Big Moves Coming for Fox News… Including for Shep Smith - Updated

TheBlaze/AP – (The Associated Press was the first to report this news):  Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is leaving his 7 p.m. ET timeslot to take on a larger role heading up the network’s new breaking news division.

Starting this fall, the new division, with Smith as the main anchor and managing editor, will have the capability to break into any Fox News programming anytime throughout the day, a network statement said.

“Shep is a premier journalist and one of the finest newsmen of the modern era. He will exemplify the ethos that Fox News is when and where the news is, as it happens, no longer bound by a traditional evening format conceived in the 1960s,” Fox News chairman Roger Ailes said in the statement.

A new studio, known as the “Fox News Deck,” will incorporate “real-time news feeds, digital media newsgathering and social media utilizing advanced, state-of-the-art technology.”

“Learning and reporting the news has been my passion for 25 years. I’m thrilled that Roger is trusting and empowering my team and me to bring the news to our viewers as it happens throughout the day and night. Roger’s forward-looking approach to anchoring and reporting will continue to solidify FNC’s position as the number one cable news network in the country,” Smith said.

Smith will remain in the 3 p.m. ET hour under the renamed and revamped “Shepard Smith Reporting”.

It’s the first announced primetime programming shuffle since the network said in July that daytime anchor Megyn Kelly would be moving to evenings. Kelly has been rumored to be taking Sean Hannity’s 9 p.m. slot.

There was no announcement about who would replace Smith in his 7 p.m. timeslot, or about the rest of the Fox News primetime lineup, but if you do the math, it appears that there is a good chance that Sean Hannity will drop into Shep’s old 7p.m. spot, right before O’Reilly and The Factor?!?

This change is just one more in what appears to be a Fox Cable News re-vamp thus far including Shep Smith, Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity, Gretchen Carlson and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. There have already been quite a few changes over the past few months in the line-up of Fox News contributors, including the addition of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and the re-signing of Former Alaska Governor and GOP Vice Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin.

Classicalite recently reported:

Fox News has some major shake ups going down. In two weeks, Elisabeth Hasselbeck will be joining the cast of Fox and Friends and Gretchen Carlson will be moving to afternoons. Also, Megyn Kelly is prepping for her new primetime show. She will be replacing longtime anchor Sean Hannity, who has remained quiet on the matter in recent weeks.

No one is perhaps more shocked about the Fox News lineup changes than Sean Hannity. After signing a long-term contract with the conservative news network, it was revealed that he will be losing his primetime gig.

Fox has not yet revealed their plans for the seasoned anchor, saying only that Sean Hannity has not been fired. Fox didn’t comment further on the situation… so speculation has been running wild.

This is the second time Hannity has received some bad news in the past few months. The first instance came when the radio network that carries his afternoon talk show announced that it would likely not renew the contracts of both Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

Don’t worry, Hannity fans. Another major radio network has already hinted that they would distribute his afternoon programs.

Things seem to be going much better for Megyn Kelly. Kelly, who just gave birth to her third child, will be getting a new primetime show.

Kelly will man the 9:00 p.m. time slot as soon as she returns from maternity leave. She technically has until November before she has to return to work, but many analysts believe that she will return much sooner.

The only start date that has been announced is that of Elisabeth Hasselbeck. She will start her career with the conservative news network on September 16. Presumably, Carlson will begin her new show on the same day or close to it.

Technorati Tags: Fox,Fox News,Shep Smith,change,media,News,Megyn Kelly,Roger Ailes,Sean Hannity,Elisabeth Hasselbeck,Scott Brown,Sarah Palin

Watcher’s Council Nominations – May Day Edition

JoshuaPundit on May 01 2013 | Nominations

Yes, everyone it’s May Day!

The festivities used to look like this :

But now….change!

Maybe it’s May Day in more than one sense.

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. This is your essential weekly magazine for the best in opinion and commentary. 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:

This week, Liberty’s Spirit, Right Truth and Ask Marion earned honorable mention status with some great pieces.

