Happy Birthday, President Reagan

Today marks the birthday of Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States of America.

Joshua Pundit:

Reagan became president when the United States was in a period of great stress, just after the tenure of Jimmy Carter. Inflation and interest rates were in double digits and unemployment was close to 7%, taxes were at an all time high, America's foreign policy and international prestige were reeling from the Iranian hostage crisis, severe cutbacks in defense and successful Soviet penetration all over the world.

Worse than that, Americans seemed to have lost confidence in themselves and in the country's greatness.

Reagan squared his shoulders, rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He cut government, cut taxes, and oversaw the creation of 16 million new jobs and economic growth at 3.5 % per year. He rebuilt America's military. He was unafraid to call the Soviet Union an evil empire, or to challenge them directly so that their evil empire crumpled into the dust of history.

He left America safer, stronger and wealthier than it was when he came, which is the most you can ask of a president. In simple terms, he was a singularly decent man who honored both himself and the nation he served.

He gave us confidence in ourselves again, reminded us of who we are and that we are a country singularly blessed by G-d's providence. He inspired us as a nation. And he did it with grace, charm, wit and style, and with a sunny optimism that reached out to the best in us.

If ever a president deserved a national holiday to honor him, President Reagan does.

He was by no means perfect, as he would doubtless be the first to say. But in Ronald Reagan, we have an example of what real leadership is, an example especially needed today.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President...We Miss You!!!

** And let us remember this conservative yet practical leader in the upcoming elections of 2014 and 2016.  Reagan's old and proven formula was to unite behind the most conservative and principled candidate(s) available, and to make sure he or she knew that 2-years, let alone 10-months, isn't that far away. It won't be perfect, but it will even put RINO’s who survive on notice that times have changed!!

Reagan at His Best…

Technorati Tags: Ronald Reagan,Reagan,Republicans,Remembering,History,Happy Birthday,Former Presidents

Watcher’s Council Nominations – The Gipper’s Edition

JoshuaPundit on Feb 08 2012

Happy 101st Birthday President Reagan

Video: Happy 101st Birthday President Reagan

Video:  Reagan Ever Relevant

Video: Ronald Reagan Tells Jokes About Democrats

Happy birthday, Mr. President. You have no idea how much we miss you.

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

First off,Happy Birthday to our esteemed colleague,New Zeal’s Trevor Loudon. Let’s all hoist a tinny out of the esky in his honor..many more!

This week, Crazy Bald Guy, Maggie’s Notebook, The Independent Sentinel and Capitalist Preservation took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week….

Council Submissions

• Joshuapundit-Glorifying Evil
• Simply Jews – Tehran: HOT under the collar
• The Political Commentator – Obama: Are Jews finally catching on?
• The Noisy Room – On the Road to Armageddon – Moving Ragnarok to the Middle East
• VA Right! - For Unto Whom Much is Given
• Bookworm Room – The Narcissistic Mindset of Today’s World
• The Mellow Jihadi – Slab City, Navy Town
• Rhymes With Right – Is The Tea Party Dead?
• The Glittering Eye -Where the Wheel Hits the Road on Education
• The Razor – Automate This – The Nature of Work in the 21st Century
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – The Little Satan Paradox
• The Right Planet – Video: Obama Opposed Super-PACs, Before He Was for Them
• The Colossus of Rhodey – OK to rip the KKK; al Qaeda, not so much
• New Zeal – “Iran’s Latin America Ties Pose Threat to US”

Honorable Mentions

• Crazy Bald Guy – Mitt vs. Newt
• Maggie’s Notebook – Obama Blames Founders: He Can’t Force Congress: Founders Make it Difficult
• The Independent Sentinel – Obama Signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty & Ceded Internet Rights to the UN
• Capitalist Preservation – Attention Christians: Barack Obama is on your side

Non-Council Submissions

• Niall Ferguson – Israel and Iran on the Eve of Destruction in a New Six-Day War submitted by Joshuapundit
• Sad Red Earth – ‘Israel Firster’: Anatomy of a Smear submitted by Simply Jews
• World Net Daily/Reza Kahlili -Ayatollah: Kill all Jews, annihilate Israel submitted by The Political Commentator
• Sultan Knish –A Tale of Two Republican Parties submitted by The Noisy Room
• Big Jounalism – Credit Where It’s Due: Tablet Calls Out Media Matters, Center for American Progress, J Street on Antisemitism submitted by VA Right!
• Michael Ramirez-“We’re behind you 100%” submitted by Bookworm Room
• The Chicago Boyz –To the Lifeboats submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• The Economic Collapse Blog – If The Economy Is Improving…. submitted by Rhymes with Right
• The People’s Cube – The Teachings of Jesus and Obama: A Reference Chart submitted by The Glittering Eye
• James Delingpole –How Green Zealots Are Destroying The Planet submitted by The Razor
• ZenPundit – Nagl: “COIN is not Dead!” submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Now Lebanon – Egypt’s Christians, post-Mubarak submitted by The Watcher
• Armed Forces Journal – Truth, lies and Afghanistan submitted by The Watcher
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali – The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World submitted by The Watcher
• Seraphic Secret – Three Notable War Movies submitted by The Watcher

  Enjoy! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Newt Gingrich Re-Writes His Reagan Connections and Video Where He Bad-Mouths Ronald Reagan in 1988

Video:  Newt Gingrich bad-mouths Ronald Reagan in 1988

Newt Rewrites His Reagan Connection

In 1995, when Newt Gingrich first became speaker of the House, Bob Dole was already on the threshold of becoming the longest-serving Senate Republican leader in U.S. history. Relations between the two GOP leaders, which were never chummy, were not helped by Gingrich's openly disparaging Bob Dole as "the tax collector for the welfare state."

