exception since it was in part to help promote Sarah’s message and the channel. They did not even have the courtesy to reply, to which I say pthhh. Is a reply too much to ask for a year subscriber? It is a blessing in disguise because each one of those videos in Spanish were absolutely time consuming. 8 hours per minute is what I started out with since I was new to it and trimmed it down to 4 for the last ones. Not bad. I don’t care about the copyright strike either. I took a chance doing something awesome which I loved doing and hit a bump on the road. No big deal. I still know Spanish and I can still translate it’s just not feasible to come up with the script, the video, the translation and the editing.
Spanish translations can be done on just about anything. The possibilities are limitless. There are politicians and personalities in politics who would appreciate my services for free or occasional pay, but it will not be done for the most needed reasons.. to help Sarah Palin get her message out to voters who happen to be bilingual and who have been ignored by the leaders in the party because their message is stale, flat and wrong. A warning on your part would have sufficed. By the way, if you use my idea in the future, does that mean that I should be notified?
I’m not the only one disappointed in Tapp’s bad customer service by the way. I would not have taken the trouble to write the article if I was. It is known by now.
Hello. My name is Isabel. I am a supporter of Governor Sarah Palin. I was inspired shortly after Sarah Palin Channel was launched, to do a voice-over of a clip that was pulled from YouTube today. I agreed to what was explained but just wanted to email you directly first to communicate why the video, titled: Sarah Palin’s Conservative Response to Elizabeth Warren’s Progressive Tenets, was done.
The video showcases the Governor’s debating skills. She lays out our conservative beliefs/tenets in a very attractive way. Bilingual voters who understand English but prefer watching and/or reading in Spanish make up a huge portion of the voting population. Millions are denied good information every day as filter/s of the Spanish-speaking media (written and on television) are just as bad if not worse than our liberal mainstream media. We know the story: they either do not report what is going on in American politics, are disparaging or dismissive of the conservative movement like the Tea Party or its leaders like Sarah Palin, who is still mocked with the tired old jokes. It’s there. Again, many are deprived of good information because of the language barrier and the filters described above.
As for the dubbing-it is all mine. I am asking permission for that particular video to stay up. It was done in a promotional spirit both for her channel and as part of an outreach to those voters who happen to be legal immigrants who are bilingual but enjoy their news in Spanish. Again, the Spanish-speaking media does not do its job. This was a quality translation that did not cost anyone to have it done (which is fine). I will in the future not use SPC material if there is no other way to work this out -you have my word- but I am making a request for this particular video which has already been done and which took a lot of work to do, to be an exception, just in this case.
None of us get paid to do all that we do. We are tirelessly doing the best we can to get the message out and time is running out. My colleagues considered this would be acceptable (I did ask before going on my own..) as it was helpful in the promotion of the channel.
It would be helpful there was a validation of the translation work done, but I am aware now of the infringement issue. I wish this could be used to spread and promote SPC in a special way. If there is anything we can do to keep that video up I would appreciate it much.
Thank you.
Isabel Matos
**********
[Updated on 10/30 at 8:40 p.m. – This proves my point: Jeb Bush promises immigration reform to a Spanish audience.] http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/10/30/Jeb-Bush-Promises-GOP-Immigration-Reform-To-Spanish-Speaking-Media/
I am not threatened by strong, confident and beautiful, yet loving women like Sarah Palin, thanks to an equally confident, strong, beautiful and good woman who I admire in my personal life.. someone who has never shied away from a challenge, who has understood that integrity comes first no matter the cost, and who I have a close (and complex) relationship with based on trust, my mother. I wonder how many women critical of Sarah or her supporters can say that.~IM
By Isabel Matos
Two years ago today I met Governor Sarah Palin for the very first time. It was at the New Orleans Investment Conference. It was a day I will never forget.
The story I never told was about the woman who sat behind me at the event. She annoyed me to the point where I ended up moving from the seat I had secured which was just a few feet away from the lectern where Sarah was about to speak because I got their early. I was smack in the center of the room, first row.
The guests started trickling in after the panel Sarah was on which I had missed because there was not a minute to lose. Had I not spent the time getting ready in the hotel room, I would have missed the window of opportunity I had to think about what I would say to her once we met. That one-on-one with her was my focus and the sole reason for my trip there. When the picture was finally taken it was time to sit down and enjoy the keynote. Please keep in mind I had not had anything to eat since my flight that morning. All I had was a little box of raisins to save me from being a voracious boar on the premises if provoked. I was seated in a perfect position in the room but all the woman who sat behind did was complain about Sarah once she found out I was her enthusiastic supporter which I was proud to show.