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 and 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. Then just return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning.

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

• The Political Commentator – Hungary’s shoes of death!
• The Noisy Room – Amnesty – Solidifying the Marxist Control of America for Decades, If Not Permanently
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Syrian Delirium
• The Razor – The Lure of the Conspiracy Theory Revisited
• Joshuapundit - Days After Boston, Obama Pressures Israel To Release Terrorists As A ‘Goodwill Gesture’
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Should be titled The Reluctant Idiot
• Rhymes With Right – Why Is A Matter Settled 70 Years Ago Still An Issue In Our Public Schools?
• Bookworm Room – Orwellian double think enters the gun grab debate
• The Glittering Eye - What If Fairies Are Real?
• The Right Planet – Chris Matthews Pushes the ‘Only Whites Can Be Racists’ Meme … Again
• The Mellow Jihadi – A Reuters Writer Writes Me
• Gay Patriot – Basketball player comes out; “I could care less”
• VA Right! - Ken Cuccinelli Airs First Campaign Ad of the 2013 Governor’s Race
• Simply Jews – Boston bomber and the Waltham, Mass triple murder

Honorable Mentions

• Liberty’s Spirit – The Sanctimonious Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,Homemakers Again Insulted on so Many Levels
• Right Truth – The Two Faces of Death
• Ask Marion – Alinsky Still Alive and Well at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Non-Council Submissions

• Sultan Knish -The Snake In The Bloody Garden submitted by The Political Commentator
• Mark Steyn – The Collapsing of the American Skull submitted by The Noisy Room
• The Big Picture – Is Israel really Pakistan’s enemy? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Hellinahandbasket.net – Canine Logo Equals Rape submitted by The Razor
• Robert Spencer/ FrontPage – Who We Must Blame For Boston submitted by Joshuapundit
• Buckhorn Road – Just a couple questions about the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Big Jolly Politics – Harris County Republican Party: Yo, dude, do you support pedophilia? submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Benjamin Wiker/Human Events - Why aren’t liberals more critical of Islam? submitted by Bookworm Room
• Richard Fernandez./Pajamas Media – Freedom submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Canada Free Press – Bad Moon Over America submitted by The Right Planet
• Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – The High Cost Of Low Information Voters submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Jennifer Rubin/Right Turn - Obama press conference: Does he believe what he is saying? submitted by Gay Patriot
• Andrew McCarthy – Obama’s National Security Fraud submitted by The Watcher
• Fjordman/Gates Of Vienna – The Media Myths submitted by Watcher

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

Technorati Tags: Watcher’s Council,collection of articles,alternative media,bloggers,blogosphere,news,news nuggets,educate yourself,politics,you be the judge,May Day,change,holidays,Thoughts,connecting the dots,media,liberals,gun control,Alinsky,destroying America,dumbing down of America,manipulation of the public,media bias,Progressivism

If you want total security, go to prison (Dwight Eisenhower)

One of the clearest thinkers of our generation, Thomas Sowell, published this article at http://www.JewishWorldReview.com under the title “Utopia versus freedom”

“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether “change,” “universal health care” or “social justice.”

If we can be so easily stampeded by rhetoric that neither the public nor the Congress can be bothered to read, much less analyze, bills making massive changes in medical care, then do not be surprised when life and death decisions about you or your family are taken out of your hands — and out of the hands of your doctor — and transferred to bureaucrats in Washington.

Let’s go back to square one. The universe was not made to our specifications. Nor were human beings. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that we are dissatisfied with many things at many times. The big question is whether we are prepared to follow any politician who claims to be able to “solve” our “problem.”

If we are, then there will be a never ending series of “solutions,” each causing new problems calling for still more “solutions.” That way lies a never-ending quest, costing ever increasing amounts of the taxpayers’ money and — more important — ever greater losses of your freedom to live your own life as you see fit, rather than as presumptuous elites dictate.

