Massachusetts: Scott Lively upends LGBT gubernatorial candidate forum!

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We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. – George Orwell

Candidate Scott Lively shocked the politicians and audience at the Massachusetts LGBT gubernatorial debate. Doesn’t flinch from the truth! A lesson for the pro-family movement.

Pastor Scott Lively, an independent candidate for Governor of Massachusetts,  shocked the other politicians and audience members at a televised candidate forum on “LGBTQ issues” at the Boston Public Library on March 25. Rather than join in the pro-“gay” chorus, Lively described the truths about those behaviors from a medical, sociological, and biblical standpoint. It was a cold dose of common sense that few there had likely heard before.

The forum was held in the Boston Public Library on March 25. It was jointly sponsored by the homosexual lobby group MassEquality and the left-wing public television station WGBH. All of the declared candidates for Governor participated except the two Republicans, Charlie Baker and Mark Fisher.

Candidates for Governor (left to right): biotech executive Joe Avellone (D), former Medicare and Medicaid administrator Don Berwick (D), Attorney General Martha Coakley (D), health care executive Evan Falchuk (I), State Treasurer Steve Grossman (D), former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem (D),Scott Lively (I), venture capitalist Jeff McCormick (I).

Pandering vs straight talk

All seven of the other candidates for Governor — both Democrats and Independents, including the current state Attorney General and Treasurer — enthusiastically voiced their support for the homosexual and transgender agendas  and their willingness to advance them in the state if elected.

For most people it’s particularly frightening to see the extent that many politicians are willing to bow to the radical homosexual and transgender movement without seemingly any second thoughts. Few pro-family people realize that.

But Lively told the group that as governor he “would ban LGBT propaganda to children.” Regarding laws supporting transgenderism he said, “It’s perfectly rational and reasonable to exercise discrimination on those grounds . . . We should be helping people to overcome this and not encourage those who persist in the delusion.”

Attorney General Martha Coakley (left) and Scott Lively.

Very hostile environment

The hostility during the event against Lively was fairly dramatic. The crowd of about 150 appeared to consist overwhelmingly of pro-homosexual supporters. There were also about 6-12 Lively supporters there. But just about every time he spoke he was interrupted by loud, rude noises from the audience, which the moderator made little effort to stop. It’s been observed that homosexual activists are emotionally much like 10-year-olds, and that was certainly evident there. (Even then, this was actually more orderly than other venues. At least the activists stayed in their seats this time!)

The audience entering the auditorium just before the forum begins.

In addition, the other candidates were visibly annoyed with Lively’s straight talk. At one point during the debate, Independent candidate Jeff McCormick, who spoke right after Lively, sneered at him and said, “I should win an award after this. Someone owes me a martini.”

But watching this was a clinic on how to fight back in a seemingly overwhelming situation. It wasn’t an easy venue for any pro-family politician. But Lively took it in stride. He did not take any of the hostile bait thrown at him, nor did he veer from his calm but forceful demeanor. This seemed to make his message all the more powerful.

Watch the video of the forum. (1 hr 25 min.) Just watching the first several minutes shows you all you need to see!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/K547pmAoz1I[/youtube]

A few of the questions and answers from the forum

Here is a sample of three of the questions, and how various candidates (and Lively) answered them.

Q. How do you plan to use your role as governor to make Massachusetts the best place for LGBTQ people to live? And how would you tout these initiatives across the country? And how would you use the governor’s office as the bully pulpit?

Joe Avellone. I’m going to have an LGBT Summit yearly to understand the evolving positions and create an LGBT agenda from the governor’s office that we will use in the Legislature to make sure that we keep advancing the agenda.

Attorney General Martha Coakley. We just passed the amendment to the bullying bill and we’ll make sure it’s implemented in the corner office to make sure that LGBTQ children get all the help they need to be good students and have a good future.

Evan Falachuk. The Mass LGBTQ Commission for Youth laid a pretty thorough agenda of items that need to be taken care of. As governor I’ll appoint an assistant secretary and someone who’s a program manager. You need someone in charge of quarterbacking to make that happen, and that will be a big part of my agenda.

Scott Lively. As governor I would ban LGBT propaganda to children. This is a law that I advocated for in Russia. They have found it to be successful for their society. There remains no objective proof that homosexuality is innate and unchangeable despite decades of effort which means that it is an acquired condition. We must assume that that’s true and if that assumption is true, then it is extraordinarily irresponsible to be treating our children as guinea pigs in a massive social experiment. They should be protected from the promotion of homosexuality as good, normal alternative choice for themselves.

Q. Do you support non-discrimination protection for transgender people in public places or accommodations? If so, how do you respond to arguments opposing these protections that provoke controversy and allege public safety issues?

Jeff McCormick. Absolutely I support that. It actually makes my skin crawl to understand how some people can take a segment of our population [and discriminate against it] . . . If I’m having a Catholic wedding or if I’m having a bar mitzvah, it doesn’t make sense to me how someone can selectively discriminate in our society at all. To me this is an absolute no-brainer.

Scott Lively. Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or nationality is completely irrational because those things are morally neutral. But sexual conduct is not morally neutral. And has serious public health, sociological, moral implications. Its perfectly rational and reasonable to exercise discrimination on those grounds. So all the arguments attempting to compare race with homosexuality and transgenderism are simply comparing apples and oranges. I think transgenderism is clearly self-evidently dysfunctional and this it is simply insanity for our society to be embracing it as a normal variant of human sexuality. We should be helping people to overcome this and not encourage those who persist in the delusion.

Juliette Kayyem. Absolutely I would support an inclusion of transgender. Let me be clear on the transgender issue. We can respect other view points, but we’re on the right side of history here. Anyone who has lived the last 20, 30, 40 years know that we are on the right side of history. There is only one way forward in Massachusetts, let alone the United States, and its going to be to include transgender, non-conforming gender, however you want to describe the anti-discrimination statute. We should be ahead of this and we are not.

Q. May 2014 is the ten year anniversary of marriage equality. Yet state data shows persistent disparities for LGBTQ youth, especially for LGBTQ youth of color and transgender youth. What do you see as the most urgent needs of this most vulnerable population and how will you measure your success as governor in addressing these disparities?

State Treasurer Steve Grossman. I’m very proud of the Governor who has $38 million in the budget for a variety of mental health services, many of which directly affect LGBT youth and homeless youth and I think that’s a budget that we can build on. Even during tough economic times we have to recognize that our most vulnerable populations need to be served on mental health and behavioral health need to be funded adequately.

Juliette Kayyem. I believe a lot of this can be addressed through focusing on kindness. The bullying that occurs against many students that are LGBTQ is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable as a legal matter. And as I told you earlier I brought the federal government’s first anti-bullying complaint against a school district. It was the football players against the cheerleaders — but it had a similar focus which was the schools, and the governments that give them money, have the responsibility to make sure its kids are kind to each other . . . I also think straight children of gay parents are also facing discrimination that we can address as well. It begins with focusing on kindness.

Scott Lively. Frankly I agree, that kindness is what the kids need most. I don’t think its kind to affirm a dysfunctional sexual identity, that our lives are fluid. If an adult decides they want to identify as a homosexual, bi-sexual, or transgender, that’s their choice. But we shouldn’t push that on the kids. We should assume that they have the ability to overcome that problem. I was a street kid myself and I knew a lot of people who were struggling with this. Most of them did not want to have a homosexual orientation and if they had had a chance to have counseling for that, they would have taken it. Regarding bullying, I don’t think that we should be having bullying policies that force all the kids to be pro-gay when we can solve the problem by teaching them to respect each other despite their differences.

Reaction from the liberal press

After the forum finished, most of the press in attendance — predictably biased against the pro-family viewpoint — nevertheless seemed to gather around Lively. If nothing else, he stood out as an independent thinker. The other candidates had generally repeated the same rather mindless pro-“gay” political pandering. As one newspaper reported, “Other than Lively, the candidates agreed on most issues.”

Lively being interviewed by reporter for Boston homosexual newspaper Rainbow Times.

Of all the media coverage, probably the fairest came from the Boston University newspaper, the Daily Free Press. It covered the event without noticeable bias.

On the other hand, the left-leaning Springfield Republican newspaper in Western Massachusetts was over-the-top in its bias and near-hysteria in its coverage.

The Springfield Republican newspaper’s flaming headline.

