You’ve taken a great story about a real person and real events and twisted it into a bunch of lies.
You took the true story of Eugene Allen, the White House butler who served eight presidents from 1952 to 1986, and turned it into a clichéd “message movie.”
“Lee Daniels’ The Butler’” stars Forest Whitaker as Cecil Gaines, a fictional character supposedly based on Eugene Allen’s real life.
But let’s compare the two White House butlers.
Guess which one grew up in segregated Virginia, got a job at the White House and rose to become maître d’hôtel, the highest position in White House service?
Guess which one had a happy, quiet life and was married to the same woman for 65 years? And who had one son who served honorably in Vietnam and never made a peep of protest through the pre- and post-civil rights era?
Now guess which butler grew up on a Georgia farm, watched the boss rape his mother and then, when his father protested the rape, watched the boss put a bullet through his father’s head?
Guess which butler feels the pain of America’s racial injustices so deeply that he quits his White House job and joins his son in a protest movement?
And guess which butler has a wife (Oprah Winfrey) who becomes an alcoholic and has a cheap affair with the guy next door? (I’m surprised it wasn’t the vice president.)
After comparing Hollywood’s absurd version of Eugene Allen’s life story with the truth, you wonder why the producers didn’t just call it “The Butler from Another Planet.”
Screenwriter Danny Strong says he was trying to present a “backstage kind of view of the White House” that portrayed presidents and first ladies as they really were in everyday life.
Well, I was backstage at the White House -- a few hundred times. I met and knew the real butler, Mr. Allen, and I knew a little about my father.
Portraying Ronald Reagan as a racist because he was in favor of lifting economic sanctions against South Africa is simplistic and dishonest.
If you knew my father, you’d know he was the last person on Earth you would call a racist.
If Strong had gotten his “facts” from the Reagan biographies, he’d have learned that when my father was playing football at Eureka College one of his best friends was a black teammate.
Strong also would have learned that my father invited black players home for dinner and once, when two players were not allowed to stay in the local hotel, he invited them to stay overnight at his house.
Screenwriter Strong also might have found out that when my father was governor of California he appointed more blacks to positions of power than any of predecessors -- combined.
It’s appalling to me that someone is trying to imply my father was a racist. He and Nancy and the rest of the Reagan family treated Mr. Allen with the utmost respect.
It was Nancy Reagan who invited the butler to dinner – not to work but as guest. And it was my father who promoted Mr. Allen to maître d’hôtel.
The real story of the White House butler doesn’t imply racism at all. It’s simply Hollywood liberals wanting to believe something about my father that was never there.
My father’s position on lifting the South African sanctions in the ‘80s had nothing to do with the narrow issue of race. It had to do with the geopolitics of the Cold War.
But facts don’t matter to Hollywood’s creative propagandists. Truth is too complicated and not dramatic enough for scriptwriters, who think in minute terms, not the big picture, when it comes to a conservative.
Despite what Hollywood’s liberal hacks believe, my father didn’t see people in colors. He saw them as individual Americans. If the liberals in Hollywood -- and Washington -- ever start looking at people the way he did, the country will be a lot better off.
In a story published on The US Report, about the casting of ‘Hanoi’ Jane as Nancy Reagan, the director acknowledges his political activism and admitted the insult was intentional…
The Butler (Kindle) is (would be) a terrific story that deserves to be told. Too bad it wasn’t told by honest people without political agendas who felt it necessary to use a traitor to portray one of our most beloved first ladies (insulting Vietnam Vets of all colors) and to distort much of history. Perhaps reading Wes Haygood’s book The Butler: A Witness to History would be a better option!?! Or at least wait until the movie comes to (free) TV, if you watch it knowing the slant and bias the movie is based on.
Transcript of Mitt Romney speech at Republican National Convention
ROMNEY: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, and delegates, I accept your nomination for president of the United States.
I do so with humility, deeply moved by the trust you've placed in me. It's a great honor. It's an even greater responsibility. I ask you to walk together to a better future. By my side I have chosen a man with a big heart from a small town.
He represents the best of America. A man who will always make us very proud. My friend and America's next vice-president, Paul Ryan.
In the days ahead, you will get to know Paul and Janna better. But, last night America got to see what I saw in Paul Ryan, a strong and caring leader who is down to earth and confidence in the challenge this moment demands. I love the way he lights up around his kids. And how he's not embarrassed to show the world how much he loves his mom.
But Paul, I still like the playlist on my Ipod better than yours.
Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That choice was not the choice of our party, but Americans always come together after elections. We're a good and generous people, and we are united by so much more than what divides us.
When that election was over, when the yard signs came down and the television commercials finally came off the air, Americans were eager to go back to work, to live our lives the way Americans always have, optimistic and positive and confident in the future.
That very optimism is uniquely American. It's what brought us to America. We're a nation of immigrants, we're the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life. The driven ones. The ones who woke up at night, hearing that voice telling them that life in a place called America could be better.
They came, not just in pursuit of the riches of this world, but for the richness of this life. Freedom, freedom of religion, freedom to speak their mind, freedom to build a life and, yes, freedom to build a business with their own hands.
This is the essence of the American experience. We Americans have always felt a special kinship with the future.
When every new wave of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty, or knelt down and kissed the shores of freedom, just 90 miles from Castro's tyranny, these new Americans sure had many questions, but none doubted that here in America they could build a better life. That in America, their children would be blessed more than they.
But, today, four years from the excitement of that last election, for the first time the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future. That is not what we were promised.
Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get a little ahead, put aside a little more for college, do more for the elderly mom that's now living alone. Or give a little more to their church or their charity. Every small business wants to have this be their best year ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through hard times. Open a new store, sponsor that little league team.
Every new college graduate thought they'd have a good job by now. A place for their own. They could start paying back some of their loans and build for the future. This is what our nation was supposed to start paying down the national debt, and rolling back massive deficits. This was the hope and change America voted for. It is not just what we wanted, it is not just what we expected, it is what Americans deserved.
You deserved it because you worked harder than ever before during these years. You deserved it because, when it cost more to fill up your car, you cut out moving lights, and put in longer hours. Or when you lost that job that paid $22.50 an hour, benefits, you took two jobs at $9 an hour
You deserve it because your family depended on you. And you did it because you are an American, and you don't quit. You did it because that was because it was because you had to do. The driving home late from that second job, or standing there and watching the gas pump hit $50 and still going. When the realtor told you that to sell your house you'd have to take a big loss on your house. In those moments, you knew that this just was not right. But what could you do except work harder, do with less, try to stay optimistic, hug your kids a little longer, maybe spend more time praying tomorrow would be a better day.
I wish President Obama had succeeded, because I want America to succeed.
But his promises gave way to disappointment and division. This isn't something we have to accept. Now is the moment when we can do something. And with your help, we will do something.
Now is the moment where we can stand up and say, "I am an American, I make my destiny, we deserve better, my children deserve better, my family deserves better, my country deserves better."
So here we stand. Americans have a choice, a decision. To make that choice, you need to know more about me and where I'd lead at our country. I was born in the middle of the century, in the middle of the country, the classic baby boomer. It was a time when Americans were returning from war and eager to work.
To be an American was to assume that all things were possible. When President Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon, the challenge was not whether we would get there, it was only when we'd get there.
The soles of Neil Armstrong's on the moon made permanent impressions on our souls.
And I watched those steps together on her parents sofa. Like all American is, we went to bed at night knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world.
God bless Neil Armstrong.
Tonight, that American flag is still there on the Moon. and I don't doubt for a second that Neil Armstrong's spirit is still with us. That unique blend of optimism, humility, and the utter confidence that, when the world needs someone to do that, you need an American.
My dad had been born in Mexico. And his family had to leave during the Mexican revolution. I grew up with stories of his family being fed by the U.S. government as war refugees.
My dad never made it through college, and he apprenticed as a laugh (ph) and plaster carpenter. He had big dreams. He convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up Hollywood to marry him. And moved to Detroit.
He led a great automobile company and became governor of the great state of Michigan.
We were -- we were Mormons . And growing up in Michigan, that might have seemed unusual or out of place, but I do not remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed that what church went to.
My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all. The gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would be and much less about what we would do. Unconditional love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to to pass on to our sons and now to our children.
All the laws and legislation is in the world will never heal the world like the loving hearts and arms of loving mothers and fathers.
You know, if every child could go to sleep feeling araft (ph) in the love of their family and God's love, this world would be a far more gentle place.
My mom and dad were married for 64 years . And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist.
Because every day, dad gave mom a Rose, which he put on the bedside table. That is how she found that the day my father died. She went looking for him because, that morning, there was no rose.
My mom and dad were two partners. A life lesson that shaped me by everyday example. When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still see her as saying in her beautiful voice, "why should women have any less safe than men about the great decisions facing our nation? -- great decisions facing our nation?"
Don't you wish you could have been here at this convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice?