Ultimately, our choice is to give up Utopian quests or give up our freedom. This has been recognized for centuries by some, but many others have not yet faced that reality, even today. If you think government should “do something” about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don’t have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom.

Back in the 18th century, Edmund Burke said, “It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know much of an evil ought to be tolerated” and “I must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes.”

But today’s crusading zealots are not about to tolerate evils or infirmities. If insurance companies are not behaving the way some people think they should, then their answer is to set up a government bureaucracy to either control insurance companies or replace them.

If doctors, hospitals or pharmaceutical companies charge more than some people feel like paying, then the answer is price control. The actual track record of politicians, government bureaucracies, or price control is of no interest to those who think this way.

Politicians are already one of the main reasons why medical insurance is so expensive. Insurance is designed to cover risks but politicians are in the business of distributing largesse. Nothing is easier for politicians than to mandate things that insurance companies must cover, without the slightest regard for how such additional coverage will raise the cost of insurance.

If insurance covered only those things that most people are most concerned about — the high cost of a major medical expense — the price would be much lower than it is today, with politicians piling on mandate after mandate.

Since insurance covers risks, there is no reason for it to cover annual checkups, because it is known in advance that annual checkups occur once a year. Automobile insurance does not cover oil changes, much less the purchase of gasoline, since these are regular recurrences, not risks.

But politicians in the business of distributing largesse — especially with somebody else’s money — cannot resist the temptation to pass laws adding things to insurance coverage. Many of those who are pushing for more government involvement in medical care are already talking about extending insurance coverage to “mental health” — which is to say, giving shrinks and hypochondriacs a blank check drawn on the federal treasury.

There are still some voices of sanity today, echoing what Edmund Burke said long ago. “The study of human institutions is always a search for the most tolerable imperfections,” according to Prof. Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago. If you cannot tolerate imperfections, be prepared to kiss your freedom goodbye.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell080409.php3

Source: Liberty’s Army

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

A Legacy of Inspiration

In January 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was shot three times by a Hindu assassin as he walked through a garden in New Delhi to take evening prayers. He died instantly.

Today he is remembered as an anti-colonialist, an advocate of non-violence, a pioneer of civil disobedience and the father of the world's largest democracy.

He achieved a great deal as a political leader, working against discrimination, poverty and the caste system. He ended "untouchability." He expanded women's rights, religious tolerance and economic self-reliance.

For all these things, Gandhi is rightly honored. In the long run, however, Mahatma (literally "Great Soul") may be best remembered for his contribution to humanity's inner life.

Gandhi advocated a simple and unassuming lifestyle. He lived modestly, wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, and ate plain vegetarian food. He said it did not require money to be neat, clean and dignified.

He undertook long fasts, sometimes for self-purification, other times as social protest.

And he had a sense of humor. Asked once what he thought about Western civilization, Gandhi replied, "I think it would be a good idea."

Gandhi suffered many hardships in his life. He was imprisoned several times and for many years in both South Africa - where he first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer - and in India.

During these periods, he took the time to write down his key principles. Here are just a few of his thoughts:

~ In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

~ All of your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain if at the same time you did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.

~ A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.

~ The only tyrant I accept in this world is the 'still small voice' within.

~ Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

~ I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present.

~ What a great thing it would be if we in our busy lives, could retire into ourselves each day, for at least a couple of hours, and prepare our minds to listen to the voice of the great silence.

~ Experience has taught me that silence is a part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth.  Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech. He will measure every word.

~ True happiness is impossible without true health and true health is impossible without rigid control of the palate. All the other senses will automatically come under our control when the palate has been brought under control. And he who has conquered his senses has really conquered the whole world.

More than sixty years after his death, Gandhi is still viewed as one of the world's great spiritual leaders.

He dedicated his life to the purpose of discovering Truth - something he insisted could only be revealed to those with a deep sense of humility - and believed the most important battle is overcoming our own fears and insecurities.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing, Gandhi insisted, is sufficient to solve most of our problems.