An important lesson for the pro-family movement

Many conservatives, including us, have stated repeatedly that the major factor for pro-family losses on these issues has been the almost universal reluctance of politicians and pro-family leaders to tell the truth. Instead, under pressure they usually sink into a mushy morass of political correctness and moral compromise (e.g., civil unions, “gay” adoptions). In our opinion, that’s how we lost the major gay-marriage court cases last year and it’s how we continue to lose in legislatures, in courtrooms, and in the public square.

Our people, and particularly our politicians, are deathly afraid of being called names or demeaned by the liberal establishment. It’s the road to hell.

Without the truth there are no weapons for a fight, only gradual capitulation. But telling the truth forcefully and fearlessly over and over again is the basis of victory over a movement that depends on lies and disinformation for its success.

It’s going to be an interesting political summer in Massachusetts.

In a video taken right after the forum ended, Scott Lively gives his reaction. (32 sec.)

[youtube]http://youtu.be/PyXEu6Oaaso[/youtube]

Democrats Being Democrats

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Having begun my career as a lobbyist under the dome of the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I know a thing or two about political corruption in the Keystone State and the City of Brotherly Love… I’ve seen it “up close and personal.”  So it came as no surprise when the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story on March 16, detailing the results of a sting operation launched in 2010 under then-Pennsylvania attorney general, now governor, Tom Corbett.

However, to fully understand the evolution of the sting operation it is necessary to begin at the very beginning.  The central character in the sting is a man named Tyron B. Ali, age 40, an immigrant from the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad.  Ali is the owner of a day-care center in North Philadelphia and a registered lobbyist in Harrisburg.

Ali first came to the attention of law enforcement officials in April 2009 when he was arrested in connection with a $430,000 fraud.  According to the Inquirer, Ali was accused of submitting phony invoices and forging hundreds of bank statements, tax forms, and paychecks in a Pennsylvania program designed to aid low-income families and seniors.  State prosecutors were also aware that, in order to circumvent statutory campaign contribution limits, Ali was found to have been lining up illegal “straw” contributions for the campaign of Daniel D. McCaffery, a Democratic candidate for Philadelphia DA, now a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge.

In that case, campaign finance records showed that four contributions of $2,500 each were made to the McCaffrey campaign, all from associates of Ali.  However, at about the same time that Ali delivered the four checks to the McCaffrey campaign, McCaffery staffers learned of Ali’s arrest in the unrelated fraud case.  McCaffery’s campaign manager telephoned the four donors and one admitted that the money was not his; the money was Ali’s.

Then, in a surprising move for a Democrat, McCaffery reported the violations to attorney general Tom Corbett, a Republican, and promptly refunded the illegal contributions.  It was then that a top prosecutor, Frank Fina, chief of the attorney general’s Public Corruption section (who earlier led the criminal investigation of Penn State assistant head football coach, Jerry Sandusky), was assigned to handle the Ali investigation.  In the hope of receiving a more lenient outcome in his fraud indictment, Ali agreed to assist Fina’s investigation into widespread official corruption by wearing a body wire.

In order to keep Ali from “wandering off the reservation,” the attorney general assigned a 24-year veteran of the attorney general’s office to serve as his driver and constant companion.  In the eighteen month period between October 13, 2010 and April 23, 2012, Ali produced some 400 hours of audio and video recordings detailing 113 conversations with Pennsylvania political figures, Republicans and Democrats.  And although Ali dangled inducements before a great many politicians, of both political parties, only four Democratic lawmakers and a Philadelphia traffic court judge took the bait.

Rep. Louise Bishop took $1,500; Rep. Vanessa Brown took $4,000; Rep. Michelle Brownlee took $3,500; Rep. Ronald G. Waters accepted multiple gifts totaling $7,650; and Traffic Court Judge Thomasine Tynes received a Tiffany bracelet.  All are Democrats, all are from Philadelphia (representing precincts that gave not one single vote to Mitt Romney in 2012), and all are African-Americans.

According to the Inquirer, “Things were going so well that, in the summer of 2012, prosecutors considered setting Ali up in a fancy lobbying office near the Capitol.  The plan was to rig the office with hidden cameras and expand the hunt…”  However, before they could implement the plan, Pennsylvanians went to the polls and elected Democrat Kathleen Kane as attorney general.  Within days after taking office Kane brought the investigation to an abrupt halt.

Thumbing through the Democrat Party playbook, Kane found that the simplest and easiest ploy to support her brazenly partisan contempt for the rule of law would be to do what Democrats always do when they find themselves without a plausible argument: she threw down the race card.  In a statement to the Inquirer on Friday, March 14, Kane called the investigation “poorly conceived, badly managed, and tainted by racism,” saying it had “targeted African Americans.”

In truth, what motivated Kane was the need to keep Philadelphia’s black voters on the Democrat political plantation.  It just wasn’t smart politics for a Democrat attorney general to prosecute four black Democrat lawmakers and a black Democrat judge for accepting bribes, even though most of their crimes were caught on audio and/or video tape.

The Inquirer report reminded readers that, during her 2012 campaign for attorney general, Kane had been critical of what she felt was the slow pace of the Sandusky investigation at Penn State.  Once elected, she hired a former Philadelphia federal prosecutor to investigate Fina’s handling of the case.  After a full year of investigating the investigation, Kane declared that her investigation was taking longer than she had anticipated.

In Democrat-speak, that is another way of saying that it takes a lot longer to uncover Republican wrongdoing when there is no wrongdoing to be uncovered.  But that doesn’t normally stop Democrats when they’re out to find dirt on Republicans.  According to the Inquirer, within hours after taking office, when Fina was in his last week on the job, Kane sent technicians into his office on a “black bag” mission, after working hours, for the purpose of removing the hard drive from his computer… apparently in the faint hope of finding some usable tidbit of damning evidence relating to his conduct of the Sandusky case.

If nothing else, the mess in Pennsylvania is a perfect example of what happens when the people elect Democrats to public office.  Since the publication of the Inquirer story on March 16, the Democrat Party has been hit by a long list of scandals, from New York to California, where State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), an outspoken foe of 2nd Amendment gun rights, has been charged with multiple offenses, including charges relating to illegal gun trafficking.

But the biggest Democrat fish caught in the corruption net is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)… the most despicable Democrat in a long list of despicable Democrats.  Reid is charged with digging into his campaign chest to give his granddaughter, Ryan Elizabeth Reid, a gift of $17,000, even though she is an aspiring actress in New York and did no useful work for the Reid campaign.  Several members of Congress have gone to prison for committing similar crimes.  It remains to be seen how “Dingy Harry” manages to slither out of this predicament.

This is not to say that there is not an occasional rotten apple in the Republican barrel, but in all my years as a lobbyist and as a political operative I have found very few Republicans who’ve demonstrated the sort of moral and ethical lapses that we regularly see among Democrats.  During my years in the political arena I can recall only two instances in which I was solicited for a bribe.  The first was a member of the Kentucky State Senate and the second was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.  Both were Democrats.  My immediate response in both instances was, “I’m sorry, but we just don’t work that way.”

I have long felt that it is impossible to be elected to public office as a Democrat without first making a deal with the devil.  And while there exists a single common thread of ideology that binds all Republicans… of all ages, races, creeds, professions, and economic status… the same is not true of Democrats.  The Democrat Party is a coalition of special interests, each of which demand something specific, and quite different, from government.

For example, when a Democrat candidate appears before a black audience, his/her stance on quality education must be vastly different from the message he/she delivers before an audience of unionized public school teachers.  And when that same politician campaigns before a group of radical environmentalists, his/her message on issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline must be vastly different from the message he/she would deliver before a roomful of blue collar workers.

In order to be successful as a Democratic candidate it is absolutely essential to have a separate position on all of the major issues for each of the party’s many constituencies, and to remember without fail which lies you’ve told to each of them.  It is such a flexible moral compass… standard equipment for all Democrats… that made it possible for all those members of the Pennsylvania Black Caucus to succumb so easily to Mr. Ali’s proffered goodies.

But all is not lost; the Pennsylvania bribery sting may yet have a silver lining.  It is possible that the greatest beneficiary of the Black Caucus political scandal will be Republican governor Tom Corbett.  As matters now stand, Corbett’s approval rating is somewhere in the mid-30s and his reelection chances appear to be in a bit of trouble.  But when the Democrats choose a candidate from among seven candidates running in the May primary, that candidate will be called upon to defend attorney General Kane and the bribe takers of the Black Caucus.  Yes, the fish does rot from the head and it’s clear that Barack Obama’s Chicago-style politics has infected Democrats all across the country… just in time to backfire on the Democrat Party and its candidates in  November.

