Crowd Size From 'One Nation' Versus Crowd Size From "Restoring Honor'

We all know that the left-leaning media (i.e. ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN as well as the Washington Post and New York Times) do whatever they can to put down Conservatives and then prop-up leftists. Many years ago, people would simply believe it because it was in print or broadcast over a major network and no one had any way of checking the news people's "facts." Until now. This is why the Internet is so important to us these days. It helps us expose who is lying and who is telling the truth.

Take for example two different rallies. On August 28th was the "Restoring Honor" and October 2nd the "One Nation" rally. The news media tried to downplay the size of the August rally and tried to make the October rally sound larger than it was.

But the real proof is below. This is a shot of the crowd from the "Restoring Honor" rally:



And this is a shot of the "One Nation" rally:



These two photos speak for themselves and also speak to the dishonest manner in which the above mentioned news outlets distort facts and information.

James Freeman: Glenn Beck's 'Happy Warriors'

Despite all the claims by leftists like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, et. al., the Restoring Honor rally was the most peacful and good-mannered that D.C. has seen since, well, has ever seen period.

There was no hate. And the claims of it being an all-white crowd were quashed with the presence of a large number of African-Americans and their families, including Harry R. Jackson. (I know Rev. Jackson was there because I saw him in a video of the event, a video that Keith Olbermann either never knew existed or, more likely, deliberately chose to ignore.)

Anyway, James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal has a fantastic summary of what he saw and heard at the rally.

From his column:

This army of well-mannered folks that marched into Washington seemed comprised mainly of people who had once marched in the U.S. Army or other military branch, or at least had a family member who had. Perhaps that's not surprising, given that the event was a fund-raiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides scholarships to the children of elite troops killed in the performance of their duty. The day was largely devoted to expressions of gratitude for the sacrifices of U.S. soldiers, for great men of American history like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and for God. But it didn't end there. Dave Roever, a Vietnam veteran, offered a closing prayer in which he thanked the Lord for the president and for the Congress. Despite the unpopularity of the latter two, no booing or catcalls could be heard. Perhaps feeling defensive about how they would be portrayed in media reports, various attendees wore t-shirts noting that they were "Not violent" or "Non-violent." For other participants, there was no need for an explicit message. Relaxed young parents felt comfortable enough to push toddlers in strollers through the crowded areas along the memorial's reflecting pool.

If Olbermann, Matthews and the other members of the hate-filled left would actually take the time see reality, they might not look so foolish when they make their outlandish claims.

One aspect of the event made it undeniably superior to other rallies of comparable size: the area was cleaner when they were done than it was before they started.

Not only was the rally akin to a "huge church picnic" (in one Journal reporter's description), but one had to wonder if the over-achievers in this crowd actually left the area in better shape than they found it. After the event, walking from the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool through Constitution Gardens, this reporter scanned 360 degrees and could not see a scrap of trash anywhere. Participants and volunteers had collected all their refuse and left it piled neatly in bags around the public garbage cans. Near Constitution Avenue, I did encounter one stray piece of paper—but too old and faded to have been left that day.

Contrast that with how Obama supporters left the mall after they were done so rudely singing "Na-na-na-na. Hey! Hey! Goodbye!" to George W. Bush:



Here is a video showing how the participants of the Restoring Honor cleaned up in a way that Obama's supporters didn't even dream of doing:



And although Glenn Beck himself claimed to disagree with the final two paragraphs, they are relevent:

The conservative Mr. Beck's ability to draw this many people to Washington may suggest enormous gains for Republicans come the fall. But the GOP shouldn't expect voters to simply hand them a congressional majority without making them earn it. If pregame chatter and off-season optimism translated into victory, the New York Jets and the Washington Redskins would meet in the Super Bowl every year. Between Saturday's crowd in Washington and the tea partiers agitating for limited government, we may be witnessing the rebuilding of the Reagan coalition, the "fusion" of religious and economic conservatives that political theorist Frank Meyer once endorsed. Reagan always believed that the Republican Party was the natural home for this movement, but GOP leaders in Washington need to prove they are worthy of it.

Yes, they do.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Glenn Beck's 'Happy Warriors'
James Freeman
Wall Street Journal
August 31, 2010

"I Do Think At A Certain Point, You've Made Enough Money"

On April 29th, 2010, Barack Obama made the following statement:

I do think at a certain point you've made enough money.