"He was driven to help the poor, the sick and the downtrodden and to free them from colonialism no matter the cost to himself," writes Archbishop Desmond Tutu. "In the end it cost him his life.  However, he left us a legacy of inspiration that is remarkable in its sincerity and love of humanity."

Albert Einstein agreed. He was moved to say: "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked the earth."

Gandhi asked that his writings be cremated with his body. He wanted his life to be his message, not what he had written or said.

In the end, he believed that words are meaningless. Actions alone show our true priorities. Or, as he famously said:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

 

Carpe Diem,  Alex Green – SpiritualWealth

Hmmm... Civil Disobedience?  I think Ghandi would be applauding the Tea Party Movement!!

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad

Poverty of Imagination

Venturing out each day into this land of strip malls, freeways, office parks, and McHousing pods, one can’t help but be impressed at how America looks the same as it did a few years ago, while seemingly overnight we have become another country. All the old mechanisms that enabled our way of life are broken, especially endless revolving credit, at every level, from household to business to the banks to the U.S. Treasury.

Peak energy has combined with the diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity to pull the “kill switch” on our vaunted “way of life” — the set of arrangements that we won’t apologize for or negotiate. So, the big question before the nation is: do we try to re-start the whole smoking, creaking hopeless, futureless machine? Or do we start behaving differently?

The attempted re-start of revolving debt consumerism is an exercise in futility. We’ve reached the limit of being able to create additional debt at any level without causing further damage, additional distortions, and new perversities of economy (and of society, too). We can’t raise credit card ceilings for people with no ability make monthly payments. We can’t promote more mortgages for people with no income. We can’t crank up a home-building industry with our massive inventory of unsold, and over-priced houses built in the wrong places. We can’t ramp back up the blue light special shopping fiesta. We can’t return to the heyday of Happy Motoring, no matter how many bridges we fix or how many additional ring highways we build around our already-overblown and over-sprawled metroplexes. Mostly, we can’t return to the now-complete “growth” cycle of “economic expansion.” We’re done with all that. History is done with our doing that, for now.

So far — after two weeks in office — the Obama team seems bent on a campaign to sustain the unsustainable at all costs, to attempt to do all the impossible things listed above. Mr. Obama is not the only one, of course, who is invoking the quest for renewed “growth.” This is a tragic error in collective thinking. What we really face is a comprehensive contraction in our activities, especially the scale of our activities, and the pressing need to readjust the systems of everyday life to a level of decreased complexity.

For instance, the myth that we can become “energy independent” and yet remain car-dependent is absurd. In terms of liquid fuels, we’re simply trapped. We import two-thirds of the oil we use and there is absolutely no chance that drill-drill-drilling (or any other scheme) will change that. The public and our leaders cannot face the reality of this. The great wish for “alternative” liquid fuels (bio fuels, algae excreta) will never be anything more than a wish at the scales required, and the parallel wish to keep all our cars running by other means — hydrogen fuel cells, electric motors — is equally idle and foolish. We cannot face the mandate of reality, which is to do everything possible to make our living places walkable, and connect them with public transit. The stimulus bills in congress clearly illustrate our failure to understand the situation.

The attempt to restart “consumerism” will be equally disappointing. It was a manifestation of the short peak energy decades of history, and now that we’re past peak energy, it’s over. That seventy percent of the economy is over, especially the part that allowed people to buy stuff with no money. From now on people will have to buy stuff with money they earn and save, and they will be buying a lot less stuff. For a while, a lot of stuff will circulate through the yard sales and Craigslist, and some resourceful people will get busy fixing broken stuff that still has value. But the other infrastructure of shopping is toast, especially the malls, the strip malls, the real estate investment trusts that own it all, many of the banks that lent money to the REITs, the chain-stores and chain eateries, of course, and, alas, the non-chain mom-and-pop boutiques in these highway-oriented venues.

