"Don't Tell Me It Can't Be Done"

Last week, I had the pleasure of addressing the Senate-House Annual Republican Dinner. The MC for the evening was actor Jon Voight. Before he spoke, a video tribute for Voight was shown, including clips of him playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a movie.

In one scene, Roosevelt is being told by his generals and advisors all the reasons why achieving victory in World War II was too hard.

In response, Voight - playing Roosevelt, who, remember, was confined to a wheelchair due to polio - dramatically lifts himself up using the table and stabilizes himself on his non-functioning legs. He then stares down every shocked person in the room and says:

"Don't tell me it can't be done."

It occurred to me, sitting in the audience preparing to speak, that those seven words - "Don't tell me it can't be done" - should be the rallying cry for all Republicans (not to mention all Independents and Democrats who want a better future for America - more on this idea later).

I decided to make it the theme of my speech that night. Why? Because history shows us that it can be done.

America has been here before.

1964, 1977 and 1993 - in each of these years Republicans were gleefully pronounced dead by the news media. But in each case, they came back.

On Inauguration Day 1977, Carter's Popularity Was Higher Than Obama's

1964 was followed by 1965, in which Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California. Two years later we began a 40-year period in which no overt liberal won the presidency.
In 1977, Jimmy Carter's popularity on inauguration day was higher than Barack Obama's. But in 1980, Ronald Reagan won a decisive victory and changed the course of America.
In 1993, they said Bill Clinton was creating a new, stronger Democratic Party.

In 1994, the Democratic Party suffered its worst defeat in 40 years.
So don't tell me it can't be done.

"My Fellow Republicans... and Independents and Democrats Looking for a Better Future"

History also shows us this: Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980 and 1984 by appealing, not just to Republicans, but to independents and unhappy Democrats as well. In fact, it's hard to find a Reagan speech in which he doesn't speak to "my fellow Republicans, and those independents and Democrats who are looking for a better future."

Like Reagan, we have to be inclusive, not exclusive. I'm happy Dick Cheney is a Republican. And I'm happy Colin Powell is a Republican
But here's the key: Being inclusive doesn't mean going wobbly. It doesn't mean abandoning our principles.

Key to Winning the Majority? Returning to First Principles

Reagan called them "first principles." They are our bedrock beliefs. And in a center-right nation, they are the touchstones that will guide us back into the majority.

Today I'm going to discuss some of these first principles and how they should guide us in the years ahead.

We Must Strengthen Our Unique American Civilization

If you go to the National Archives, you will find the words that are fundamental to America written in the Declaration of Independence: "We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

These words make us unique. We are the only country in history that says, "your personal rights come from God directly to you, the individual, and you loan the government sovereignty."

That means if we truly believe that each of us is endowed by our creator with rights, then we have a deep moral obligation to save the unborn. It also means we have a deep moral obligation to care for them after they have been born.

That means that when judges like Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor judge Americans by their ethnicity or their gender, it's wrong.

It also means that rationing health care is wrong. No government bureaucrat has the right to take from you the rights that God gave you. Rationing health care is inevitably limiting your life at the whim of a bureaucrat and at the manipulation of a politician.

Individual Rights and Individual Responsibilities Are At the Heart of the American System

This commitment to the principle of the sovereignty of the individual can guide us in profound ways in the coming months and years.

It means that we must have judges who understand that an America that has driven God from the public square will no longer be the America that has extended freedom and prosperity for 400 years.

It means understanding that individual rights and responsibilities are at the heart of our system, that there are no quotas and no group identities in the American system.

And it means understanding that at Jamestown, our first permanent settlement, they established the principle "if you will not work you will not eat" - not for the poor but for the aristocrats who thought they could buy their way out of work. The work ethic was at the heart of our welfare reform in 1996. It is the most successful conservative reform in modern times.

We Must Defend America Against Our Enemies

More than any other of its responsibilities, government's highest priority must be to defend America against those who would do us harm.