Barely two years later, after having been chosen Time magazine's Man of the Year, Gingrich had plummeted in public esteem to where, in a CBS-New York Times poll, just 14 percent of voters had favorable personal feelings toward the speaker.

This prompted an apocryphal Washington exchange between a perplexed Gingrich and Dole. "Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?" asked a perplexed Gingrich, to whom Dole bluntly explained: "Because it saves them time."

Watching the last televised candidates debate before the Jan. 3 Iowa presidential caucuses, and hearing Newt Gingrich once again invoke the name and record of President Ronald Reagan as well as his own close relationship with Reagan, reminded me that Dole wasn't the only one on the receiving end of Gingrich's barbs.

At the Reagan presidential library this fall, Gingrich boasted of how "I helped Reagan create millions of jobs while he was president." And after modestly acknowledging his own less significant role than Reagan's, added, "We helped defeat the Soviet empire." Unmentioned by Gingrich then, or in any of the 2,414 debates during this campaign, was his 1985 criticism of President Reagan's historic meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev as "the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with (British Prime Minister) Chamberlain at Munich in 1938."

In an interview on CNBC, Gingrich recently emphasized his close identification with the nation's 40th president: "I've done a movie on Ronald Reagan called 'Rendezvous With Destiny.' Callista and I did.

We've done a book on Ronald Reagan. You know I campaigned with Reagan. I first met Reagan in '74. I'm very happy to talk about Ronald Reagan."

Just like when Newt went to the House floor during the Gipper's second White House term and declared the president's Soviet policy a "failure." Here is what Gingrich said: "Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire's challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing and without a dramatic, fundamental change in strategy will continue to fail. ... The burden of the failure frankly must be placed first upon President Reagan."

This was after Gingrich, as reported in the Congressional Record, had found Reagan responsible for our national "decay": "Beyond the obvious indicators of decay, the fact is that President Reagan has lost control of the national agenda." Students of Newt-speak will recognize that by "decay," Gingrich was generally referring to factors such as crime, illegitimate births and illiteracy.

These blatant contradictions between what Congressman Gingrich actually said at the time about President Reagan and what Candidate Gingrich now offers as fictitious reminiscences of his unwavering allegiance to Reagan remind me of one of the former speaker's own broadsides against Washington, D.C. "In this cold and ruthless city," he once said, "the center of hypocrisy is Capitol Hill." Newt Gingrich is quite obviously an expert on both subjects.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM BY MARK SHIELDS

In the Reagan Diaries, Ronnie mentions Gingrich only once and sparingly…

The one mention of Newt Gingrich in The Reagan Diaries (The Reagan Diaries Unabridged) is in Chapter 3, which covers 1983, on page 123 in the book:

"Newt Gingrich has a proposal for freezing the budget at the 1983 level. It's a tempting idea except that it would cripple our defense programs. And if we make an exception on that every special interest group will be asking for the same."

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Could There Still Be a Palin Reconsideration?

I’m hearing this question and rumblings over and over again from many sources:

Could Sarah Palin be getting into the race after all?  Is there still time for her to reconsider or be drafted?

Palin herself has not said anything but some of her supporters in Iowa, and other placers, are. They have made a TV commercial that is going to debut in Iowa tomorrow, four weeks and six days before the Iowa caucuses.

From The Daily Caller:

Supporters of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Gov. Palin have unveiled a television ad they plan to air in Iowa. They hope the ad will compel her to reconsider her decision not to run for president in 2012.

The ad debuts Nov. 30 on KCAU in Sioux City, Ian Lazaran of Conservatives4Palin.com, which raised money to run the spot, told The Daily Caller.

The video does not explicitly ask Palin to reconsider. It simply shows her giving a speech and saying, “We will not solve our economic problems in this country until we confront the crony capitalism of our permanent political class.”

“This is socialism for the very rich and the very poor but it is a brutal form of capitalism for the rest of us,” Palin says. “It’s the collusion of big government, big business. It’s at the heart of President Obama’s economic vision.”

Video:  The Challenge  - To Run in Iowa

Palin: We will not solve our economic problems in this country until we confront the crony capitalism of our permanent political class. This is socialism for the very rich and the very poor but it is a brutal form of capitalism for the rest of us. It's the collusion of big government, big business. It's at the heart of President Obama's economic vision. We need sudden and relentless reform. That will return power to we the people. We need people with a proven record of reform. I served in public office in a state that had a corruption problem. I fought that corrupt system. I took on a corrupt and compromised political class. The challenge is not simply to replace Obama in 2012. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with.   Uploaded by PalinTV on Nov 22, 2011

The Hill has some more details:

Conservatives4Palin, a volunteer group that is unaffiliated with Palin and SarahPac, said on its website that it hopes to run the ad this week in Sioux City, Iowa.