LIST OF DESPICABLE Ds: Camden, NJ – Mayor Dana Redd; Flint, MI – Mayor Dayne Walling; Detroit, MI – Mayor Dave Bing/Mike Duggan; Oakland, CA – Mayor Jean Quan; St. Louis, MO – Mayor Francis Slay; Cleveland, OH – Mayor Frank Jackson; Gary, IN – Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; Newark, NJ – Mayor Corey Booker/Luis Quintana; Bridgeport, CT – Mayor Bill Finch; Birmingham, AL – Mayor William A. Bell.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Djembayz. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Julianne Ortman: The Solution to America’s Al Franken Problem

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Just when Mary was mastering not over-cooking (burning) steaks on our grill at home in Florida, duty called us back on the road, with our Conservative Campaign Committee team traveling to freezing Minnesota to defeat Al Franken.

My charcoal-grill-master-in-training awesome wife hates cold weather. Nevertheless, she is willing to brave bone-chilling temperatures and snow to fire Franken!

Not only is Franken responsible for causing pain and suffering to millions of Americans by providing the 60th vote which enacted Obamacare, but Franken also threw Minnesotans under the Obama bus in the process.

Unique to Minnesota, they already had a program (MinnesotaCare) which provided affordable and accessible healthcare — on a sliding-scale-premium basis, without mandates for anyone else. As a result of Min-Care, Minnesota had the third-highest insurance coverages in the nation, accomplishing a great thing on a state level. Thus, no federal intervention/program was needed.

Franken sold-out Minnesotans to implement Obama’s unprecedented tyrannical power-grab, further proving himself to be a loyal servant of Obama rather than a representative of his constituents. Franken repeated and promoted Obama’s lie: “If you like your health care plan you can keep it.”

Rather than repeating liberal Democrat incumbent Franken’s long list of offenses, I wish to focus on our solution. I am extremely excited and proud to announce that Conservative Campaign Committee endorses Conservative Republican State Senator Julianne Ortman for U.S. Senate in Minnesota.

Candidly, our endorsement did not come easy. Our CCC team thoroughly and critically examined the field of candidates, and Ortman rose to the top. We could not stomach another RINO (Republican In Name Only).

With the GOP openly warring against the Tea Party, Ortman is the only candidate in the race who has reached out, meeting with over 50 Tea Party groups. How refreshing and encouraging.

Ortman wants to repeal Obamacare, folks, fighting it since 2010.

In her facebook ad, Ortman proclaims, “Keep your doctor. Change your senator. Repeal Obamacare!” I love it!

A shocking article which exposed that hospitals are using aborted babies in their furnaces for heat documents a growing callous disrespect for human life. Thus, I am elated to announce that Ortman is pro-life, endorsed by the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life State PAC.

During my research of Ortman, it was obvious that Ortman is a strategist. Excellent! We need more conservatives who know how to get things done, fighting alongside Sen.Ted Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee.

Here are just a few other reasons why Ortman deserves your prayers and support.

Ortman has an impressive track record of fighting for lower taxes, less government spending, and less government regulations over our businesses and families. How scary and outrageous is that, folks — government regulating our families?

As Chair of the Minnesota Senate Tax Committee, Ortman lead the charge to eliminate Minnesota’s $6-billion deficit without raising taxes.

Ortman served as a spokesperson for the Senate Republican Caucus, confidently articulating and championing conservative principles. Yes, that’s what I am talking about!

Here is another bit of good news, folks. Ortman has won the endorsement of ShePAC, the fantastic organization that backs conservative women for office.

Ortman is a proven winner — the kind of formidable opponent needed to take down Franken. She won her last 8 elections, including re-election to the Minnesota State Senate in 2012 with 65% of the vote. Wow!

Breaking news, just in: Sarah Palin endorses Julianne Ortman.

Yes, I am pretty stoked about this candidate — a bold, bright and strong conservative woman. I salute Ortman with my tribute song to conservative women I recorded a few years ago titled, “Our Girls”. It will bring a smile to your face. Go Ortman!

RELATED VIDEO:

GOP Leaders Launch a Civil War by Opening Fire on Conservatives and the TEA Party

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MANASSAS, Va., PRNewswire-USNewswire — Following is the statement of Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, Richard Viguerie.

“Republican Congressional leaders, less than three hundred miles from Fort Sumter where the Confederates fired on the federal government and launched a horrific four-year American Civil War, are meeting to declare a civil war against conservatives who are the base of the Republican Party.”

“Since the purpose of the weekend meeting at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida is to raise money and strategizing as to how to defeat limited-government constitutional conservatives in Republican primaries, this meeting is an act of war by Eric Cantor and the Republican Congressional leadership.”

“By fighting conservatives, Republican congressional leaders are publicly acknowledging they do not share the core values of conservatives and Tea Partyers, including limited-government, fidelity to the constitution, lower taxes, balanced budget, significantly reducing the size, scope and reach of the federal government.”

“The Republican primary voters will now be able to clearly see who are the principled conservatives verses those candidates receiving support from the Ruling Class, Crony Capitalists such as Karl Rove, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell.”

“Grass roots conservatives wish Republican leaders could get as angry at the lawlessness of the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats as they do at conservatives.”

“This meeting is proof positive that the Republican Establishment thinks the Tea Party is alive, strong, and a major threat to their existence.”

What is most interesting is Viguerie’s “Ruling Class, Crony Capitalists” like Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have their current political positions because of the Tea Party. By attacking the Tea Party Republicans run the of risk losing local elections, something they abhor.

There are tangible, ideological differences between the Democrat and Republican party platforms. There is little difference between the parties “ruling class” when it comes to what they do when in office, with some notable exceptions.

Members of the Tea Party are predominantly classical liberals. Therefore the Republican party platform that appeals most to them is the Republican platform. However, the ruling class believes it can eat its young and still win elections. That attitude is what lost Republicans the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

The first law of politics, and war, is secure your base. Ruling class Republicans should take heed of that maxim. If you tread on the Tea Party it may come back and bite you in 2014 and again in 2016.

A party, like a nation, divided will not stand.

ABOUT RICHARD VIGUERIE

Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” (The Nation) and one of the “conservatives of the century”(Washington Times).  He is the author of the new book, Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders: “To the last gasp of breath, I will always be heard”

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March 19th , the Dutch Labor and conservative liberal parties in the ruling coalition of PM Mark Rutte were crushed in municipal elections in The Netherlands.  They were looking for someone to blame for their debacle and seized upon a TV video of Geert Wilders’ election night remarks at a Hague campaign event. He was shown rousing Freedom Party members to address the societal and criminal problems occasioned by Islamization of Dutch Moroccans. The PVV loyalists at a Hague campaign rally were shown saying that country needed to have “fewer, fewer, fewer”,  meaning Moroccans criminals.

That footage went viral pushed by the Dutch media and even  promoted  as race hatred by the Justice Minister who heads the Public Prosecutors Office.  Dutch police were supplied with pre-filled  Wilders compliant forms, prepared to deliver them to the homes of those requested them.  There were even execrable graphic comparison of Wilders innocuous remarks with intercut footage of Hitler and Goebbels.  A few PVV parliamentary delegation members left the party over the relentless criticism of Wilders.

As a result of the kerfuffle raised by the political  losers in the March 19th municipal elections, Wilders answered unapologetically  with a masterful  repudiation of the press, ruling coalition Justice Minister and Labor and liberal Conservative party leaders.

Gates of Vienna (GoV)  put up a post  today of the translation of Wilders’ March 22nd press conference remarks, replete with  his characteristic Churchillian phrasing, “To the last gasp of breath, I will always be heard”:

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, gave an historic speech on March 22, 2014.

He spoke out spontaneously, without a prepared text, before answering media questions. His remarks were prompted by the recent controversy over an incident when his supporters chanted a call for “fewer Moroccans”.

In the following video you’ll notice a poignant parallel the PVV leader’s words: one of his well-trained bodyguards stands behind him, constantly scanning the room in a professional manner, alert to the possibility that one of the thousands of people who want to kill Mr. Wilders may appear on the scene at any moment.