As governor of Massachusetts, I -- I chose a woman lieutenant governor, a woman chief of staff. Half of my cabinet and senior officials were women. And in business, and mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies.
I grew up in Detroit, in love with cars. And wanted to be a car guy like my dad. But, by the time I was out of school I realized that I had to go out on my own. That if I stayed around Michigan in the same business I'd never really now if I was getting a break because of my dad. I wanted to go someplace new and prove myself.
Those weren't the easiest of days. Many long hours, and weekends working. Five young sons who seemed to have a need to reenact a different world war every night.
But if you ask Ann and I, what we'd give to break up just one more fight between the boys, or wake up in the morning and discover a pile of kids asleep in a room -- well every mom and dad knows the answer to that. Those days were the...
... these were tough days on Ann, particularly. She was heroic through it all. Five boys with our families a long way away. I had to travel a lot for my job then, and I'd call and try to offer support. But every mom knows that that does not help did the homework done or get the kids out the door to school. I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine. I knew without question that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine.
And as America saw Tuesday night, Ann would have succeed at anything she wanted to do.
Like a lot of families in a new place with no family, we found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church. When we were new to the community, it was welcoming, and as the years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved into town or just joined our church.
We had remarkably vibrant endeavors congregations from all walks of life, and many who were new to America. We prayed together, our kids played together, and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways. That's how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families, for our joy and support, in good times and bad. It's both how we live our lives and why we live our lives. The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, and our faiths.
That's the bedrock of what makes America America. In our best days, we can feel the vibrancy of America's communities, large and small. It's when we see that new business opening up downtown. It's when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else in the block doing the same thing to read when our son or daughter calls from college to talk about which job offer they should take, and you try not to choke up when you hear that the one they like best is not too far from home.
It's that good feeling when you have more time to volunteer to coach for you kids soccer team or help out on school trips. For too many Americans, those kind of good days are harder to come by. How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America? Many of you thought the way on election day four years ago. Hope and change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I would ask a simple question: if you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't feel that way now, that he is President Obama?
You know there is something wrong with the kind of job he has done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.
The president has not disappointed you because he wanted to. The president has disappointed America because he hasn't lead America in the right direction. He took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have, and one that was essential to the task at hand. He had almost no experience working in a business. Jobs to him are about government.
I learned the real lessons from how America works from experience. When I was 37, I helped to start a small company. My partners and I had been working for a company that was in the business of helping other businesses. So some of us have the idea that, if we really believe our advice was helping companies, we should invest in companies. We should bet on ourselves and our advice. So we started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while we believed in ourselves, not many other people did. We were young and had never done this before, and We almost did not get off the ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a really big mistake.
By the way, I thought about asking my church's pension fund to invest, but I didn't.
I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors' money, but I did not want to go to hell, too.
Shows what I know. Another of my partners got the Episcopal church Pension Fund to invest. And today there are a lot of happy retired priests who should thank him.
That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know you've have heard from tonight. An office company called Staples, where I'm pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping.
The Sports Authority, which of course became a favorite of my boys. We helped start an early childhood learning company called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. And at a time when nobody thought we'd ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and build one in the cornfield in Indiana.
Today, Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers in the United States. These are American success stories.
And yet the centerpiece of the president's entire reelection campaign is attacking success. Is it any wonder that someone who attacks success has led the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression?
In America, we celebrate success. We don't apologize for success.
Now we weren't always successful at Bain, but no one ever is in the real world of business. That's what this president does not seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It's about dreams. Usually it doesn't work out exactly as you might have imagined. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple, and then he came back and changed the world. It's the genius of the American free enterprise system to harness the extraordinary creativity, and talent and industry of the American people with a system that's dedicated to creating tomorrow's prosperity, not trying to redistribute today's.
That's why every president since the Great Depression who came before the American people asking for a second term could look back at the last four years and say with satisfaction, "You're are better off than you were four years ago." Except Jimmy Carter.
And except this president.
This president can ask us to be patient. This president can tell us it was someone else's fault. This president can tell us that the next four years will get it right. But this president cannot tell us that you're better off today than when he took office.
America has been patient. Americans have supported this president in good faith, but today the time has come the time to turn the page. Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us, to put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations, to forget about what might have been, and to look ahead to what can be. Now is the time to restore the promise of America.
Many Americans have given up on this president, but they haven't ever thought of giving up, not on themselves, not on each other, and not on America. What is needed in our country is not complicated or profound. It doesn't take a special government commission to tell us what America needs. What America needs is jobs, lots of jobs.