“I like Sarah but she needs more experience.”
“Sarah needs to, you know.. read more books, too.”
“If Sarah wants to be taken seriously she needs to do learn more foreign policy…” “Sarah dresses trashy. She needs to look more Conservative.. like Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush is a real Conservative” (I didn’t know Jeb Bush dressed in women’s clothes) “Sarah is great, but .. but..”
I was ready to pop her. It was the first such confrontation I had in real time with a “concerned” Palin supporter in our party. I wasn’t about to lose my cool in a room full of over five hundred guests. The thought of the risk of it being covered on the news was too great so I found a new seat. Once I settled in it (further off to the right, still in the first row) I was able to concentrate on positioning my camera and enjoying the speech which was fabulous. Sarah flirted shamelessly at the mention of Todd’s name (something else women are jealous of, unjustly so.. who wouldn’t be happy for someone who is in a happy marriage no matter the politics; it’s unconscionable not to be) rubbing her foot on the back of her calf at one point.
The point of the story is, I did not like that woman. She claimed to be Republican but did and said everything you would expect from a grumpy next door neighbor who had never had a pleasant exchange with kind women all her life. There is no war on women by the right on women like there is from the left against women from the right. There just isn’t. Theirs is far worse but there is still a war by women against women on our side even if it pales in comparison and this is a great opportunity for me to address it based on what has been bothering me a bit.
We are ALL supposed to in this community, lead by example. More than any other movement out there, we should take the time to think about how our actions are not isolated. They affect us all, and Sarah in particular. That being said, taking the high road does not mean taking nonsense or disrespect from colleagues who are supposed to be in your corner if you are doing the right thing. Why mention this?
I am about to expose a WOMAN who happens to be a FAKE conservative. She is one of many (I am sure) in the state of Texas. She is posing as a Republican to garner support for an agenda that is not ours, amnesty. The fact that she is a woman or a Latina does not matter either. H.e.r. a.c.t.i.o.n.s. do. A RINO is a RINO regardless of race, gender, creed or office held. They are political animals. Their actions are deceptive and corrupt. It is all fair game. IF and when a politician is guilty of wrong-doing, I can’t help but want to see them exposed, but the first reaction people have when they hear the truth about something that does not fit their narrative is to kill the messenger. While I have faith in our efforts to overcome this, I don’t see how comments by women against women help the cause. If we can’t get it right on our side, it’s not worth the trouble to try to take on the other.
Below is the video of the conference in its entirety. The separate clips are finally together. I had a 15-minute limit on YouTube and some comments during transitions were missed. All in all, I got the entire speech in. The conference was during Hurricane Sandy. One publisher who used my tapes had to do so on the remaining power left in their own phones. Needless to say, task accomplished.
It was a thrilling time encapsulating many of our hopes and fears as it was just before the November 2012 election. I can’t help but realize, thanks to Sarah’s leadership, how far we’ve come since then. As they say, “today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday” and here we are. Sarah has not failed us. She has been there every step of the way. She has made unbelievable strides as a politician, but she was always great. (Sarah, you don’t need to get better. You’re already amazing.)
Sarah has not changed since we first met her in 2008 or allowed the immature, vicious attempts at character assassination change her message. It has been fortified, in fact, for which we should be grateful. But she would not be able to do what she does if she didn’t know we had her back. We owe it to her and her family.
Thank you, Sarah. Because it was the theme folded into this article, thank you in particular for the way you have shown how we should treat each other as women. Even though we don’t always get it right, the message is loud and clear. Like sisters.
Sarah Palin was on Greta’s show earlier this evening. Shortly afterward, Politico published and tweeted “Sarah Palin: Obama inept on Ebola”. From the article:
Palin’s comments come as both New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have enacted 21-day quarantine policies in their states for medical workers returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. On Monday, Christie did allow quarantined nurse Kari Hickox to return to Maine.
While Christie has received some backlash for the policy, he continued to defend the decision on Monday.
Palin added that Washington is “trying to call the shots for these governors. There is a void of leadership here and the governors need to step up and step in.”
“We’re going to demand of our leadership in Washington and on the state level to get politics out of this and allow the medical community to tell us factually, what needs to be done,” Palin said.
Palin said she would talk to other governors about enacting a quarantine, if she was still serving that role in Alaska.
“And I betcha we would come to the conclusion that you can’t trust the Obama administration,” she said, adding that liberals are using “Saul Alinsky tactics” to capitalize on crisis.