Washington is evidently seized by panic right now. I don’t know anyone who works in the White House, but I must suppose that they have learned in two weeks that these systems are absolutely tanking, that the previous way of life that everybody was so set on not apologizing for has reached the end of the line. We seem to be learning a new and interesting lesson: that even a team that promises change is actually petrified of too much change, especially change that they can’t really control.

The argument about “change” during the election was sufficiently vague that no one was really challenged to articulate a future that wasn’t, materially, more-of-the-same. I suppose the Obama team may have thought they would only administer it differently than the Bush team — but basically life in the USA would continue being about all those trips to the mall, and the cubicle jobs to support that, and the family safaris to visit Grandma in Lansing, and the vacations at Sea World, and Skipper’s $20,000 college loan, and Dad’s yearly junket to Las Vegas, and refinancing the house, and rolling over this loan and that loan... and that has all led to a very dead end in a dark place.

If this nation wants to survive without an intense political convulsion, there’s a lot we can do, but none of it is being voiced in any corner of Washington at this time. We have to get off of petro-agriculture and grow our food locally, at a smaller scale, with more people working on it and fewer machines. This is an enormous project, which implies change in everything from property allocation to farming methods to new social relations. But if we don’t focus on it right away, a lot of Americans will end up starving, and rather soon. We have to rebuild the railroad system in the U.S., and electrify it, and make it every bit as good as the system we once had that was the envy of the world. If we don’t get started on this right away, we’re screwed. We will have tremendous trouble moving people and goods around this continent-sized nation. We have to reactivate our small towns and cities because the metroplexes are going to fail at their current scale of operation. We have to prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller (and local) scale than the scale represented by General Motors.

The political theater of the moment in Washington is not focused on any of this, but on the illusion that we can find new ways of keeping the old ways going. Many observers have noted lately how passive the American public is in the face of their dreadful accelerating losses. It’s a tragic mistake to tell them that they can have it all back again. We’ll see a striking illustration of “phase change” as the public mood goes from cow-like incomprehension to grizzly bear-like rage. Not only will they discover the impossibility of getting back to where they were, but they will see the panicked actions of Washington drive what remains of our capital resources down a rat hole.

A consensus is firming up on each side of the “stimulus” question, largely along party lines — simply those who are for it and those who are against it, mostly by degrees. Nobody in either party — including supposed independents such as Bernie Sanders or John McCain, not to mention President Obama — has a position for directing public resources and effort at any of the things I mentioned above: future food security, future travel-and-transport security, or the future security of livable, walkable dwelling places based on local networks of economic interdependency. This striking poverty of imagination may lead to change that will tear the nation to pieces.

Regards,
James Howard Kunstler

Some of you may be familiar with Neil Lori of Maverick Freedom. Neil sends these thoughts in his latest missive…

“On the domestic front I think Dmitry Orlov and Jim Kunstler are two of the clearest thinking [and] common sense writers of this time period.  The Obama Nation is about to do what I detest which is build more Roads Roads Roads when in reality we need the 3 T’s (trains, tracks and trolleys) at breakneck speed. 

“Kunstler is right on about food: we need it local and less mechanized (more hand labor).  So let us put on our work jeans, tee shirts, belts hats and gloves to do some real work.  Ditch the couch, tv and computer.  Obama’s highway construction is money down the “rat hole” (drain). 

“Geez I thought Obama had a high IQ, but his biggest failure is that he thinks inside the box and is a bit too much of a conformist who wants to keep the economy the way it has been most of his and our lives!!!!!!!!!”

He continues later…

“We need local farms, local factories and local economies.  The global village is for idiots.  No more globaloney.  Buy Amercian. Grow American.  Make it in America.”

I would venture to say that the things you eat and use will be fabricated or grown not just within the nation, but very, very near to where you live. No more trucking meat and vegetables from industrial mega-farms on the other side of the continent, and a lot fewer doodads from China.

Some of you Shooters may take issue with anyone trying to direct us toward this outcome, and I don’t blame you. I would take issue with any bureaucratic direction myself.