Many thanks to SimonXML for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

Watch the YouTube video of Wilders’ press conference:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Qy_yqiXHuRA[/youtube]

We will be publishing a New English Review article about this latest outburst against the truth of Islamization in The Netherlands, “Geert Wilders Once Again Endures a Firestorm of Criticism”.

Note our concluding comments:

To paraphrase England’s Henry II regarding the fate of former boon companion, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, the Dutch political and media establishment might say: “who will rid us of this upstart meddlesome blonde.” We hope that those Dutch folks who went to the polls on March 19th and gave the PVV victories in several smaller municipalities may be joined by others in the majority, who didn’t vote. That might provide the PVV with a victory in the May EU parliamentary elections. We have seen Wilders bounce back from previous episodes like a proverbial cat with nine lives. His Eurosceptic alliance partners, especially Ms. Le Pen in France, would deem that a stunning and well deserved turnabout. Wilders’ opinion poll standing may have temporarily been dented by the outbursts of his left liberal opponents in the Hague Parliament. However, the cogency of his warnings about Islamization of Holland through the Dar al Hijrah stealth Jihad strategy of mass Muslim immigration and the enormous cost to the nation still resonate.

It is left to Bat Ye’or  who gave this closing comment in an email about this hateful episode unfairly targeting Wilders.  In reply to this comment, “It would appear that the world has gone topsy turvy, morally.” she said, “Exactly, and this is called dhimmitude.”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

Should GOP Conservatives Adjust Their Message for Blacks?

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Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote an article stating that the only way for conservatives to reach black voters is to drop their color blind idealism.

Dougherty wrote, “Conservatives in the GOP like to assail identity politics and tout their own ideology as one of color blindness. Sometimes this is stupidly marketed to black voters as a selling point for Republicans. “We don’t categorize you by race,” brags a Republican. The black audience hears: “We don’t take the most salient part of your American political identity seriously.”

I am a real-live black person. When I hear Republicans say “We don’t categorize you by race”, I think, “Thank you for respecting my intelligence enough not to pander to me.” Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, a Republican, dreamed of a day when Americans would focus on principles such as character rather than skin-color (race).

Civil rights leaders and Democrats have abandoned Dr King’s vision of a colorblind America. Especially since Obama, the exploitation of race is the Democrats’ super weapon to win every political battle. Anyone daring to oppose the black president’s socialist/progressive agenda is bombarded with accusations of racism. Checkmate!

Dougherty appears to suggest that we conservatives can not simply stand up for what is right and true. We must adjust our message to fit the Democrats’ false accusations and false assumptions.

For example. Dougherty thinks the GOP should back-off from their push for voter I-D laws because it looks like they are attempting to suppress the black vote. Mr. Dougherty, as a black conservative, I find the concept that blacks are too incompetent to find their way to acquire a photo I-D extremely insulting, demeaning and offensive. Democrats are fighting voter I-D because they seek to steal elections via voter fraud. Will Republicans waving the white flag on this issue win them black votes? I think not.

Dougherty thinks America’s history of racial injustice causes blacks to deal with the issue of race every day. I beg to differ. Neither myself nor my black family, friends and associates deal with racial issues every day.

Despicably, liberals and Democrats strive to make race an issue, polarizing Americans; keeping the fires of racial tensions burning bright for political gain.

I reject Mr Dougherty’s call for conservatives to abandon colorblind politicking. Why must we always allow Democrats and their media buddies to determine the rules of engagement?

We are all Americans and should be dealt with accordingly, rather than doing what the Democrats do; divide Americans into supposed victimized voting blocs and pandering to each group for political exploitation.

In the 1980s, as a young black kid clueless about politics, Ronald Reagan’s one-size-fits-all conservative message of American exceptional-ism spoke to me. Reagan inspired me to be all I could be. His speeches made me feel good about myself and my country.

Admittedly, Conservatism will not resonate with everyone. Some people are born leeches and lazy; always looking for a free ride. These types feel entitled to the fruits of other folk’s labors. Democrats love to pander to them.

But I believe in the character and goodness of a majority of the American people. When presented unfiltered by liberals, conservatism will find a lot of Americans eager to embrace it. Why? Because Conservatism is in-sync with the human spirit.

Please understand. Packaging the conservative message to appeal to various audiences is an excellent idea. However, watering down our principles or choosing not to challenge the Democrats’ false narratives is foolish and wrong.

Certain principles have a universal appeal. Such principles bridge racial divides.

In the 1970s, I was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art. My fellow black students at the mostly white college were extremely militant and anti-whitey. A group of them demanded that the Black Panthers be allowed to rally on campus.

I was stunned when these same black students approached me extremely excited about this awesome movie, “Rocky”, the Italian stallion. It was remarkable to witness these particular black students so passionately embracing a white boy. The magic ingredient was the “colorblind” principles espoused in that movie which spoke to the humanity in us all.

Mr Dougherty, I respectfully disagree with your article. As an American who happens to be black, I do not desire a “black version” of Conservatism which is rooted in true compassion and common sense.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo montage was created by Soldieranabi. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Charlie Crist Says Obamacare Is “Great” For Floridians

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Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, has given a full throated endorsement of the failed Obamacare law. While appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning TV Show, Crist said that the law was “Great” for Floridians, even after it has been reported that 300,000 Floridians have already lost their insurance plans, as a result of this “Great” healthcare law. Rick Scott’s “Let’s Get To Work” Campaign was quick to pounce on Crist’s Obamacare claim with following video hit:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/ZstMy-wu_yw[/youtube]

EDITORS NOTE: This video originally appeared on the Shark Tank.

In the dictionary under weakness, there’s a picture of —

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Slide15-300x180The dictionary defines weak as liable to yield, break or collapse under pressure or strain; not having much political strength, governing power or authority; impotent, ineffectual, or inadequate…well, you get the idea.

This week we saw clearly the contrast between weak and strong. This week President Obama did his NCAA basketball bracket, delightfully referred to as “Barack-etology.” discussed mom jeans with Ryan Seacrest, and chatted up Ellen Degeneres about Obamacare and those critical issues on “House of Cards” and “Scandal.”

In the same week, the territory (Crimea) of a sovereign nation (Ukraine) was annexed by an invading one (Russia). Down South, would-be football champions dream of going “between the hedges.” Instead, we have a President who went “between two ferns” — and that’s supposed to instill confidence? Nah, that’s a display of weakness, regardless of how liberals see it themselves.

Now, some believe President Obama is displaying the highest degree of strength and resolve — by not fighting back. They think only a real strong guy can say “there will be no military option.” It reminds me of another heroic Obama administration idea: the Combat Restraint Medal. Yep, a medal to be rewarded to combat troops for NOT firing back at the enemy. Only in Obamaworld is not shooting back at the enemy reason for an award.

In the world of progressive socialists, crushing your political opposition by using governmental power is strength. I call it tyranny. However, not standing up to a dictator who has invaded a sovereign free nation is showing strength? Both instances show weakness. Rhetoric about standing with protesters is courageous — unless of course those protesters are Iranian and belong to the Green movement. Then no one stands for you.

Liberal progressives are very adept at changing the meaning of words, altering the lexicon and turning words upside down. After all, a terrorist attack is just a man-caused disaster or workplace violence. Ergo weak is relative, according to the “living” meaning of the word. What a crock!

America, we elected a president who believed we needed to improve our global image. Someone who thought that it was more important to be “liked” — as if foreign policy is a Facebook page — than respected. We elected a person as Commander-in-Chief who truly believes “peace through strength” is an imposing and threatening mantra, and prefers “peace through appeasement” as a means to make friends. We elected a person who hasn’t a clue about geo-political strategy — as he evidenced by his sarcastic remark to Gov. Mitt Romney telling him “the 80s are asking for their foreign policy back.”

The only thing Barack Hussein Obama has brought to America is domestic tyranny and a cult of personality — neither impress the current list of despots, dictators, autocrats, and theocrats who now salivate at the naiveté and weakness of this “prankster.” Both are making us weak, at home and abroad.

So what does this mean for the American Republic? It means we have three more years during which we shall suffer, unless we wise up and take the gavel away from Harry Reid in the US Senate. But then again, Obama, keeper of the pen and phone, has shown his abject disdain for the rule of law and our governing Republican principles of separation of powers, coequal branches of government, and checks and balances. Has anyone ever had a front row seat to a train wreck? You do now. Sadly, there are those who actually bought the tickets — twice—and the rest of us are forced to watch. Heck, we’re all on the train.