In the richest country in the history of the world, this Obama economy has crushed the middle class. Family income has fallen by $4,000 , but health insurance premiums are higher. Food prices are higher. Utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices, they've doubled. Today more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before. Nearly one out of six Americans is living in poverty. Look around you -- these aren't strangers. These are our brothers and sisters, our fellow Americans. His policies have not helped create jobs. They've depressed them, and this I can tell you about where President Obama would take America. His plan to put taxes on small businesses won't not add jobs. It will eliminate them.
His assault on coal and gas and oil will send energy and manufacturing jobs to china.
His trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs and also put our security at greater risk.
His $716 billion cut to Medicare to finance Obamacare will hurt today's seniors and depress innovation in jobs and medicines. And his trillion dollar deficits, they slow our economy, restrain employment, and cause wages to stall. To the majority of Americans who now believe the future will not be better than the past, I can guarantee you this -- if Barack Obama is reelected, you will be right.
I am running for president to help create a better future, a future where everyone who wants a job can find a job, where no senior fears for the security of their retirement, an America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads to a good job and a bright horizon, and unlike the president, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs.
Paul Ryan and I have five steps. First, by 2020, North America will be an energy independent by taking invented of our oil, are coal, our gas, our nuclear, and renewables.
Second, we will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance.
Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements, and when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences.
And fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish, as have those in Greece. We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.
And fifth, we will champion small businesses, America's engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them. It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small businesses the most, and it means we must rein in skyrocketing cost of health care by repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Today women are more likely than men to start of business. They need a president who respect and understand what they do. And let me make this clear. Unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class of America.
As president, I'll respect the sanctity of life. I'll honor the institution of marriage.
And I will guarantee America's first liberty, the freedom of religion.
President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans.
And to heal the planet. My promises to help you and your family.
I will begin my presidency with the jobs tour. President Obama began his with an apology to our.
America he said had dictated to other nations. No, Mr. President America has feed other nations from dictators.
Every American...
Every American was relieved the day President Obama I gave the order and SEAL Team 6 took out Osama Bin Laden.
On another front, every American is less secure today because he has failed to slow Iran's nuclear threat. In his first TV interview as president, he said we should talk to Iran. We are still talking, and Iran's centrifuges are still spinning.
President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castor's Cuba. He abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from missile defense commitments
But he's eager to give Russia's president Putin the flexibility he desires after the election.
Under my presidency our friends will see more loyalty and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.
We will honor America's Democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign legacy of Truman and Reagan, and under presidency we will return to it once again.
You might have asked yourselves if these last years were really the America we want, the America that was won for us by the greatest generation. Does the America we want borrow a trillion dollars from China?
Does it fail to find the jobs that are needed for 23 million and for half the kids graduating from college?
Are those schools lagging behind the rest of the developed world?
And does America that we want succumb to resentment and division among Americans?
The America we all know has been a story of many becoming one. United to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest the economy in the world, uniting to save the world from unspeakable darkness.
Everywhere I go there are monuments and now for those who have given their lives for America. There is no mention of their race, their party affiliation, or what they did for a living.
They lived and died under a single flag, fighting for a single purpose. They've pledge allegiance to the United States of America. That America, that united America can unleash an economy that will put Americans back to work, that will once again lead the world with innovation and productivity, and will restore every father and mother's confidence that their children's future is brighter even than the past. That American, that united America will preserve a military that's so strong no nation will ever dare to test it.
That America, that America, that united America will of uphold the consolation of rights that were endowed by our creator and codified in our Constitution.
That United States of America will care for the poor and sick, will honor and respect the elderly and will giving a helping hand to those in need. That America is the best within each of us. That America we want for our children.
If I am elected president of these United States I will work with all my energy and soul to restore that America, to lift our eyes to a better future. That future is our destiny. That future is out there. It is waiting for us. Our children deserve it. Our nation depends on it. The peace and freedom of the world require it. And with your help we will deliver it. Let us the begin that future for America tonight.
Thank you so very much. May God bless you! May god bless the American people, and may God bless the United States of America!
There was a report out this week that only 22% of 8th graders passed a basic civics test. The conclusion? Millions of young Americans will be unprepared to be informed and engaged, which is required in a healthy democracy. When the news last Sunday came out of Osama (Usama) Bin Laden’s death, the number five search on Google was “Who is Usama or Osama Bin Laden?”. 25% of all searches overall came from those under 24.