For a more accurate portrayal of Chris Christie and Governor Cuomo’s motives behind their decisions, check this article out. If you have the chance, too, please go to the thread below and chime in to support Sarah. Just words. Ahem. You can almost see their heads exploding after seeing the article with Sarah Palin’s comments tweeted.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
~Ronald Reagan,
40th President of the United States [1911-2004]
Fifty years ago, tonight, Ronald Reagan gave what has become one of the most iconic and important speeches in American history. The content of this speech, and the ideals represented are American ideals. Time honored truths that somehow America had wondered from, starting with FDR and his “New Deal.” By the election of 1964, America had made a huge lunge toward socialism, and the full-blow welfare state, with what President Lyndon Johnson was calling his “Great Society ,” a hell-on-earth that has destroyed the lives of tens of millions of Americans, and stands as the foundation of every evil, fascist, economy crippling program the “progressive” extremists have visited on the people, and are continuing to force on us to this day.
In 2012, on the 48th anniversary of “The Speech,” I wrote this:
Ronald Reagan had been giving variations of A Time for Choosing for some time to crowds large and small. By 1964 and the final days of the presidential elections, he had perfected his message into one of the most important and iconic speeches in American history.
Reagan wasn’t able to change enough hearts and minds to help Barry Goldwater defeat President Lyndon Johnson, but a Conservative star was born and the rest, as they say, is history.
A Time for Choosing has become an icon in the American experience. So many wonderful Reagan quotes are here. So much important commentary on America’s greatness, as well as the dangers she faces to this very day. So iconic, A Time for Choosing has come to be known simply as The Speech.
In The Speech Reagan warns his audience of the evils of socialism and liberalism, which, of course, are one in the same. Even then, socialist democrats were attempting to destroy the very fabric of American society from within and had been since the era of “The New Deal” and FDR.
Reagan warns of the dangers of a big, inefficient, overreaching government and notes how so many things the government was wanting to do could be done by the private sector better, cheaper, and more efficiently. We hear about lives destroyed by democrat socialists, and runaway government programs that wasted billions of dollars with absolutely no positive effect on mankind. Sounds all too familiar to today and what we are facing now.
If there is one sad thing about The Speech it’s that too few took Reagan’s message to heart. Change a few names, locations mentioned, and increase the amount of dollars mentioned by at least a thousand fold, and if Reagan was still here, he could give this exact speech tonight and still be spot on.
Today we see a democrat party that isn’t merely liberal, but rabidly Anti-American. A democrat party that has sunk into the depths of dangerous socialism. A democrat party that disregards the Constitution, and the Rule of Law. A democrat party whose practitioners have become vile and hateful in their ways, viciously attack those who dare disagree with their views, many of which, are completely incompatible with civilized society, and the American way of life.
Government has grown so large, spending so out of control, debts so mind numbingly high, that not only are Liberty and Freedom in danger of extinction, so is the United States itself. We have an incompetent and dangerous president, and an entire Executive Branch to match. Things must change or we are finished as a nation.
Conservatives have been revisiting The Speech for decades. It is my thought that this should be required teaching to ever school boy and girl. A student should know this speech and have a working knowledge of the concept being presented, before being allowed to graduate high school. No one should be able to get their college degree without having an advanced understanding of the concepts Reagan sets forth here.
If every man woman and child truly understood Reagan’s passion for Liberty and Freedom, America would never find itself staring into the abyss as it is today. All men and women would truly be free, and the powerful American spirit would make the United States truly that Shining City on a Hill that Reagan saw, when he saw America.
There is hope in our young. While dining at my favorite establishment, a steak house here in town [Fire and Ice] and engaged with one of the servers in conversation, I was pleased to learn this young woman, only a few years out of high school, not only knew The Speech but understood it. Though she grew up in liberal California, she was blessed with a Conservative history teacher who thought it important enough to include The Speech in his curriculum. God bless that teacher!
Ronald Reagan was a gift to America. There are few men in our history who have had such a positive impact on so many people. He created generations of Conservatives. Though Conservatism wasn’t something Reagan invented, he was the living, breathing embodiment of it. His ability to inspire others is just as important as his message. This is why, when Americans are polled, Ronald Reagan is consistently at or near the top of the list of those considered our greatest presidents in history.
I stand by the idea that this speech should be required viewing for every American, and no student should be able to graduate high school without a solid understanding of the principles set forth within. One should have to take an extended course in college, in order to graduate there, as well!
One thing has changed for me though. Anytime I remember Ronald Reagan, I feel optimistic. Ronald Reagan was all about optimism. He always saw America as a “Shining City on a Hill,” the world’s last best hope for Freedom. When he ran for re-election in 1984, the ads proclaimed it was “Morning in America” and that was fact! Today it’s more like mourning in America. I don’t feel optimistic.