The spinmeisters can try all they want, but you cannot deny the fact that Obama is weak and it is crippling America. The seminal question is, how low does America have to go? Have we now decided as a people that we no longer wish to lead? We no longer aspire to be exceptional? Are we fine with just sitting around watching reality TV shows, getting fat, and smoking dope while a new era of global brutes step forward? Barack Obama is forcing us to decide, and define, who we are: weak or strong.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Florida TV Station Exposes Voter Fraud, DOJ Sues State to Stop Purging Rolls

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“While the Obama Justice Department mounts a legal challenge against Florida for purging ineligible voters from its rolls, a television news station broadcasts an unbelievable segment that proves non U.S. citizens living in the Sunshine State vote regularly in elections,” reports Judicial Watch.

The investigative piece was aired this week by an NBC affiliate in southwest Florida that actually tracked down and interviewed non U.S. citizens who are registered to vote and have cast ballots in numerous elections. The segment focused on Lee County, which has a population of about 620,000 and Collier County with a population of around 322,000. The reporter spent about two months digging around the voter rolls in the two counties and the discoveries are dumbfounding.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/2hjmKBfrycQ[/youtube]

In that short time, more than 100 people registered to vote in those two areas were proven to be ineligible by the reporter. A Cape Coral woman, eligible to vote in elections, was tracked down through jury excusal forms that verify she’s not a U.S. citizen. A Naples woman, who is not a U.S. citizen either, voted six times in 11 years without being detected by authorities. A Jamaican man is also registered to vote though he’s not eligible. The reporter obtained his 2007 voter registration form, which shows the Jamaican man claims to be a U.S. citizen. Problem is, no one bothers checking to see if applicants are being truthful.

Incredibly, election supervisors confirmed on camera that there’s no way for them to verify the citizenship of people who register to vote. The only way to detect fraud is if the county offices that oversee elections receive a tip, they say, and only then can they follow up.  As inconceivable as this may seem, it appears to be true. Election supervisors in counties across the United States have their hands tied when it comes to this sort of voter registration fraud. They neither have the resources nor the authority to take action without knowledge of specific wrongdoing.

In an effort to remedy the situation, Florida Governor Rick Scott launched a program a few years ago to purge ineligible voters from registration rolls. The Department of Justice (DOJ) was quick to sue the state to stop the purging because the agency claims it discriminates against minorities. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has colluded with the DOJ in Florida and the head of the group’s local chapter says purging voter rolls disproportionately affects the state’s most vulnerable groups, namely minorities.

ABOUT JUDICIAL WATCH

Judicial Watch has been a leader in investigating voter fraud and in 2012 launched a special Election Integrity Project. As part of the initiative JW has examined publicly available data that indicates that voter rolls in a number of states—including Florida, Mississippi, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, California, Colorado and Ohio—contain the names of individuals who are ineligible to vote. The JW investigation has shown that there appear to be more individuals on voter registration lists in these states than there are individuals eligible to vote, including dead people.

Republican Party Est. March 20, 1854: A look back and looking forward by Bob Livingston

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The following article is courtesy of Bob Livingston, Publisher of the Personal Liberty Digest. Our thanks to Bob for this insightful review of the history of the Republican Party, established one-hundred and sixty years old today.

On March 20, 1854, the Republican Party was born in Wisconsin. The party consisted of an amalgam of parties, business groups and other special interest groups, but was primarily made up of former Whigs and members of the Free Soil Party.

The Whigs believed in protectionism for industry, a national bank and currency, a large national debt, and large Federal government engaged in extensive public works. Free Soilers believed in free land and subsidies for farmers. Business leaders wanted a protectionist big government that would keep them free from competition and send them money from the Federal treasury.

Whigs favored the economic platforms of Federalist Alexander Hamilton and former Whig leader Henry Clay. These ideas formed the economic agenda of the new Republican Party. “They advocated protective tariffs for industry, a national bank, and plenty of public works and patronage,” explained the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

The Republican Party nominated its first Presidential candidate for the 1856 election. John C. Fremont won 11 of 16 Northern States. The party’s fortunes were brighter in 1860, though, with the Democrat Party divided and Southern States threatening secession if Republican candidate and railroad lawyer Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency.

As the historian Bruce Catton wrote in The Civil War, in 1860, Lincoln wanted to be the nominee of the Republican Party — a party that consisted of an amalgam of former members of the defunct Whig Party, Free Soilers (those who believed all new territories should be slave-free), business leaders who wanted a central government that would protect industry and ordinary folk who wanted a homestead act that would provide free farms in the West. “The Republican platform, however, did represent a threat to Southern interests. It embodied the political and economic program of the North — upward revision of the tariff, free farms in the West, railroad subsidies, and all the rest.”

In his book, The Constitution in Exile, Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote: “For forty years, Clay supported the creation of an American empire through measures such as corporate welfare, (which politicians like to call ‘internal improvements’); today we call them corporate tax breaks, protectionist tariffs, and a nationwide central bank. All the things that Clay favored in essence provided for a highly centralized government. And Lincoln supported them all.”

In the early 1860s, the Republican Party’s flurry of new laws, regulations and bureaucracies created by Lincoln and the northern Republicans foreshadowed Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” for volume, scope and questionable Constitutionality of its legislation.

The term “New Deal” was only co-opted by Roosevelt. It was first coined to describe Lincoln and the Republican agenda by a Raleigh, N.C., newspaper editor in 1865.

“Lincoln’s massive expansion of the federal government into the economy led Daniel Elazar to claim, ‘ . . . one could easily call Lincoln’s presidency the “New Deal” of the 1860s.’ Republicans established a much larger, more powerful, and more destructive federal government in the 1860s,” Mises explained.

Today, Republican elites try to cast themselves as the party of small government. But during the past 40 years, the party of Lincoln has done much more to grow government than reduce it. Both Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford expanded the Great Society programs of Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1970, Nixon imposed wage and price controls throughout the economy, imposed a tax surcharge on all imports and removed the American dollar from the gold standard [August 1971] – hardly small-government policies.

Nixon’s policies sparked a rise in oil prices and caused the Great Inflation of the 1970s, according to Charles R. Morris, writing in his book, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown. Morris writes that Nixon was a Keynesian through and through, as were his supposedly conservative cabinet members.

President Ronald Reagan was a believer in limited government, and he took steps to reduce its size. His tax cuts stimulated the economy; but Democrats controlled the House, and he was vilified by them for his efforts to reduce domestic spending while he increased military spending. While he campaigned on balancing the budget, he did not accomplish it and deficits soared. His limited-government agenda was hijacked by the Democrats and the Council on Foreign Relations, the members of which dominated Reagan’s staff.

President George H.W. Bush was elected to continue Reagan’s policies but despite his “Read my lips. No new taxes” pledge, Bush 41 was neither a small-government guy nor a believer in Reagan’s low-tax policies or trickle-down economics. He was a true Republican. He immediately joined the Democrats and raised taxes and grew government.

The second President Bush, George W. (compassionate conservative), was simply a big-government [one-world government] promoter. He expanded the Federal reach into our children’s education with No Child Left Behind, along with Senator Edward Kennedy, expanded entitlement programs like the Medicare Drug benefit and embarked on a war strategy that helped push a teetering economy over the cliff.

More egregious than that was his USA PATRIOT Act [overrules 4th and 5th Amendments, thus far] — which, among other things, suspended habeas corpus — and other supposed terrorism-fighting provisions that intrude on the liberty and privacy of Americans and codified the expansive spying bureaucracy we only now learning the depth and scope of. And many Republicans claiming to be conservative went right along.

“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” Bush 43 said, in classic Bushism fashion, as he pushed his Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

So those of you who are counting on the Republican Party elites to rein in government have embarked on a fool’s errand. The GOP remains true to its roots, planted 160 years ago, today. A very unhappy birthday to the GOP.

ABOUT BOB LIVINGSTON

More than 40 years ago Bob Livingston saw where the nation and the world were headed, and he was alarmed. He knew he had to speak up, to be the warning oracle for those who would hear and heed the alarm. Now he works to expose the lies, deceit, misinformation and disinformation being spread as the “truth” by the government, the manipulated media and the controlling elite.