Tragically, under the Obama Administration, we have fallen back into the utopian fantasies and self deception of the 1977 Carter Administration and the 1993 Clinton Administration. Again and again the legalisms and self deceptions of treating enemies as criminals under these administrations led to more and more disastrous results.

Today, many of the same civil libertarians who believe terrorists deserve Miranda warnings and civilian trials are in the Obama Justice Department. It's amazing how many of them come from law firms which were eagerly giving pro bono representation to alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

By 3-to-1, Americans Believe We Are Safer with Terrorists at Guantanamo Bay

But Americans know better than to accept utopianism and self-deception in our national security policy. Nowhere was this more clear than in the contrast between President Obama's and former Vice President Cheney's back-to-back speeches on Guantanamo Bay a few weeks ago.

Vice President Cheney had a fairly simple message: The reason we have Guantanamo Bay is that we have people there who want to kill us. They are called terrorists. It's good not to have terrorists anywhere near us because it makes it harder for them to kill us.

President Obama, on the other hand, used his considerable oratorical gifts to hide from these fundamental facts. He spoke a lot of words that meant very little and managed to convey the impression that he didn't understand the nature of the men being detained at Guantanamo.

The average American listened to Vice President Cheney and President Obama and understood that one speaker got it and the other one didn't. By 3-to-1, the American people believe that we are safer with prisoners in Guantanamo Bay than in America.

Economic Freedom Leads to Jobs and Prosperity

Another first principle we must keep in mind while building a center-right majority is that economic freedom is necessary to building a productive America with the best jobs and greatest prosperity in the world.

Here our first principles are particularly clear about the disastrous path our country is on:
We will not have new jobs when bureaucrats micromanage companies.

We will not have prosperity when politicians dominate the economy.
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are not substitutes for a sound market economy. And Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are not replacements for Warren Buffet and Bill Gates

We Will Not Have Prosperity When Politicians Dominate the Economy

So how do we get back to economic growth? Here, as well, our first principles lead the way: High taxes kill jobs and growth. Low taxes encourage jobs and growth Instead of spending $787 billion to reward Democratic interest groups, an effective economic stimulus would get the money to the people that work and the businesses that hire them in the form of lower taxes.

• If we had a two-year, 50% reduction in the Social Security and Medicare tax for both the employee and the employer, we would have an extraordinary explosion of small business.
• If we want to compete with China for jobs, we should match the Chinese on capital gains. Their rate is zero.
• If we want to compete for profitable businesses creating good jobs, we should adopt the Irish tax rate of 12.5 percent for corporations.
• If we want to build up capital for investments permanently, we should abolish the death tax.

For American Jobs and Prosperity We Need an American Energy Policy

Beyond tax policy, for American jobs and prosperity we need an American energy policy.

We need a policy that emphasizes the energy we have in America - from coal and natural gas to wind and solar - and recognizes that the problem isn't a lack of resources or innovation. The problem is government.

America is the Saudi Arabia of coal and the global leader in technical and scientific innovation. But both these advantages are weakened by government policies that favor imports over American energy.

If We Are Endowed by Our Creator with Rights, Then Every Child Deserves to Learn

We also need to educate our children in order to have future jobs and prosperity.

Now is a time to be bold. If we truly believe that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, then every child deserves to learn.

We should take President Obama up on his commitment to unlimited charter schools. And we should go much further.

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander supports giving low income kids the chance to go to a better school through a proposal called Pell Grants for Kids. We should welcome the debate about why Pell Grants are good for after 12, but not good for K-12.

"We Carry the Message They Are Waiting For"

At the 1976 Republican convention, having lost the nomination for president, Ronald Reagan was invited by President Ford to say a few words.

This is how he closed:

"Better than we have ever done before, we have got to quit talking to each other and about each other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been, but we carry the message they are waiting for."

Reagan's advice is as good today as it was in 1976.