Well, what about Obama's friends and donors? At what point did they make enough money? Glenn Beck asks that question without speaking a single word:



Note the final question at the end:

Mr. President, why don't you ask your friends to set the example on how much is too much?

Congress Voting To Defund ACORN

Man! When Glenn Beck and a team of two undercover journalists prove to be more effective than all of the big Media outlets combined, you know that the story had to be a big one!

Here are two more stories concerning ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) that isn't getting much notice from NBC, ABC, CBS or CNN.

Senate Votes To Deny Funds To ACORN
Andrew Taylor
Associated Press via Breitbart
September 14, 2009

That motion, the Johanns Amendment to HR2355, passed 83-7 with the 7 "nay" votes all coming from Dems.

House GOP To Call For Total Cutoff Of Federal Funds To ACORN
Byron York
Washington Examiner
September 15, 2009

Two things to note here. One: Congress thinks that this is a big enough story to vote on removing funding to ACORN. Two: It is the GOP calling for a House vote to defund ACORN, not the Dems.

(BTW, I'll bet that the incompetent Charlie Gibson didn't know about these stories either!)

Whatever happened to Nancy Pelosi's promise to get rid of the Culture of Corruption in Washington? From what I saw in those videos, ACORN is certainly a good place to begin the cleaning process!

But defunding a vile and corrupt organization isn't enough. There needs to be a thorough investigation of ACORN and any other organization that worked with ACORN so that we can see exactly how far the corruption extends.

Glenn Beck: 2, Obama Administration: 0

First, the big news: the United States Census Bureau has severed all ties with the voter-fraud group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) in the wake of revelations that ACORN was actively trying to help a "pimp" and "prostitute" import underage girls in order to start a brothel in Baltimore. The "pimp" and "prostitute" were actually undercover journalists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles who secretly videotaped the encounters at ACORN offices in Baltimore and Washington D.C.

Apparently, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. ACORN has long been known to be engaged in many suspicious and shady deals and activities. Voter fraud has resulted in many arrests and convictions of ACORN personnel. An embezzlement scheme was uncovered right here in D.C. and now that ACORN has shown its willingness to engage in underage prostitution, the Census Bureau has cried, "Enough!" This is significant since as late as last year the Census Bureau had been defending ACORN.

From the Associated Press:

The Census Bureau on Friday severed its ties with ACORN, a community organization that has been hit with Republican accusations of voter-registration fraud. "We do not come to this decision lightly," Census director Robert Groves wrote in a letter to ACORN, which was obtained by The Associated Press. In splitting with ACORN, Groves sought to tamp down GOP concerns and negative publicity that the partnership will taint the 2010 head count. "It is clear that ACORN's affiliation with the 2010 census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 census efforts," Groves wrote. ... Up to now, the Census Bureau had defended ACORN's involvement, explaining it was one of 80,000 unpaid volunteer groups that the bureau hoped would be able to raise local awareness. But in his letter, Groves said it no longer had confidence that ACORN was effectively managing its partnership.

So, how does this relate to Glenn Beck? Easy. Glenn was the only television jounalist to cover the Van Jones scandal and to give coverage to the ACORN underage prostitution scandal. Jones eventually resigned his post as the "green jobs" czar and now the Census Bureau has been forced to cut ties with ACORN.

There was absolutely no coverage of these events on ABC, NBC, or CBS. CNN gave the ACORN scandal token coverage but tried to spin it as right-wing whackos attempting a hit job.

What this means is that Glenn Beck by himself has proven to be a more effective voice than all of the other news networks combined.

If I were one of the big three networks or CNN, I'd be embarassed.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN In 2010 Count
Hope Yen
Associated Press via Breitbart
September 11, 2009

So, How Is The Glenn Beck Boycott Going?

Not too well it seems. Right about now, the executives at GEICO, Progressive and a whole bunch of other companies are lamenting the fact that they have now lost out on a market of a potential 3 million viewers, and they are missing it in the middle of a recession.