It’s the market, however, that will be directing these changes. Business as usual for the past couple hundred years has been a result of an energy boom and state meddling. Both are on the wane.

Regards,
Gary Gibson
Managing Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder

Change.gov

"Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today."  

...President - Elect Barack Obama

Whether you voted for Obama or not...  Whether you are excited about his upcoming presidency or not...  you can take part in his transition, or at least offer your ideas.

Go To:  http://change.gov/

Thought For The Day - 11.08.08

“Wherever you go, no matter

 what the weather, always

 bring your own sunshine.” 

…Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

 Here is a great (true) story about someone who always brought his own sunshine, as he slowly watched things change….

 

The White House Butler

WASHINGTON — For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land.

He trekked home every night, his wife, Helene, keeping him out of her kitchen.

At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than the large desk in the Oval Office. Helene didn't care; she just beamed with pride.

President Truman called him Gene. President Ford liked to talk golf with him.

He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. "I never missed a day of work," Allen says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.

He was there while America's racial history was being remade: Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington, the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations.

When he started at the White House in 1952, he couldn't even use the public restrooms when he ventured back to his native Virginia. "We had never had anything," Allen, 89, recalls of black America at the time. "I was always hoping things would get better."

In 1866 the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, sensing an opening to advocate for black voting rights, made a White House visit to lobby President Andrew Johnson. Johnson refused to engage in a struggle for black voting rights. Douglass was back at the White House in 1877. But no one wished to discuss his political sentiments: President Rutherford Hayes had engaged the great man — it was a time of high minstrelsy across the nation — to serve as a master of ceremonies for an evening of entertainment.

In the fall of 1901, another famous black American came to the door. President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington, head of the Tuskegee Institute, to meet with him at the White House. Roosevelt was careful not to announce the invitation, fearing a backlash, especially from Southerners.

Started as 'pantry man'

Before he landed his job at the White House, Gene Allen worked as a waiter at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Va., and then at a country club in Washington.

He and his wife, Helene, 86, are sitting in the living room of their Washington home Her voice is musical, in a Lena Horne kind of way. She calls him "Honey."

The couple met in Washington at a party in 1942. He was too shy to ask for her number, so she tracked his down. They married a year later.

In 1952, a lady told him of a job opening in the White House. "I wasn't even looking for a job," he says. "I was happy where I was working, but she told me to go on over there and meet with a guy by the name of Alonzo Fields."

Fields, a maitre d', immediately liked Allen and offered him a job as a "pantry man." He washed dishes, stocked cabinets and shined silverware. He started at $2,400 a year.

There was, in time, a promotion to butler. "Shook the hand of all the presidents I ever worked for," Allen says.

"I was there, Honey," Helene reminds him. "In the back maybe. But I shook their hands, too." She's referring to White House holiday parties, Easter Egg hunts. They have one son, Charles, now an investigator with the State Department.

"President Ford's birthday and my birthday were on the same day," Allen says. "He'd have a birthday party at the White House. Everybody would be there. And Mrs. Ford would say, 'It's Gene's birthday, too!' "

And so they'd sing a little ditty to the butler. And the butler, who wore a tuxedo to work every day, would blush.

"Jack Kennedy was very nice," he goes on. "And so was Mrs. Kennedy."

"Hmm-mmm," she says, rocking.

A State Dinner

He was in the White House kitchen the day JFK was slain. He got a personal invitation to the funeral. But he volunteered for other duty: "Somebody had to be at the White House to serve everyone after they came from the funeral."

The whole family of President Carter made him chuckle: "They were country. And I'm talking Lillian and Rosalynn both." It comes out sounding like the highest compliment.

First lady Nancy Reagan came looking for him in the kitchen one day. She wanted to remind him about the upcoming state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. But she told him he would not be working that night.

"She said, 'You and Helene are coming to the state dinner as guests of President Reagan and myself.' "

Husbands and wives don't sit together at these events, and Helene was nervous about trying to make small talk with world leaders. "And my son says, 'Momma, just talk about your high school. They won't know the difference.'