We believe in individual human freedom.
We believe in protecting American civilization.
We believe that the future of America is one of prosperity for our children and grandchildren.

Millions of Americans share these beliefs. They're ready to hear our message.

Don't tell me it can't be done.

Your friend,

Newt Gingrich

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

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Actor Jon Voight: Obama is a disaster

June 10, 2009 - 10:51 ET

Jon Voight

GLENN: From Radio City in Midtown Manhattan, this is the third most listened to show in all of America. Hello, you sick twisted freak. Welcome to the program. I've got a lot for you today. We're going to go right to Jon Voight who is, you know, the big Hollywood actor and friend of the program. Hi, John, how are you?

VOIGHT: Hey, Glenn.

GLENN: So what are you doing, man? What, are you crazy? Saying that Barack Obama is a false prophet?

VOIGHT: Yeah, well, somebody's got to say it, Glenn.

GLENN: It's good not to be alone. It's good not to be alone.

VOIGHT: Well, you know, very important. Very important that people speak out because we're already in real trouble.

GLENN: You said at this big Republican fundraiser that Barack Obama is going to cause the downfall of the country.

VOIGHT: Uh huh.

GLENN: What do you mean by that?

VOIGHT: Well, I mean, you can see the evidence already. I mean, take a look at the unemployment figures, you know. They said they were going to top out at 8, you know, 8% and it's already up to 9.4%. And then, of course, as I said in a speech when they send Joe Biden out who is one of the great double talkers of our time, I said, who gives you a report that everything's fine and the figures are going in the other direction. But the fact is we're in real trouble.

GLENN: Have you been following what the Supreme Court did yesterday, they let this Chrysler deal go through, where we have abandoned our free market principles. I mean, George Bush said I've got to save the country by abandoning the country or the free market system, but this really is. Now we have abandoned the rule of law and who is going to be first in line with the bondholders, et cetera, et cetera. And John, last night I was watching the news unfold and I thought, we are headed towards all of the things that we've been talking about, that people have been saying for two, three years: Oh, Glenn, you're crazy, this is nuts. We're headed there. John, what is it going to take for people to wake up and say, we've got to stop going down this road?

VOIGHT: Yeah. Well, one really worries when people are going to wake up, they are so wed, the media generally is so wed to this liberal agenda and to backing up, you know, the hysteria that they got into in supporting Obama and brick him to the presidency. So they are going to hold onto that. But really you worry, you fear that something very staggering is going to have to happen. But it's already happening, Glenn. You just have to look at the evidence. We're in real trouble. And the answer continuously for Obama is to make another speech, to appeal to his, you know, to find out what people want, put it all in a speech, put it out to as many people as possible and that's his idea of governing the country.

GLENN: Are you more concerned about the economy and spending or are you more concerned about, for instance, the Middle East and Israel?

VOIGHT: Well, I'm concerned about all of that but I really, I'm really concerned about Israel. His attitude toward Israel really reveals that he knows nothing but the history of Israel and its importance to the United States. He spoke at Cairo University in a speech on June 4th and then he said there will be no dictating to other countries, you know, only forging partnerships and yet he certainly dictates to Israel to freeze all settlement activity which, you know, means no natural growth and that means strangling these towns to death, these thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line that everybody, every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned Israel retaining. So he's really destroying their ability to negotiate and to give and recommending that Israel gives more land away. Hasn't he understood that every time Israel has given land in order to secure peace that all of the response has only been violence? Hasn't he understood all of this? That Gaza has attacked Israel, they gave Gaza as a peace gesture and, you know, Hamas has used it to attack the south of Israel? It's one wonders where he gets his information from and what his point of view is.

GLENN: John, why you're awfully passionate about Israel. I am as well.

VOIGHT: I am indeed, yeah.

GLENN: Why?