Beck held a live audience discussion with 35 to 40 teachers. This is an important watch for anyone who is concerned about the education in America. Even if you are not a Beck fan, it is an important watch. Don’t miss the message just because you don’t like the messenger!!
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 89)
". . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right." (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 88)
The above quotes were the cornerstones of Jefferson's interest in education and the franchise. He placed education as the foundation of democracy and a prerequisite to vote.
Ignorance and sound self-government could not exist together: the one destroyed the other. A despotic government could restrain its citizens and deprive the people of their liberties only while they were ignorant.
Jefferson could never completely separate education from government. With the fullest faith in the ability of man to govern himself, Jefferson nonetheless realized the responsibility of self-government could be assumed successfully only by an enlightened people.
The habit of thinking of public education in essentially political terms, as an auxiliary of free government, naturally suggests a common father for both. In associating manhood suffrage with education, Jefferson was in the forefront. It was his belief in universal suffrage that made necessary the accompanying idea of universal education.
Only popular government can safeguard democracy. . . . Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree. . . ." (as cited in Koch and Peden, 1972, p. 265)
The preparation of the voter so that he might express his opinion by means of the ballot, thus insuring political liberty, was one of the main goals of Jefferson's plan for education which asserted four basic principles:
"that democracy cannot long exist without enlightenment.
that it cannot function without wise and honest officials.
that talent and virtue, needed in a free society, should be educated regardless of wealth, birth or other accidental condition.
that the children of the poor must be thus educated at common expense." (as cited in Padover, 1952, p. 43)
Jefferson felt so strongly about education that he, as a strict constitutional constructionist, submitted to congress an amendment to the constitution to legalize federal support for education in his State of the Union Address, December 2, 1806. "Education is here placed among the articles of public care. . . " (Honeywell, 1964, p. 63).
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree. . . . An amendment to our constitution must here come in aid of the public education. The influence over government must be shared among all people. (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 87)
The amendment was never considered, so, Jefferson turned his efforts to his beloved state of Virginia. He developed a comprehensive plan for education which encompassed elementary, secondary, and university levels.
I think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness. (as cited in Padover, 1952, p. 87)
Jefferson believed the elementary school was more important than the university in the plan because, as he said, it was "safer to have the whole people respectfully enlightened than a few in a high state of science and many in ignorance as in Europe" (as cited in Peterson, 1960, p. 241). He had six objectives for primary education to bring about this enlightenment and which highlighted what he hoped would make every person into a productive and informed voter:
"To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts, and accounts, in writing;
To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;
To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;
And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed." (as cited in Peterson, 1960, p. 239)
Omitted from the Bill for Virginia's school system, for political reasons, was the provision requiring literacy for citizenship. Jefferson felt strongly that society could rightfully disfranchise those who failed to avail themselves to free education (Malone, 1981, p. 270).
Jefferson expressed this view in a letter to his friend du Pont in 1816:
. . . in the constitution of Spain as proposed by the late Cortes. . . that any person born after that day should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant reliance to the principles of the constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind, or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. . . . the diffusion of knowledge among the people is to be the instrument by which it is to be effected. (as cited in Mapp, 1991, p. 266)
The omission of the provision tying literacy and the rights of citizenship did the bill little good. All that the Virginia Assembly basically passed was Jefferson's plan for a university, which became the University of Virginia. But, the issue of education and the franchise brought forth a dichotomy in Jefferson's own thinking. Jefferson knew that a democracy could only exist with an educated and informed electorate. Yet, he, who abhorred any restrictions or shackles of the mind or body, was proposing such a stricture by melding education with franchise.
Thomas Jefferson on education:
“Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity. I have no fear that the result of our experiment, the Great American Experiment, will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master! But to ensure that outcome and educated, informed and involved citizenry is necessary, for information, education and participation are the currency of democracy.”
With former first lady Nancy Reagan by his side, President Obama today created a commission to plan events that will honor former president Ronald Reagan on what would have been his 100th birthday. [...]
"President Reagan helped as much as any president to restore a sense of optimism in our country, a spirit that transcended politics -- that transcended even the most heated arguments of the day," Obama said. "It was this optimism that the American people sorely needed during a difficult period -- a period of economic and global challenges that tested us in unprecedented ways." [...]
Obama praised Nancy Reagan, describing her as a first lady who redefined the role and praising her work for stem cell research.