"The senators were all talking about the colleges and universities that they went to," she says." I was doing as much talking as they were.

"Had champagne that night," she says, looking over at her husband. He just grins: He was the man who stacked the champagne at the White House.

Colin Powell would become the highest-ranking black of any White House to that point when he was named President Reagan's national security adviser in 1987. Condoleezza Rice would have that same position under President George W. Bush.

The butler remembers seeing both Powell and Rice in the Oval Office. He was serving refreshments. He couldn't help notice that blacks were moving closer to the center of power, closer than he could ever have dreamed. He'd tell Helene how proud it made him feel.

Gene Allen was promoted to maitre d' in 1980. He left the White House in 1986, after 34 years. President Reagan wrote him a sweet note. Nancy Reagan hugged him, tight.

Interviewed at their home last week, Gene and Helene speculated about what it would mean if a black man were actually elected president.

"Just imagine," she said.

"It'd be really something," he said.

On Monday, Helene had a doctor's appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again. He was all alone.

"I woke up, and my wife didn't," he said later.

The lady he married 65 years ago will be buried today.

The butler cast his vote for Obama on Tuesday. He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office

 “The One Thing We Can All Count On Is Change!”

(Some things are outside our ability to change… Some, our ability to affect lies in our passion and interest…  But how we react, accept or stand up to change is definitely within all our control.)

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Voting for Change

The country is tired. The growing global financial crisis has been hitting hard, banks are suffering, unemployment rate is high, the outlook is gloom. The government seems be almost incapable to change things for the better. Along comes a charismatic young leader. He’s a relative outsider, his is a very talented orator, he has written an autobiography which portrays him as a true leader with a strong set of beliefs, he can talk in front of thousands of people and bring hope back to their hearts. He promises change, he promises social justice, he promises hope. Election day is just around the corner…

The year is 1932, the country is Germany and the name of the charismatic leader is Adolph Hitler.

The point of this analogy is not to equate Sen. Obama to Hitler. The point is that in the times of prolonged difficulties, change is absolutely the best platform to run on. Blame everything on the existing government, promise hope and change, add a bit of social justice to appeal to a broad electorate–and people will give your the office, without bothering to look into your past and taking no time to think about consequences. Whether in Germany circa 1932, Italy circa 1921 or modern Venezuela circa 1998, this platform has worked flawlessly. People voted for change–and gave power to Hitler, Mussolini and Chavez. When they realized that they had been mislead by empty promises it was too late.

The right to vote comes with responsibility. Responsibility to see through slogans. Responsibility to look into the candidates’ past. Responsibility to think. Nations that take this responsibility lightly pay the ultimate price: they lose their right to vote.

Dear. Mr. Obama

This letter is well written and thought out; it may even make some of his supporters think twice, or maybe not.  Nonetheless it raises 7 remarkably great questions to the type of man Obama is.  I don't know who Mark Gregg is but I am so glad this eloquent letter is circulating.... so please feel free to copy and forward it!!

Dear Mr. Obama,
 
It is August 30, 2008.  My name is Mark Gregg.  I am a 50 something conservative white male.  I have followed your campaign closely, including the speeches you and others made at the democratic national convention.  I am respectfully providing you with seven simple (probably shallow) reasons why I could never vote for you.  I believe my opinion is shared by many people.  While there may not be quite enough to prevent you from becoming president of this nation, I do think there is an awakening to the fact that you are not a (the) messiah that the media and liberal Hollywood entertainers are trying to portray you.
 
 1. I hear your mantra of change,, change.  Yet, you picked a long term, liberal, Washington insider (Joe Biden) to be your running mate.  This is NOT change.  It is a move that hypocritically refutes the very thing you supposedly stand for.  Your campaign then slammed McCain for picking Sarah Palin, apparently, because she is NOT a Washington insider.  She is a maverick who cleaned-up Alaska's quagmire of political scandals.  Which way is it, Barack?  Is it okay for you to pick a Washington insider under the mantra of 'change', but not okay for John McCain to pick a smart, aggressive, reformer?
  