VOIGHT: Well

GLENN: Because there's a lot of people that will say, geez, these people having warring for 5,000 years, why should we even get involved? Why should we even care?
VOIGHT: Well, you know, certainly they are arguably our greatest ally in the world. We depend on their intelligence. We depend, we're very tied to them, and they are the only democracy in that part of the world. And there are other aspects as well. But when we look at, you know, what Hitler said, Hitler in Mein Kampf laid it all out, didn't he? There are some people who read Mein Kampf. Winston Churchill said, you know, they said, well, how did you know? He said, well, I read his book.

GLENN: Yeah.

VOIGHT: Well, we have heard Ahmadinejad and the Imam speak from Iran, wipe Israel from the geography of the land, from time. Israel is going to die they say. Aren't we listening? Are we taking them seriously or not?

You know, it's funny that you bring this up today because I was just meeting with the writers for television earlier this morning and I said this is where I'm headed today. And it's that very point. I was driving in this morning and I'm hearing all of the news and I keep seeing these signposts pass. Nobody has everybody is in denial on everything.

VOIGHT: Yeah.

GLENN: They are, "Oh, well, we're going to be able to grow our way out of it. Well, we'll have to spend some money temporarily here. Well, we can just make friends with these people and we are denying everything that people are actually telling us. Somebody said it was Gretchen Carlson from Fox News who I adore. She is going to be on later. She was on yesterday's show and she said, you know, Obama never said he would do these things. I said, yes, he has. Yes, he has. Nobody wants to say that the man is a Marxist. Okay, so he's not a Marxist. He's a progressive! This is semantics.

VOIGHT: Yes, it is.

GLENN: If you go back and you read what they said. What they said they were going to do in the early 20th century which Hillary Clinton in her own campaign speech said, you know, "I'm an early 20th century American progressive." If you read what they said they were going to do, they're doing it right now, and I feel like I read Mein Kampf as well, and when I read Mein Kampf, I read it because I wanted to know, did the German people know. Yes! Yes, they knew. Unless they were like, "Oh, well, no, he doesn't mean that," which is exactly what we're doing now. Everybody's just saying, "Well, no, they don't... Ahmadinejad really doesn't mean that." Or, "He's really not going to actually destroy the free market system." Yes, he is. Yes, he is.

VOIGHT: Oh, yes.

GLENN: So how do you wake people up, John?

VOIGHT: I don't know. I'm doing my best and you're doing your best for sure, Glenn. It really is frightening. I mean, when Obama says you don't know if you're hearing properly when he says that Iran is perhaps entitled to nuclear power. And after all of these statements.

GLENN: Yet we're not.

VOIGHT: We're seeing him head down this road. And you say, well, wait, we'll check in December and see how far it's gotten. It's so alarming, it's quite it's almost unbelievable that we're witnessing this kind of behavior.

GLENN: John, what is your life like

VOIGHT: Pretty good.

GLENN: Because you are in you're in the hornet's nest. You might as well just be covered in the honey.

VOIGHT: Well, you know, as I said in my speech and by the way, you know, it took me time to make a statement. I watched everything. But it's really, things are disastrous. Right now they are disastrous. Every move he's made has failed, and we're headed down this socialist road while, of course, you look at Europe. They have dipped their toe in it and they are turning around saying this is a dead end, this is disaster. And they are turning around and coming back. All of the elections in Europe now are returning conservatives to the seats and saying we don't want to go down that road

SPEAKER: I talked to a couple of experts on the progressive movement. I'm, I'm strangely making geek friendships with all these historians because I'm fascinated by the progressive movement because it's the roadmap for tomorrow. You will see your future. If you read the past, you will see the future. And they both said to me, you want to see our future; you look at Europe. There's no birthrates the birthrates, they're breeding themselves into extinction over in Europe. There's no religion over there. It's all dead religion. The healthcare is an absolute mess, the government's a mess. It's a world of political correctness where you can't say anything anymore. That's our future

SPEAKER: Yeah. Well, that's the situation here, no matter what Obama does. He's protected. Everything he does, no matter what they do or say, they're totally protected. Look at the black panthers in Philadelphia standing by the polling booths with, you know, with sticks. And they get away with it. With ACORN what ACORN has done, they are under indictment in 12 states for fraud. That's how he came in, under the back of a fraudulent behavior. And he gets away with it. No one's saying anything here. Everyone's covering because of their, you know, fastened to this liberal agenda which has proven to be a failure.