"There are few who are not moved by the love that Ms. Reagan felt for her husband -- and fewer still who are not inspired by how this love led her to take up the twin causes of stem cell research and Alzheimer's research," he said. "In saying a long goodbye, Nancy Reagan became a voice on behalf of millions of families experiencing the depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer's disease.
by BarbinMD
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WASHINGTON -- An overjoyed and teary-eyed Nancy Reagan watched with delight as a bronze statue of her beloved late husband Ronald Reagan was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol.
A blue cloth cover was pulled from the seven-foot statue of the 40th president Wednesday as Mrs. Reagan, 87, and a crowd packed with Reagan era-policymakers, looked on in the Capitol's Rotunda. The statue cast Reagan flashing his legendary ah-shucks grin, the expression that transformed his face whenever he was ready to deliver the punchline of a joke. (Photo AP)
Mrs. Reagan, seated next to her husband's friend, former Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, said that it was nice to return to the Rotunda for a happy occasion. Ronald Reagan, who was president from 1981 to 1989, lay in state there after his death at 93 in 2004.
Associated Press.
Part of the celebration of Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday (February 6, 2011) will be a facelift of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA.
I’ve just come back from the Orange County Tea Party where Big Hollywood contributors Gary Graham, Orson Bean and I addressed the crowd. It was a breathtaking experience with upwards of 2,000 people in attendance who were, much to the media’s disappointment, civil and and well behaved. This was the ultimate middle-class-Costco-shopper protest…not the work of wealthy millionaires like scaredy-cat Nancy Pelosi would like you to think. There were no scary skeleton costumes, no Subcomandante Marcos banana-republic-revolutionary vibe, just a diverse crowd of everyday Americans, Democrats and Republicans, gathered to push back an arrogant and increasingly oppressive government.
Yet CNN Correspondent Susan Roesgen (a reporter, not a commentator), came into the Chicago rally with a clear agenda to use code words to harass and harangue peaceful protestors:
What a pathetic display. Susan Roesgen is the devil and if she’s not fired for her mean-spirited display, CNN deserves to fall deeper than 4th place in the cable news rating.
The subtext of my speech–which we intend to post here once we have the video–was that the media is the problem because they ignore and marginalize these tea parties and those Americans who have made them such a success, and I can offer no better evidence than that video of Susan Roesgen, which I saw afterward.
Three short months ago “dissent is patriotic” was the rallying cry of the media and the left. Now they’re the enforcers of government mandated conformity. Pathetic.
Do you reject "federal authority in favor of state or local authority," or "government authority entirely"? Are you "dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration"?
If so, you are a dangerous, rightwing extremist according to Obama's Department of Homeland Security, which bans the use of the word "terrorist" unless it's applied to us rightwing extremists who, for example, are so extreme as to view the grisly murder of the unborn in their mothers' wombs as cold-blooded murder.
Are you a veteran returning from Iraq or Afghanistan after risking life and limb to protect your fellow Americans? If so, you are a ticking time bomb likely to the recruited by those dangerous rightwing extremists
After all, the vaunted Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division, Department of Homeland Security, warns that you "possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists," and these Obama-ite loons are concerned that rightwing extremists "will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities."
Have we really come to this? Has Adolf Hitler's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels been reborn and recruited by the Obama administration to scare the heck out of the American people with absurdities such as this whacked-out document?
Obviously recognizing that public knowledge of the nonsense alleged in this document is very undesirable, the weirdoes who prepared it did not want you to see it.
They warn: "No portion of the LES information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers."
Too bad. The Washington Times got their hands on a copy and revealed it to the entire world.
Once it became public and many Americans reacted in disbelief, the Obama White House disavowed it despite the fact that a document as explosive as this could never have been distributed without the president's explicit approval in the first place.
The screed was prepared long before tens of thousands of outraged Americans banded together in today's peaceful Tea Party demonstrations, which by their very nature gave the lie to the outrageous allegations contained in the document.
The demonstrations were conducted by people who believe strongly in the very issues cited by the administration as those that incite violence, yet who themselves abhor violence as a political tactic.
They're getting ready to take names, so beware if you say anything negative about abortion or gay marriage or our out-of-control system of taxation.
Sounding like something out of a Gestapo directive, the document reveals that Homeland Security "will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization."
Such as baby killing in abortion mills .
They want America's law enforcement agencies "to report information concerning suspicious or criminal activity to DHS and the FBI." So watch out if you attend an anti-abortion rally or a Tea Party. Big Brother will be watching.