 2. You have the single most liberal voting record in the senate.  This indicates to me and others like me that you may very well be an angry black man seeking to punish our country for sins of a different generation.  I am not racist. I have some biases just like you and every other human alive.  Unlike the democratic party who claims to be for the minority (but their record heavily refutes this), I will give any person who truly needs help, help.  I married a 'minority' girl 35 years ago (she is Hispanic) and have seen the evils of prejudice first hand.  However, I have also seen my wife and my children and others in her family throw off the veil of self imposed prejudicial bondage and move ahead.  They love our country and do not view themselves any different than I view myself as a citizen of this country. Your lovely wife so disappointed people like me during this campaign when she stated it was the first time she had ever been proud of this country.  She apparently never noticed the massive aid we give dozens of other countries.  She apparently never noticed the sacrifice of literally millions of veterans who helped make this country a free nation and helped liberate other nations from brutal dictators such as Adolf Hitler.  She apparently does not remember that she attended ivy league universities with scholarship money that ultimately (at least some of it) was paid for by our taxes.  This troubles me more than you know.  She is an angry black woman who appears to not like her country very much.  I don't want her representing me to the rest of the world.
    
 3. You claim Christianity but apparently do not realize that the Bible teaches that he who does not work, does not eat.  The Bible does not say or even suggest that he who CANNOT work, should not eat.  Yet, your liberal policies reward people who are capable of working, but choose to not do so.  This bothers me. I know that if you are elected our taxes will spiral upwards.  You should heed the words of Winston Churchill:  'We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.'  If I like anything about you, it is your campaign promise to balance the federal budget.  Unfortunately, we have heard this a huge number of times from a number of different politicians and we realize that when you energize the very liberal Nancy Pelosi, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, etc, etc, and the many other democrats like them, a balanced budget will never, ever happen on
your watch. 
  
 4. During your question and answer session with Rick Warren of Saddleback Church your answer concerning the question of where does life begin, stunned me:  'Above your pay grade?'  Does this mean when something bad happens as President of this nation that you are going to look at your salary to determine if you can respond?  I am sorry, but this was the most serious gaffe I have seen you make.  Frankly, it shows me that you are pandering in the most obvious manner.  You will choose your words not from your heart, but from an agenda that I believe is still hidden from the American people.
  
 5. If anything stands out about you it is probably your appeasement mentality.  In this era of rampant, radical Islamic extremism and with the latest stunt pulled by the re-energized Russian government, I am not sure appeasement is healthy.  I again revert to the words of Winston Churchill:  'An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.'
  
 6. You and your party tacitly believe that a 13 or 14 year old girl must have the parents approval to have the school nurse provide them with a Tylenol when they have a headache at school.  Yet, this same girl can become pregnant and the school can skirt her off to a clinic and abort the child in her body without the parents knowing or being notified.  This scares the hell out of me.  You have two little girls.  Would you be upset if this happened to them and you were not informed?  Then why do you stand for this?  It makes no sense to me.
  
 7. My seventh and final point (for now) is your supporters.  I have watched the Hollywood entertainers that support you, systematically embrace Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and others like him.  I see the continuous smut and garbage produced by Hollywood, the very people who promote you the most vigorously.  It is not a positive point to me and others like me to see these over-paid, bizarre, poor examples of human existence fawn over you and push you and your liberal agenda as hard as they do. The way I see it; When the devil is for you, we should question whether or not we should be against you. 
  
In closing, I just want you to know that you scare me.  I cannot vote for you.  It is not because of your skin color.  It is because these items I've listed and many, many others like them.  Do not claim that my dislike for you is race based.  It is because I do not feel you have the best interests of this nation at heart.
  
 Respectfully,
  
  
 Mark A. Gregg