After all of this time, after being able to reference Reagan’s greatness, his record, and of course, this speech, for all of these years, I have to ask, have we, as a nation, failed? Seriously, other than a few names, and of course greatly higher amounts of money today, than Reagan spoke of, if he were alive today, he could give the exact same speech today, and he’d be talking about the exact same dangers we face, and the evil doers who are pushing it on us all.
We have over 100 years worth of empirical evidence that liberalism is a failure. That everything these monsters have brought done has not only failed spectacularly, but has destroyed opportunities and destroyed lives. Liberalism is the greatest evil mankind has ever faced, and what these liberal “progressives” have done to the United states and her people is living proof!
“Progressives” love to complicate things. They love to divide and stir up hate. It’s their only path to success. Conservatism is rather simple. All it takes is common sense, something sorely lacking among politicos, as well as many voters, these days. The corrupt bastards in Washington, and the fools who vote for them, have been winning for some time now, and every win for them is a loss for the United States and her people. As government grows, Liberty and Freedom slowly dies. Too many, it seems, have forgotten this.
Anything that endures 50 years as an icon is worthy of celebration. That it is from one of our greatest presidents in history, makes this speech even more worthy of celebration. The fact is, those hell-bent on destroying America are counting on you to forget this great speech, and the ideals expressed within. Even sadder, it seems far too many HAVE forgotten. It seems the day Reagan feared the most is rapidly coming, the day that Freedom in America dies, because we forgot to teach it to the younger generations. We allowed the enemies of Liberty and Freedom to preach THEIR message of Big Government and surrendering to the state, instead.
On a day I usually reflect on the greatness that is America, and enjoy a fantastic speech from a truly great man, I find myself troubled and frankly, a little afraid. Afraid that the lights on Hill have gone out. That we, as a nation have failed. Failed to head Reagan’s warnings. Failed to protect Liberty and Freedom.
As you watch the speech, and read the transcript, I hope will find the renewed inspiration to fight for America. Fight for the Common Sense Conservatism that made America great. Fight against those who are destroying the American way of life, and enslaving an entire nation.
As Ronald Reagan said, it is a time for choosing. You must choose what sort of nation you want. You must choose whether you will fight for America, or submit to those who are destroying us all.
With that …. here’s a thoughtful address from Ronald Reagan:
A TIME FOR CHOOSING (The Speech – October 27, 1964)
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn’t been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks.
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, “We’ve never had it so good.”
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector’s share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven’t balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don’t own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we’ve just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.
As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
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 Fullbright 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.
Now, we have no better example of this than government’s involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85 percent of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21 percent increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming—that’s regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we’ve spent 43 dollars in the feed grain program for every dollar bushel of corn we don’t grow.
Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he’ll find out that we’ve had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He’ll also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress [an] extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He’ll find that they’ve also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn’t keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil.
At the same time, there’s been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There’s now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can’t tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore.
Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how—who are farmers to know what’s best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down.
Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights [are] so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a “more compatible use of the land.” The President tells us he’s now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we’ve only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they’ve taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we’ve sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency.
They’ve just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. And when the government tells you you’re depressed, lie down and be depressed.
We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they’re going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer—and they’ve had almost 30 years of it—shouldn’t we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we’re told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We’re spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you’ll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we’d be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.
Now—so now we declare “war on poverty,” or “You, too, can be a Bobby Baker.” Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we’re spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have—and remember, this new program doesn’t replace any, it just duplicates existing programs—do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain there is one part of the new program that isn’t duplicated. This is the youth feature. We’re now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps [Civilian Conservation Corps], and we’re going to put our young people in these camps. But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we’re going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.
But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who’d come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She’s eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who’d already done that very thing.
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.
Now—we’re for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we’ve accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we’re against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They’ve called it “insurance” to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term “insurance” to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they’re doing just that.
A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary—his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he’s 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can’t put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they’re due—that the cupboard isn’t bare?
Barry Goldwater thinks we can.
At the same time, can’t we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn’t you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we’re for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we’re against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They’ve come to the end of the road.
In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation, so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar’s worth, and not 45 cents worth?
I think we’re for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we’re against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world’s population. I think we’re against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.
I think we’re for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we’re against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We’re helping 107. We’ve spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments’ programs, once launched, never disappear.
Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.
Federal employees—federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation’s work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man’s property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work.
Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, “If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States.” I think that’s exactly what he will do.