In the decades since, Bob Livingston—contrarian, ultraconservative, researcher and student of history—has stood as a vigilant and sometimes lonely but always steadfast and vocal sentinel against the forces both within and without our country that seek to subvert our freedoms and control our lives for their own ends.

In doing so he has always uncovered and provided for his readers the truth on a variety of subjects such as nutritional supplements and alternatives to drugs, issues of privacy, asset protection and preservation of freedom—even when that truth is uncomfortable to accept. Bob’s actual identity is kept secret so he can move freely working as a consumer watchdog in his quest to help you preserve your freedom, improve your health, boost your wealth and protect your civil liberties

Learn more about Bob at his Personal Liberty Digest.

Vote “NO” on Sarasota school tax: It won’t help the children, never has and never will

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Sarasota County, Florida residents may now vote early on a Sarasota County school district tax. A resident of Sarasota County sent out an email stating:

Election Day March 25 is a week away but you can say NO early. Originally, this was supposed to be a temporary tax but they repeat it every 4 years in a special election that cost taxpayers $500,00 because a low turnout insures a win for them.

Governor Scott & the FL Legislature increased millions for funding for schools and each teacher was given a $250 debit card for school supplies.

The 6,000 employees of the Sarasota Schools will be voting YES to take more of your money…..It’s time to tell them NO!  I plan to do that today and I ask you to join me.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Front row: Todd, Zucker, Brown. Back row: Goodwin, Kovach

This special election is how the Sarasota County School Board gets what it wants by suppressing the vote with an off cycle election costing property owners $500,000 that could be used for school programs. It has worked before and these school board members like it because they can now raise teacher salaries with historically no impact on student performance.

Sarasota resident Nick Catsakis writes:

A few years ago, the first time the school tax referendum had been held it was resoundingly defeated. That had been in a General Election in November, as is natural, when large numbers of citizens turn out to vote on multiple Federal, State and local candidates and on several other issues.

The schools then figured out a way to outsmart taxpayers and finally get the school tax passed by scheduling it in a Special Election in March when very few people go vote. While the voter turn out in November that rejected the tax had been 64 per cent of registered voters in the County, in the last Special Election held in the month of March, it was only a pitiful 14 per cent, with virtually the only ones voting being the schoolteachers in force, everyone else on the schools payroll and employees of construction, suppliers and contractor businesses that live off the school budget.

The problem with our schools, like everything run by government, is not lack of funding which has been increasing at a far faster pace than the increase in the number of pupils or the cost of living. The problem is that wasteful spending is wildly out of control and without accountability, such as on a myriad of procurements that are totally unneeded and are even discarded unused, or on unnecessary administrative staff and more and more consultants.

How’s about $40 thousand for basket ball loops that open and close electronically to prevent use after school hours: or $8 thousand electronic “activeboards” in each classroom which are so complicated many teachers never learned how to use them; or trading-in new school buses still under warrantee for even newer, huge ones that never run anywhere full capacity, with every conceivable luxury option onboard such as electronic GPS for the driver’s use? One wonders how businessmen can talk School Board members into such frivolous spending of taxpayer dollars. Perhaps it is funding School Board candidates’ electoral campaigns that afford them influence over how taxpayer dollars are ultimately spent. And the teacher union is a financially and politically a formidably influential force.

I can’t believe our schools are broke and need voters to extend once more the “temporary”, emergency school tax while they are constructing such palatial campuses as the new Venice High with a huge, state-of-the-art Performing Arts Center, reminiscent of New York’s Lincoln Center, and the brand new campuses at Riverview, North Port, multiple Sarasota Technical Institute campuses, Lemon Bay under construction and elsewhere.

I will go out to vote “no” on the school tax referendum this March and I urge other taxpayers to also do the same so we can outvote all those teachers that will be voting. If the tax is rejected, my property tax on my home will come down.

The School Board is “all in on Common Core.” This property tax money will be used to help implement it.

Dr. Karen Effrem, President of Education Liberty Watch, writes,”Look at the abundant evidence that the testing company for the Florida contract are fully Common Core aligned.  The recent news stories by the East Orlando Post and WUSF show that the testing contract, AIR (American Institutes for Research), are developing the test for SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium), which is the other federally funded, federally supervised national testing consortium testing the national Common Core standards.  In addition, AIR bills itself as “one of the world’s largest behavioral and social science research and evaluation organizations.” This is more evidence that psychological teaching and testing is part of Common Core and the standards, by whatever name they are deceptively being labeled that are taught and tested in Florida, despite the concerns raised in the governor’s executive order.

In addition- The data protection bills going through the legislature will protect student data privacy while relying on the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a fallacy.

TRUTH: Again, information is being presented that is misinformed, ignorant, or knowingly deceptive. As we have documented since last year during the fight over SB 878, the infamous data mining bill, any “FERPA exceptions” render proposed data protections completely meaningless.  There is an entire section of the FERPA regulations titled “99.31 Under what conditions is prior consent not required to disclose information?” that is explained in detail in our response to the deceptive letterto Arne Duncan signed by 34 chief state school officers, including Pam Stewart, trying to give the impression that individual student data will not be given to the federal government, when both PARCC and SBAC clearly admitthat it will be.  To be meaningful, any data protection bill must not be based on the non-existent protections in FERPA and must prohibit psychosocial teaching, testing and data collection.

If you wish to contact the Sarasota County School Board members and tell them what you think about the tax or their support for Common Core here are their email addresses and phone number. Three are up for reelection in November 2014 – Zucker, Brown and Goodwin:

School Board
Phone: (941) 927-9000 ext. 31147

To Email all 5 School Board Members:
boardmembers@sarasotacountyschools.net

Jane Goodwin Chair
jane.goodwin@sarasotacountyschools.net

Frank Kovach Vice Chair 
frank.kovach@sarasotacountyschools.net

Shirley Brown
shirley.brown@sarasotacountyschools.net

Caroline Zucker 
caroline.zucker@sarasotacountyschools.net

Dr. Carol Todd
carol.todd@sarasotacountyschools.net

UPDATE: The following Letter to the Editor appeared in the Sarasota Observer on March 20, 2014. The vote on the school tax referendum is on Tuesday, March 25th.

Schools have enough

Sadly, the citizens of Sarasota are, once again, being hornswoggled by the Sarasota County School Board and teachers’ unions.

Despite having $500 million to run the Sarasota County public schools, the school board is asking voters to continue funding a $45 million-a-year, one-mill property tax. The election is Tuesday, March 25, with early voting underway now.

We should all support high-quality education for the good of our children and the future competitiveness of our country. But our public-school students already enjoy a high budget per student, and the generous pay and benefits of their teachers are already more than those of their private-sector counterparts.

Despite this, the school board and union representatives threaten dire classroom cutbacks, but say little about reducing expenses outside of teacher costs. Why are there fewer than 2,500 teachers in classrooms, out of almost 5,000 school employees?

The teachers’ unions are the T-Rexes of government-employees unions. Most public-school teachers and other government employees are forced to belong to unions, and a portion of their dues is earmarked for political contributions, over which they have no choice or control.

These coerced political contributions are then used by the union bosses to buy politicians, who then support policies favoring the unions, not the students. Example: Better education is one of the best ways to help promising young students out of poverty; poor families overwhelmingly support school-choice vouchers; politicians cynically oppose school vouchers because of opposition from teachers’ unions, the largest contributors to politicians.

Sarasotans have seen the values of homes decline about 30% in recent years, while our property taxes have not. Nor have the budgets or employment rolls of the various parts of our local government.

Let’s be clear: The teachers’ unions have huge influence over the school board. Our property taxes and special assessments are now about a $1 billion annually, with more than half earmarked for public schools. That’s for a population of only about 375,000 citizens. That’s almost $14,000 per student per year. Enough should be enough.

What’s more, let’s forget the substance of the argument and focus instead on the election process. Instead of holding this referendum at a regular November election time, the school board conducts this election in the spring when turnout typically is lower than in November elections. Four years ago, less than 18% of voters approved the tax.

The school board will say that everyone can vote, but if the school board believes in democracy, it should be encouraging voting by observing the conventional November schedule. While the school board will say the $45 million is well spent, the real issue is how the entire $500 million is being spent.

What can be done about this? One, voters can reject renewing the tax. Then, replace the school board with members who care about students, not unions; and hold these election when the turnout is greatest.