“What we do next after the television ad goes up is a more difficult question,” the announcement said. “If this ad is able to build some momentum for the Governor, the best way to keep that momentum going may be to commission a national GOP primary poll that includes the Governor as one of the options. We’ll see if it’s possible given our resources. We’re open to other ideas but the greatest challenge may be that time is running short for her to reconsider.”

Hope does spring eternal but the reality of life is, at this late date it would be impossible for Palin to jump into the race. She has already missed the deadline to appear on a number of early state ballots.

The fascination with Palin jumping back into the race, something she has not even hinted at, is a symptom of something else going on in the Republican Party.

Right now, the conservative base remains shattered. It is split among a number of candidates. The problem is we are now on top of the Caucus date and the primaries begin a week later.

Conservatives are going to have to unite behind the most electable conservative. Otherwise, we are going to see Mitt Romney be the nominee and just as we had a choice in 2008 between two liberals, if Mitt Romney is the nominee, the only question will be which of the two liberals wins in 2012.

Video:  Sarah Palin @ The Tea Party of America Rally Indianola, Iowa September 3 2011

Future Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin gives the keynote speech at the Tea Party of America Rally in Indianola, Iowa to a huge crowd in essentially in the middle of nowhere. 1000's upon 1000's got rained on all morning, then just before Sarah Palin took the stage, the rain stopped. Must be Ronald Reagan looking down. Thanks To CSPAN!

Why Sarah Could Win & Long Lost Sarah Palin Emerges From Released Emails Victoriously

The Audacity of American Exceptionalism

Last night I finished reading Governor Palin's newest book, America by Heart. It was a wonderful, encouraging, challenging read. In fact, I fear I read it too quickly and didn't let everything sink in--kind of like when you regret eating a piece of dark chocolate too quickly. I will be re-reading it soon.

I found the book almost to be like an American took a theoretical journey similar to that of Alexis de Tocqueville when he traveled throughout all of America in the early 19th century observing American culture, politics, and Founding documents. In a sense, that's what Governor Palin did when she wrote this book. She viewed America's Founding documents, speeches by Presidents like Reagan, Kennedy, and Coolidge. She spoke of American work ethic and how great joy comes through the effort of hard work, not entitlement. She wrote of issues of race and feminism. She wrote of her personal experiences with family-- the birth of her children and her relationship with her husband. She wrote of her faith--how it is both deeply personal, but also very public.

Many politicians and political leaders write about such things, but there is something different about how Governor Palin presents the message. I think it has something to do with the title--America by Heart. It wasn't America by Mind or Thoughts on American Exceptionalism; it was America by Heart. The thoughts that she put down on paper were heart-felt. They were genuine. She didn't present a long dissertation on feminism or economics, but she did present well-reasoned, heart felt thoughts on those topics. You knew that she meant every word she wrote. Her words weren't focused group tested or written for the sake of political expediency; they were written because she meant them.

During the 2008 campaign, in the nascent days of my political awareness, I decided to read Obama's book, the Audacity of Hope, and McCain's book, Faith of my Fathers, prior to election day, hoping to get a first person perspective of the two men running for president. Prior to the 2008 campaign, I'd only really seen the term,"hope", as a religious term. Particularly, I always thought of hope as described by the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see". We hope for things in the future, and things not of this world, but of eternity. Without getting too theological, suffice it to say, hope to me, was looking ahead to something, rather than viewing things in light of the present or the past.

When Obama's campaign mantra was "hope and change", what I thought about was a forward focused hope in what the country could be changed to. This is what Obama said, even a fundamental transformation of America. What America is currently is not good. There is no American exceptionalism -- at least exclusively. He was "bold" enough to hope though that America could and would be transformed to something "better". This is what separates President Obama and Governor Palin both in terms of their books and their ideology. Governor Palin's book outlines American Exceptionalism as America was in its founding and what it still is today. There isn't a hoping for a better America. That exceptional America is already here, if we choose to recognize who we are as a nation and what our Founders intended for America to be. This is why Governor Palin said at the Restoring Honor rally that we need to "fundamentally restore America".

Governor Palin sees that a great America is nothing to be hoped for because it is already here, if we choose to live like that is the truth--the audacity of American Exceptionalism.

Cross posted here and here and here.

America by Heart : Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag

Fear Factor:  Palin Derangement Syndrome

Popular Sarah Palin makes book signing stop in Norfolk

Ronald Reagan’s 100th Birthday Celebration Events Begin

Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 06:20:06 PM PDT

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

------

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.

Replica of Reagan Oval Office

Photos:  UCLA Shutterbug

   Ronald Reagan’s Final Resting Place

 

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Posted:  Daily Thought Pad

Ronald Reagan TV Ad: "Its morning in America again"

Quote: A nice reminder and a nice walk down memory lane!

Ronald Reagan TV Ad: "Its morning in america again"

OC Tea Party

By: Marion Algier/Ask Marion

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