But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn’t the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died—because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England.
Now it doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the—or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men—that we’re to choose just between two personalities.
Well what of this man that they would destroy—and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I’ve been privileged to know him “when.” I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I’ve never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing.
This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn’t work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.
An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, “Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such,” and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he’d load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load.
During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, “There aren’t many left who care what happens to her. I’d like her to know I care.” This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, “There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start.” This is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I’ve discussed academic, unless we realize we’re in a war that must be won.
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.
Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said, “The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits—not animals.” And he said, “There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.
You know how the liberal extremists preached doom and gloom after Katrina, and claimed those sort of storms would become the “new norm” because of the fictional “climate change” nonsense that only exists in their diseased minds? Well guess what, it ain’t happening!
Dr Roy Spencer, an ACTUAL climatologist, author, and former NASA scientist sets the record straight:
Who would have predicted it? As of today (October 1) it’s been nearly 9 years since a major hurricane (Cat 3 or greater) has struck the U.S., the last being Wilma in October, 2005.
Remember the 2005 hurricane season? Landfalling hurricanes right and left. Katrina! This was going to be the new normal in a Global Warming world.
Then the bottom dropped out of tropical activity.
As the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season slowly winds down, here the latest tropical outlook from the National Hurricane Center:
Pretty dead. The number of named storms as of today continues below normal:
One might explain the current drought in tropical systems on El Nino, except even that has mostly fizzled compared to early predictions.
While a few “experts” claim to “see the fingerprint” of human caused climate change in the latest severe weather events (which, paradoxically, haven’t increased), it’s good to take a step back and point out that the Emperor’s Tarot card readers have no clothes.
A couple of things I’d like to add: While the damage and devastation from Katrina was horrific, especially in Mississippi, the real damage, in New Orleans, which got all of the TV coverage [as well as cries of racism from the extremists] was caused by flooding, which in turn was caused by poorly maintained levies, which can be traced back, to among other things, corrupt democrat politicians, at both the state and local level. As much a man-made disaster, as a natural one.In fact, Mayor Ray “Nawlins is a Chocolate City” Nagin, is serving a 10 year term in a federal prison, for corruption.
Also, some may ask: “What about Sandy?“, the equally devastating storm that hit the East Coast in 2012. That would be Tropical Storm Sandy. Though the news media still refers to Sandy as a hurricane, and even tries to give the impression it was a “big one.” The fact is, by the time Sandy reached the East Coast, most of it’s power and furry had dissipated. Sandy was a Category 3 hurricane, while over Cuba, but lost much of it’s punch while going across land.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] classified Sandy as a “post-tropical cyclone.” Now this maters little to those who were effected, including the families of those who lost loved ones, but when talking pure science and facts, as we are here, Sandy was not a hurricane. The damage from the storm was very real though, at over $50 billion in cost, but that has more to do with a very dense population [roughly 20 million in the direct area] and high cost of property replacement.
We’ve seen a lot of wild ass claims by the radical leftists who preach the religion of global warming, but so far absolutely NONE of their insane rantings about doom and gloom have come to pass!
Remember a few years back when Al Gore claimed by 2013 all of the ice in the Antarctic would be gone, and the whole world would be underwater? A lot of lying bastards pushing global warming are out there now claiming the ice is melting. Well, the fact is, as NASA’S Earth Observatory reports, the ice cap has reached “new Maximum extent.” In plain English, that means there is more ice than at any time in recorded history. Another massive lie by the global warming extremists put to rest.
There are two kinds of people who preach the global warming religion: Those looking to make a buck, and exert complete and total control over all of mankind, and those who are just stupid, don’t understand basic science, and will repeat anything a liberal extremist says, as fact. The former is pure evil and the biggest threat to mankind that has ever existed. Come to think of it, so is the latter!
As human beings, we have a lot of real and serious threats to our very existence and well being.Few, if any of them, come from nature. Almost 100% of the threats to mankind, as well as Liberty and Freedom, comes from radical, out of control, Big Government liberalism, and the incredibly evil beings who practice that religion. Liberalism is far more dangerous than any other threat to mankind. As a human being, it is your duty to help wipe this vile dangerous ideology off the face of the earth, once and for all. The very survival and well-being of your fellow man [and women] depends on YOU!
Oh, and as a little reminder of the wild ass lies these extremists well tell, and the fear they will try to instill in human beings with those lies, I give you Time magazine:
![sarah-marvelous-eyes-trig[2]](https://thespeechatimeforchoosing.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/sarah-marvelous-eyes-trig2.jpg)
A Time For Choosing 