They want your friendly neighborhood cop to send "comments or questions related to the content or dissemination of this document," to the DHS/I&A Production Branch at IA.PM@hq.dhs.gov, IA.PM@dhs.sgov.gov, or IA.PM@dhs.ic.gov.
Why not join in on the fun and contact them at the above address and let them know what you're thinking -- in a nice, non-threatening way, of course. You wouldn't want them to think you're some kind of rightwing extremist. Would you?
I was talking to Peter Robinson, who helped write the immortal "Tear Down This Wall, Mr. Gorbachev" speech delivered in Berlin by my dad, Ronald Reagan.
He told me he went back to the archives for 1981 and pulled out a couple of my dad's quotes from the 1981 inaugural address and compared them with a couple of quotes from Barack Obama's inaugural address. He noted that while my dad said it was "morning in America," with Obama it almost went back in tone to Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech, which pictured an America down in the dumps.
For Obama it was more like "mourning" in America.
You can hear echoes of that malaise speech in Obama's inaugural address when he said, "These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights."
There were, however, striking similarities between Ronald Reagan's speeches and those of both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Robinson said, because the Democrats have long been big students of my dad's speeches, going back time and again to the archives to read the words of the Great Communicator and learn from his techniques in communicating.
If you listen to Barack Obama you hear his programs and policies described the way Ronald Reagan would have described them had they been his agenda.
The difference between the two men was that my dad believed everything he said all the way to the core of his being, while Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats use speeches to mask what they really believe.
The bottom line is that the new president's widely anticipated inaugural address, which beforehand was widely touted to be another stunning example of exalted oratory, just plain fell flat.
It wasn't the soaring eloquence for which he is rightly noted -- it was in fact the kind of speech a Chicago ward heeler would have made to his constituents -- " full of sound and fury," as Shakespeare would have put it, "but signifying nothing."
Perhaps the most noteworthy event during the inauguration was the jeremiad disguised as a prayer offered by the grizzled old veteran of the long-past civil rights struggle, the Rev. Joseph Lowery.
As Barack Obama smiled, Rev. Lowery ended the prayer by saying "Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- when yellow will be mellow -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- and when white will embrace what is right."
As Rush Limbaugh remarked, Lowery's so-called prayer was far more memorable that the president's entire inaugural address.
Amen.
I wonder if President Obama had any idea of what he was saying when he praised "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."
These "risk takers . who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom," are the small and large business men and women of America who do the hiring, create products, provide needed services and compete with foreign competitors. They are the very people he wants to burden with heavier and heavier taxation and needless regulations that hamper their attempts to compete with foreign businesses and industries.
The craven New York Times might have had what have been described as "Obamisms" over the speech, but saner observers are simply yawning.
By: Michael Reagan, the eldest son of Ronald Reagan, is heard daily by over 5 million listeners via his nationally syndicated talk radio program, “The Michael Reagan Show.”
Michael Reagan Attacks Fairness Doctrine on Cavuto Today, Thursday 11/10 at 4 PM EST
Michael Reagan discusses the Fairness Doctrine and the New Reagan Revolution to bring Conservatism back today on Your World with Neil Cavuto.
Time: 4 PM EST on FOXNEWS
We CAN fight back -- Join us now in the NEW Reagan Revolution, to bring Conservatism BACK and STOP the Fairness Doctrine.
We MUST do this. Really -- what choice do we have, except to fight back and WIN? As President Ronald Reagan, once said, "We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow."
But you can be sure of one thing: The radical liberals will do everything in their power to SHUT US DOWN, along with every other conservative voice in America. And they’re already telling the world exactly how they’re going to do it:
THE “FAIRNESS DOCTRINE”.
We MUST take action to STOP them NOW, before they are able to mobilize support for this insidious attempt to SILENCE CONSERVATIVES!
SELECT HERE to send “Blast Faxes” to EVERY SINGLE REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATOR who will be sitting in the next Congress, DEMANDING that they REJECT the “Fairness Doctrine” in ANY
We do NOT have to give up. We do NOT have to slink into some dark corner and lick our wounds. This is OUR MOMENT TO SHINE -- and that's why we are launching ReaganAction.com!
When the Reagan wing is in control, we win. We don't need kingmakers; we need workers, and until we get them we'll stay the minority party. We don't need to keep the toady liberals who call themselves the "leaders" of the Republican Party; we need conservatives to TAKE BACK the Republican Party, and GET RID OF those losers!
WILL YOU JOIN US, and hundreds of thousands of your fellow conservative activists nationwide? Let's show these liberals what real REAGAN Republicans can do, when WE'RE in charge of the GOP!