Arthur Urciuoli

Nokomis, Florida

The Essence of Sarah Palin’s Message for 2014

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I watched a great old movie in the time period of the 1700s starring Anthony Quinn. A small village was brutally abused by an evil bandit and his army of thugs. Quinn organized and inspired the fearful villagers to fight back. When villagers were killed, many blamed, criticized and rejected Quinn. Displaying true leadership, Quinn remained willing to fight. He informed his critics that cowardice begets more tyranny. Freedom ain’t free.

Folks, true leaders pay a heavy price which is why they, as do eagles, fly alone. Sarah Palin has led by example, displaying tremendous courage, backbone and grit by standing up for conservative principles, traditional values, freedom and liberty; even when some conservatives and establishment Republicans joined the chorus of liberals, Democrats and MSM calling her a fool.

Someone said if you promote a lie long enough, for some, it becomes reality. Such is the case regarding Palin’s smarts. Meanwhile, Obama’s list of faux pas including his recent inability to correctly spell “respect” are ignored or laughed-off.

Threatened by her enormous presence and the extreme impact of her inspiring 2008 VP nomination acceptance speech, Democrats and the MSM immediately launched a campaign to destroy Palin. In their joint effort to discredit her, every word out of Palin’s mouth has been viewed through an unjust false lens which assumes that she is an idiot. I challenge anyone on the planet to survive such extreme critical scrutiny.

Sarah Palin is not perfect. She is a human being like the rest of us. But, Sarah Palin is an unmistakably gifted charismatic born leader who inspires millions to fight back against the horrible evil attempting to overtake our great nation. Palin’s passion is fueled by her love for God, family and country and her knowledge that freedom ain’t free. Thank God Palin is conservative.

For those on our side who wish to nit-pic everything Palin says and does, I ask, what the heck are you thinking? Stop it! Obama and his vile minions (Lois Lerner and others) are launching daily unprecedented outrageous assaults on our freedoms. Why waste time, energy and resources beating up on one of our few generals leading the charge to restore America?

As a proud conservative, I hold our leaders to a higher standard than the Democrats. I expect conservative leaders to make character driven decisions rooted in the best interest of the American people. However, I think it is unfair and foolish to demand that our leaders be perfect in every way. We should not join our enemies in berating them every time a conservative has a less than home run hitting media appearance. Our laser focus should be on exposing and stopping Obama’s non-stop crimes against our Constitution. Attacking our own is counter productive.

Despite the left’s best efforts to silence her, Palin has been relentless, sounding the alarm of all the bad things that would accompany an Obama presidency. Palin was right. America’s chickens have come home to roost for electing Obama.

Here are Palin’s predictions which have come true.

Obama pacifying world aggressors would have negative consequences.

Russia (which had just invaded the sovereign nation of Georgia, a U.S. ally) would feel emboldened to send troops in Ukraine as well.

Under Obamacare there would be government “death panels” that would determine whether or not a patient should be eligible to receive life-saving treatments, or whether it would be cheaper to just let that patient die. Could you ever imagine such a thing in America?

A few liberals have admitted that Palin was right when she said Obama does not have a whole lot of substance.

Sarah Palin was right on all these issues.

But the most important thing that Palin has been right about, winning her my utmost respect, is her unapologetic advocacy of true Conservatism; confidently touting Conservatism as the miracle cure for all of America’s woes. 

The 2014 midterm election must be a vote for Conservatism. Conservatives in office is the only way we defeat our outlaw president and his army of thugs. We must take the House and the Senate.

Palin’s CPAC speech confirms that she continues to lead the charge. Her battle cry is loud, strong and clear. If the GOP wishes to repeat the victory it enjoyed in 2010, it had better embrace the Tea Party (Conservatism).

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo of Sarah Palin is by Therealbs2002. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Hillary & Bill, Bonnie & Clyde

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In its January 24, 2004 edition, the New York Times reported that a Los Angeles private detective, Anthony J. Pellicano, had been sentenced to thirty months in prison for illegal possession of hand grenades, blasting caps, plastic explosives, and two handguns.

Those items were found by F.B.I. agents in a raid on Pellicano’s Los Angeles office in November 2002.  The agents were acting under a search warrant issued in a federal investigation of threats against a Los Angeles Times reporter, Anita Busch, who was working on a series of articles detailing the relationship between a Hollywood celebrity and a reputed mob figure.

According to news reports, Ms. Busch found her car vandalized, a bullet hole in her windshield, a dead fish with a long-stemmed red rose in its mouth on the front seat, and a note saying, simply, “STOP!”  Unfortunately for Pellicano, the F.B.I. produced an audiotape in which an F.B.I. informant was overheard confessing that Pellicano had hired him to silence Ms. Busch.

After serving a 30 month sentence, Pellicano was back in the news again.  In a February 7, 2006 story, the Los Angeles Times reported that, “… one time private investigator Anthony Pellicano and six others were accused Monday of conspiring to wiretap, blackmail, and intimidate dozens of celebrities and business executives…”  Pellicano was found guilty of illegal wiretapping, harassment, identity theft, and racketeering, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Not only was Pellicano an important member of the O.J. Simpson defense team in 1994-95, the Times has identified such high-profile celebrities as Roseanne Barr, Kevin Costner, Michael Jackson, Sylvester Stallone, and Elizabeth Taylor as former Pellicano clients.

Of course, the Times couldn’t be expected to list all of Pellicano’s clients.  However, those who were paying attention during the Clinton scandals of the 1990s will remember Anthony J. Pellicano.   His name first came to light during the summer of 1992 when Bill Clinton was a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In a long series of “bimbo eruptions,” disclosures that threatened to derail his presidential

ambitions, it became known that Clinton had enjoyed a twelve-year extramarital affair with a Little Rock woman named Gennifer Flowers.  When Clinton called Flowers a liar and his “bimbo eruption” squad attempted to destroy her reputation and her career, Flowers produced audio tapes in which Clinton was overheard telling her to simply lie about their relationship and that, if they both stuck to their stories, no one would ever be able to prove otherwise.

Shortly thereafter, Clinton’s principal handlers, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, under the supervision of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, began making public statements alleging that an “expert in audio recording analysis” had concluded that a twelve minute portion of the tapes had been “selectively edited” in two places.  That “expert” was identified as Anthony J. Pellicano.  Flowers then submitted her tapes to an organization called Truth Verification Labs, which found them to be totally authentic.

But Pellicano’s services to the Clintons were apparently just beginning.  As investigative reporters uncovered one former lover after another, the White House “bimbo eruption” squad had their hands full.  In fact, the details of the Anita Busch intimidation in Los Angeles bear an eerie resemblance to a story involving a former beauty queen, Sally Perdue, Miss Arkansas of 1958, one of Clinton’s many sexual dalliances.

Perdue said in a 1994 interview with a London newspaper that she’d been threatened with having both her legs broken if she spoke to reporters or government investigators about her relationship with Bill Clinton.  Subsequent to the threats, her car windshield was broken and a spent shotgun shell was left on her front seat.  Cops and screenwriters might refer to that as a “standard M.O.”  Perdue was so terrified that she relocated, quite suddenly, to the Peoples Republic of China.

Then, early in his presidency, a major supporter and fundraiser from Virginia, Kathleen Willey, went to the Oval Office to ask Clinton for a full-time paid position in his administration.  During that meeting, Clinton assaulted Ms. Willey, sexually, causing her to run from the oval office in a state of panic… her hair disheveled, her makeup smeared, and her clothing in disarray.

Later, as she prepared to testify before special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, Willey was subjected to acts of intimidation.  Two days before her testimony, while taking an early morning walk near her Richmond, Virginia home, she was approached by a strange man.  The stranger threatened her and her children by name, and references were made to her vandalized car and a missing 13-year-old house pet.  The message was clear: she was being told to remain silent.  A day after the deposition, she found an animal skull on her porch.

Then, in 1998, just four days after the Monica Lewinsky story broke in the national press, one of Lewinsky’s former boyfriends, Andy Bleiler, reported that Lewinsky had told him that she was going to Washington to be a White House intern and to get her “presidential kneepads.”  When it was widely reported that Pellicano had been engaged to dig up dirt on Lewinsky, allegedly by Hillary Clinton herself, he was asked by a New York Post reporter, Andrea Peyser, to either confirm or deny that he was the source of the Andy Bleiler information.  He responded, “You’re a smart girl.  No comment.”