GLENN: There's a few people that are speaking out, there are a few. There's people like you, there's people like me, there are a few on television and radio that I think get it. Many people are still playing politics. When you were in this, when you were at this Republican fundraiser, you think they get it yet, John? Really get it?
Well, from the people I've spoken to, I think people are getting clearer and clearer, and I think this goes to the independent people and even people on the Democratic side. And I certainly, when I'm speaking, I'm hoping people are listening across the country, every citizen. We have to abandon this political correctness and start telling the truth. You know, people try to paint people like myself and you as, you know, rightwing looneys or something, you know. Whereas we're really speaking, most of the stuff we talk about, Glenn, is really actually classical liberalism.
GLENN: I know it is.

VOIGHT: Represented by Thomas Jefferson.

GLENN: It's freedom.

VOIGHT: And if we really want the answers, they have already been written. There's a document called the Constitution that's pretty well written. And if we can just go back to that and we can go back to the philosophy of the founding fathers, we've got a pretty good compass.

GLENN: Let me take you back full circle then at the beginning of the conversation. We had the Supreme Court yesterday pass on a case. Now, I have not heard. I've got a couple of people that are checking for me to see if we can get any inside sources. Maybe it's because they said this isn't the right case to overturn all of this nonsense, but they passed on it. There's no way to read what our government is doing as anything but hostile to the Constitution. You can't do what they've done with the GM and Chrysler deal, taking people out of line and playing right directly to special interests, special interests. I mean, you know, forget about the bondholders even. America, you bailed these people out against your will. Your representatives bailed them out and then they put the unions and the special interests ahead of even you getting your money back. They got double they got, what is it, 50 something cents on the dollar? What did we get? 24 cents on the dollar? Excuse me. I busted my ass and I have nothing to do with those companies. How come I'm paying? How come the average person is paying for that right now? It doesn't make any sense.

VOIGHT: Of course. So that's why the tea parties erupted. Because people are starting to get it, Glenn. They understand that this is

GLENN: Are you seeing anybody in Hollywood? And you don't have to name names. Are you seeing people in Hollywood waking up or more people willing to come to the table? I had a

VOIGHT: Yes, I do think more and more are I think those people who have been paying attention to it and understand are more willing to step out and I think that people are, you know, the, you know, their eyes are starting to see finally little by little what's going on. And they end up being confronted with questions. So let's see what happens. And obviously we're trying to there are many people out there that are speaking very eloquently and I listed a whole bunch of them at the speech. I don't know if you saw the entire speech at the convention.

GLENN: I didn't.

VOIGHT: At the House Senate dinner. But I mentioned your name, by the way. And I went through a whole litany of all the guys who are really

GLENN: What, are you crazy? I mean, you don't want to

VOIGHT: I want to be aligned with you, Glenn. Glenn Beck, I want them to

GLENN: I'm telling you, there will be a knock on the door and you'll say, "I don't know him. I swear to you I don't know him." John, it is good to be with you and talking to you. Thank you for everything that you've done.

VOIGHT: Thanks, Glenn. Thank you, too.

GLENN: You bet. We'll talk again.

VOIGHT: God bless.

GLENN: Jon Voight who is I think one of the only normal people in Hollywood and that's saying something, isn't it?

Source: GlennBeck.com

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

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Thought For The Day 10.05.08

“Some days just make up for all the crummy!!”  …Edith Ann, Lily Tomlin’s famous  Laugh-in Character from the 60’s

 (Good day after a long week of bailout b.s.)