As you know, I've just launched my new activist website for conservatives, ReaganAction.com
We're already making HUGE waves in political circles -- grassroots conservatives are energized, and the "loony left" is already having fits about what they realize we can do!
But you can be sure of one thing: The radical liberals will do everything in their power to SHUT US DOWN, along with every other conservative voice in America. And they're already telling the world exactly how they're going to do it:
THE "FAIRNESS DOCTRINE"
We MUST take action to STOP them NOW, before they are able to mobilize support for this insidious attempt to SILENCE CONSERVATIVES!
The "Fairness Doctrine" -- a federal regulation requiring broadcasters to present both sides of any "controversial" issue -- was enforced by the Federal Communications Commission from 1949 to 1987. The FCC adopted it as a regulation, but it was never a law enacted by Congress.
When the rule was in place, radio and TV stations could face hefty fines if their stations aired controversial statements on public affairs without providing "equal time" to opposing viewpoints. The result was self-censorship by broadcasters who avoided politics to escape any potential government retaliation.
When this rule was dropped in 1987 under my father, Ronald Reagan, it led directly to the rise of conservative talk radio that enabled average citizens to have their voices heard across America. If it weren't for the Reagan administration dropping the "Fairness Doctrine," we would never have heard of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Martha Zoller, Neal Boortz, Janet Folger, or the hundreds of other conservative talk radio hosts that dot the land and expose the lies and misdeeds of the Left.
You might not have even heard of me!
And THAT is why the Left wants to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine" -- this time, as a LAW.
Up until 1987, the Fairness Doctrine mandated that when a broadcast station presented one viewpoint on a "controversial" public issue, it also had to air the opposing viewpoint. Sounds "fair," right?
WRONG. The so-called "Fairness Doctrine" did nothing but stifle any real public debate on the airwaves. What station manager in his right mind would air a (profitable) conservative talk radio show for two or three hours every day, if it meant he had to also air liberal shows as well -- shows that have consistently LOST money whenever they've been tried?
Repealed by a vote of 4-0, it was concluded that the "Fairness Doctrine" had begun to inhibit political discourse, rather than enhance it.
The Democrat Congress tried to reinstate the doctrine, but President Reagan vetoed their attempt. Again, in 1991, another attempt to revive the doctrine failed when George H. W. Bush threatened a veto.
Now, with Barack Obama entering the White House, and Reid and Pelosi reigning over a stronger Democrat-controlled Congress, they're going to try to SHUT US UP AGAIN -- and this time, they might succeed... unless YOU AND I take action to stop them NOW, before they are able to mobilize support for this insidious attempt to SILENCE CONSERVATIVES!
Nothing frightens those who peddle lies than the cold hard light of TRUTH. They react to exposure of their deceits the way vampires react to a having a crucifix held up in front of them.
Ever since the birth of conservative talk radio and the Internet ended the liberals' total monopoly over the news, the left has been simmering with rage -- over the loss of their absolute control over what the Americans are allowed to see and hear, and their inability to do anything about it.
Time and again, liberal attempts to sell the nation their shoddy goods have been frustrated when talk-radio hosts have taken to the airwaves and warned their millions of listeners that they were about to be taken to the cleaners.
It was not until last year's fatally flawed "immigration reform" AMNESTY bill -- that seemed destined for passage -- was derailed by an army of angry voters recruited by talk radio hosts and conservative Internet websites, that the left understood both the incredible power of the new media, and their utter helplessness in the face of it.
Clearly something had do be done, they thought. And that's when they came up with the idea to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine" -- but this time, as a LAW.
Really, what they're trying to do shows just how desperate the liberals have become. Without the new media to keep an eye on them, their failure to accomplish their stated goals since winning control of the Congress would have been covered up by the subservient mainstream media.
Those of us in talk radio and the Internet are the left's worst nightmare -- our monitoring of their activities had been shining the light of truth on their attempts to deceive the nation, so now they're trying to do whatever it takes to kill us off.
Like all Marxists, the liberals won't stop trying to LIE their way into power. As a result, they won't stop trying to destroy the new media -- those of us who are more than willing to ACTIVATE the grassroots to help EXPOSE their lies. You can be certain that they'll push HARD for a new "Fairness Doctrine" or some other way to silence the opposition.
But you can be just as certain that we will NOT let them succeed!
As grassroots conservatives, we MUST take action to stop them NOW, before they are able to mobilize support for this insidious attempt to SILENCE CONSERVATIVES!