So why does the Times not find it interesting to report Hillary Clinton’s past relationship with Pellicano?  The answer is, those in the mainstream media are interested in seeing Bill Clinton absolved of all his sins and Hillary Clinton inaugurated as America’s first female president… no matter what criminal acts they may have committed.

But now that Hillary has completed her four-year stint as a do-nothing Secretary of State, during which time she was given a fancy office in Foggy Bottom, a big airplane, an unlimited expense account, and told to just travel… get out of town… she now has her eyes set once again on the White House.  But let us not forget who the Clintons are.  They are the real life version of Arkansas’ Beverly Hillbillies, but with a much more expensive wardrobe and none of the class.

When George W. Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001, he graciously loaned Air Force

Two to the Clintons to transport them to their new home in Chappaqua, New York.  But when the plane returned to Washington it was necessary to completely restock the aircraft.  Every comfort item on the plane… china, flatware, glassware, napkins, blankets, sheets, pillow cases, ashtrays, book matches, pens, pencils, and playing cards… literally anything and everything that was not a permanent part of the aircraft, had been stolen by the Clintons and their friends.

And when the Bushes entered the White House that same afternoon to prepare for an evening of black tie festivities, what they found left them speechless… and deeply saddened.  They found desks, chairs, and bookcases overturned, telephone lines purposely crossed so as to misdirect calls, computers and word processors with the “W” missing from the keyboards, obscene messages posted to email inboxes, and obscene graffiti spray painted on the walls.  The Clinton staff had totally ransacked Air Force Two and trashed the White House.

These are the people who now rely on Obama’s low information voters to give them another four year lease on the White House.  But now that they are poised to make a third frontal assault on the White House, let us not forget that it was Hillary Clinton who presided over the murder of four Americans at Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

On Friday, September 14, three days after the attack, as the flag-draped coffins of the four slain Americans arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, all of the usual suspects… Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice… were among the dignitaries who were there with long faces, shedding a few feigned tears of sorrow and expressing their condolences to the bereaved family members.

Although everyone in the Obama administration knew within minutes of the attack that it was not the result of an anti-Islamic Internet video, Hillary Clinton took to the podium, and said, in the presence of the grieving families of the Benghazi victims, “We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.  It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.”  When she uttered those words she knew that it was all a lie, designed only to provide political cover for Barack Obama’s reelection less than two months away.

Later, as she and Obama expressed condolences to the families of the slain Americans, Clinton embraced the father of former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods.  She assured him, convincingly, that she would personally see to it that the person who made the video was arrested and prosecuted.

This is the Hillary Clinton we’ve all come to know.  She is far more ruthless than her long-time friend, Diane Blair, described her in her recently released private papers, and the only way she should ever again be allowed to set foot inside the White House is with an engraved invitation from a Republican president in hand… and perhaps one of Anthony Pellicano’s long-stemmed red roses clenched between her teeth.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image was taken on January 26-27, 2007 at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, SEIU local union leaders individually questioned eight Democratic presidential hopefuls—Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM), and former Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-IA) —about where they stand on the issues that matter most to SEIU members: affordable health care, good jobs, and retirement security. This photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Rentrak and i360 Partner to Provide Insights for Republican and Conservative Organizations

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PORTLAND, Ore., March 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Rentrak (NASDAQ: RENT), the leader in precisely measuring movies and TV everywhere, today announced a partnership with i360, the leading data and technology resource for the pro-free-market political and advocacy community, to provide insights into political audiences by integrating 18 segments of actual voter data with Rentrak’s local television viewing ratings.

Rentrak’s integration of i360’s custom political segments will provide insight into which programs, genres, stations and dayparts deliver higher densities of the voter segments they seek to influence.

“By incorporating individual level data on who voters are and the issues that move them with Rentrak’s television viewing information, we are able to take broadcast and cable television targeting to a new level,” said Michael Palmer, president of i360. “This powerful combination is a straightforward way for free-market candidates and causes to make smarter, more accurate TV buying decisions in 2014 and beyond.”

“The integration of our local ratings with i360’s political segments will give clients a distinct advantage in planning campaign strategies,” said Chris Wilson, president of national television at Rentrak. “We are proud to continue serve the political platform and provide the tools needed to build more effective campaigns.”

Rentrak’s television ratings service is the only fully-integrated system of detailed satellite, telco and cable TV viewing information from more than 25 million TVs nationwide including granular information for TV stations in all 210 local markets.

About Rentrak

Rentrak (NASDAQ: RENT) is the entertainment and marketing industries’ premier provider of worldwide consumer viewership information, precisely measuring actual viewing behavior of movies and TV everywhere. Using our proprietary intelligence and technology, combined with advanced demographics, only Rentrak is the census currency for VOD and movies. Rentrak provides the stable and robust audience measurement services that movie, television and advertising professionals across the globe have come to rely on to better deliver their business goals and more precisely target advertising across numerous platforms including box office, multiscreen television and home video. For more information on Rentrak, please visit www.rentrak.com.

FL District 13: Jolly wins, Sink sinks, now what?

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There was a special election for the Congressional District 13 seat in Florida. District 13 encompases Pinellas County. David Jolly defeated Democrat challenger Alex Sink, a former state Chief Financial Officer, by 3,500 votes or a 1.87 percent margin – 48.43 percent to 46.56 percent, according to the unofficial results from the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections. Libertarian candidate Lucas Overby won 4.83 percent of the votes. Democrats hold a 1.0 percent edge in voter registration in District 13.

After every special election there is speculation about the implications for the next general election. Here are some interesting, and perhaps useful, quotes sent to me from Floridians, politicians and political prognosticators about the Republican win.

Reuters, “You can see the handprints of the national parties all over the race,” said Susan MacManus, a longtime political analyst and professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “It almost seems as if the 2012 presidential race never ended, and just the faces and the district changed.”

Peter Rice, Sarasota, FL. “It was assumed that Democrat Alex Sink would win this election, for she won this district in her 2010 run for FL governor (she lost by a very tiny bit).  Previously she was the Democrat elected chief financial officer of Florida.  She was a banker.  Her late husband (Bill McBride) was the Democrat candidate for governor in 2002, but lost closely to Jeb Bush.  Also, Sink being a female would have benefited from the majority of voters in Florida (and I assume FL-13) being females, many of whom vote for the female candidate by perhaps 5%.  This election is an ill sign for Obama et al. on 4 November 2014, the general election.  The voters of FL-13 sent a message to our Dear Leader, a message of NO.”

Washington Times, “Before the votes were tallied, Ana Navarro, a Republican Party strategist from Florida, warned against putting too much stock in the results. “The national implications of the results of this race in Florida have grown out of proportion,” Ms. Navarro said. “The spending by both parties turned into a game of chicken, and next thing they knew, they had spent over $10 million on a seat that has to go up for election again in eight months. “Yes, the national narrative on Obamacare and other policy issues matter,” she said. “And yes, the national spending has played a big role. But the old adage remains true: All politics is local. A lot is decided by the quality of the candidates and the campaigns they run. I think it will tell you more about that than anything else.”

The Examiner, “After Tuesday’s special election in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, DNC boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz spun the Republican win in true Orwellian fashion by claiming the GOP ‘underperformed’.”

The only November 2014 statewide race in Florida is for Governor. I agree with Ms. Navarro that all politics is local, the quality of the candidate and how they run their campaign are key factors. Governor Rick Scott is running on his record of job creation and an improved economy. Scott, like Jolly, has taken strong stands against Obama and his policies that hurt all Floridians.

I believe the District 13 race will have more of an impact on the race for the Governor’s mansion.

Sink’s loss does not bode well for Democrat candidate Charlie Crist, who, unlike Sink, fully embraces Obamacare as it is written. The Tampa Bay law firm Morgan & Morgan supported Sink and they also support Crist who is a partner in the firm. One issue not dealt with in District 13 was the medical marijuana ballot initiative. Democrats hope voters will turn out to vote on legalizing medical marijuana, an initiative funded by Morgan & Morgan. There are other statewide issues that will take center stage including: Common Core, property insurance and severe defense cuts. All these work against Democrats as they are Obama initiatives.

So, now what? Stay tuned, it will be a rough ride to Tuesday, November 4th in Florida.

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