  Palin Rally in Cali

 A crowd of 23,000 gathered to hear Governor Sarah Palin, Republican vice presidential candidate speak in Carson, California yesterday afternoon, followed by a $1,000 a plate fundraiser in Costa Mesa.  And we were there to hear her first hand.  She was articulate, focused and showed she was up for the fight, ready to be V.P. and ready to be President if it were ever necessary.  Political convert and lifetime Democrat, the Los Angeles President of the National Organization for Women was there to introduce Governor Palin and show support. 

Vowing to "take the gloves off," GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin unleashed an aggressive new attack against Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday, charging at her first public rally in California that her Democratic opponent "sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." 

"This is not a guy who sees America as you and I see America," she said, before a cheering capacity crowd of 10,000 at the Home Depot Center in Carson with another 7,000 in bleachers across the street watching on a huge screen, in a pointed effort to link the Democrat to William Ayers, a former 1960s radical who co-founded the Weather Underground. "We see America as a force for good in the world." (The Weather Underground took credit for Vietnam War-era protests that included nonfatal explosions targeting the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.)

The crowd was full of fired-up supporters who waited for hours to get into the arena and to hear her address, waving homemade "God Bless Sarah" and "You go, girl!" signs.  People even brought ThunderStix, did the wave, and energetically chanted "U-S-A! U-S-A!" before her speech.  Ticket supporter Jon Voight helped to rally the crowd before Governor Palin arrived, but he did not speak at the actual rally.

She spoke for about 25 minutes and spent another 15 to 20 minutes afterward posing for photos and signing autographs at the Carson rally. From there, she was headed to a 90-minute fundraiser at the Costa Mesa Performing Arts Center to raise funds for the Republican National Committee, the state GOP and the McCain-Palin Victory fund. Today, she will appear in Burlingame at another invitation-only breakfast event for GOP donors.

"There is a time when it's necessary to take the gloves off, and that time is right now," Sarah said, adding that her campaign adviser encouraged the move saying, "the heels are on, the gloves are off."

"Evidently, there's been a lot of interest in what I like to read lately," Palin said in a laughing reference to a recent interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric where she was unable to name publications she regularly reads. "Well, I was reading today a copy of the New York Times," she said to loud boos, "and I was really interested to read about Barack Obama's friends from Chicago."

The story in question, published Saturday, explored the "crossed paths" of Obama and Ayers, and what it characterized as sporadic links the two shared as residents of Hyde Park and as members of a nonprofit organization concentrating on Chicago schools.

"One of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, was a domestic terrorist ... part of a group which launched a campaign to bomb" the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, Palin told the Carson crowd. "These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes."

Supporters of the GOP ticket, including actor Jon Voight, echoed Palin's comments and even further in their attacks at the rally. The actor told a pre-rally press conference that "no one's vetting Obama at all ... this fellow has a lot of very strange associations ... such as his affiliation with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist, Reverend Wright and a long list of others."  Voight told reporters that Ayers and Obama "worked together at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge ... four years together, radicalizing the Chicago school system. That's what their agenda was."  McCain campaign spokesman Rick Gorka later said “Voight does not speak for the campaign".

Much to the crowd’s delight, in her address, Palin, repeatedly jabbed at the media. In a reference to her interview with Couric, Sarah admitted that she had been "flippant" in some answers, but didn't think the questions she was being asked were very relevant. "Oh, come on, let's start talking to the American people about the issues that you guys want to know about," she said, and the crowd cheered.

Sarah had the Carson crowd chanting and cheering her on as she told them "our opponents take this state and all of you for granted. ...But I've got some news for millions of Californians, this is still Reagan country."

There were some laughs, but the GOP vice presidential candidate also hit hard on issues, like taxes and offshore oil drilling; as the audience chanted "Drill, baby, drill!"

It was a great event… full of hope and the possible promise of real change.

“Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July. Democrats believe every day is April 15^th.” …Ronald Reagan”