From TV By The Numbers:

Though a little scandal might alienate advertisers, it’s pure ratings gold. Last night Glenn Beck had over 3 million viewers at 5pm, second only to O’Reilly for the night. But, Beck had more 25-54 viewers than O’Reilly (888K to 876K). I don’t watch or really even care about the cable news wars, but still…wow. Even though Beck airs before primetime, when there are fewer people watching TV, he had the most 25-54 viewers in the cable news world for the night. ... 5PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) Glenn Beck– 3,040,000 viewers (888,000) (1,385,000) Situation Room—688,000 viewers (141,000) (271,000) Hardball w/ Chris Matthews—536,000 viewers (139,000) (217,000) Fast Money—215,000 viewers (55,000) (80,000) Prime News–267,000 viewers (97,000) (109,000)

Those companies might want to rethink the boycott before their competitors come in and take advantage of the mistake.

You can access the original article on-line here:

Big Beck: Goes Over 3 Million Viewers, Beats O’Reilly In Demo: Cable News Ratings For Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Robert Seidman
TV By The Numbers
August 27, 2009

Obama Official Linked To Racially Charged Boycott Of Glenn Beck

An interesting news bit. From Michelle Oddis over at Human Events:

A racially charged activist group called “Color of Change” founded by Van Jones, a special advisor to the Obama Administration, is trying to silence popular radio and Fox News personality Glenn Beck by calling for a boycott of Beck’s TV advertisers. On July 28th, Beck made a comment on the Fox & Friends morning show about Obama’s reaction to the arrest of Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. During the discussion of “Professor-Gate,” Beck connected the President’s past association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright to Obama’s comment that Cambridge police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, acted stupidly. Though Beck acknowledged most of the Obama administration is in fact white, he concluded that the President’s world experience made him a “racist.”

The five advertisers are: SC Johnson, Progressive Insurance, Geico, Procter & Gample and Nexus Lexis.

These five companies must be run by idiots to succumb to such a dumb ploy. All they are going to do is lose revenue through reduced sales while their competitors, who will take advantage of the advertising slot openings will enjoy increased sales.

Why would anyone want to decrease their market during a recession? Any company that dumb is a company that I would not want to be doing business with anyway. Plus, playing the race card is a sure way to generate negative publicity for themselves, while simultaneously generating curiosity about Glenn Beck's show.

TV and radio hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have such high ratings that they are turning advertisers away. This will only hurt the companies engaging in the boycott. It will not hurt Glenn Beck.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Obama Official Linked To Racially Charged Boycott Of Glenn Beck
Michelle Oddis
Human Events Online
August 13, 2009

Book Review: COMMON SENSE By Glenn Beck

The out-of-control government spending we are witnessing right now began under George W. Bush. That much is true. But, just because Bush did it does that mean that it is okay for Obama and the Dems to accelerate it? No, absolutely not. If Bush was wrong for running up a $2 trillion debt, then Obama is five and a half times as wrong for wanting to run up an $11 trillion debt. (For those of you who don't understand the math, here is the equation: 11/2 = 5 1/2.)

That basically sums up Glenn Beck's thesis in his #1 bestseller Common Sense. Taking some inspiration from Thomas Paine, the author of the original Common Sense, Glenn has built up an argument that shows us why we, as a nation, are on the wrong path, what will likely happen as a result of going down this path and why we should hold those in power (both Democrat and Republican) accountable for what they've done.

The Founding Fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution knew what dangers there were in a government that over-reaches its powers. Glenn reminds us of this throughout the book with passages such as the following:

Thomas Jefferson knew that government debt was not only bad economic policy but also morally unacceptable because it effectively makes your children responsible to pay for what you bought. He said, "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." If that wasn't clear enough, he also said that politicians should consider themselves "unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves ..."

I am not aware of any other commentator who even knows about that quote from Jefferson much less actually reminds us of it. But, since most of us don't know the numbers or don't seem to care enough about what those numbers mean, we simply let it go and expect someone else to handle the problem for us.

That is not possible in the current situation. Here's why: Our interest payment to service our debt stands at $26 billion per month. That's right, per month. That's money that is sent to our creditors rather than going to upgrade schools or roads here in the U.S. Multiply that by 12 and you get $312 billion per year. If the government taxed away the total profits of Exxon-Mobil, General Electric, Wal-Mart and IBM, we wouldn't even have enough to pay one-third of the interest payment on the debt much less pay down the debt! Where is the rest of this money going to come from? Small businesses? Higher taxes on the middle class? (As I write this, the Dems in Congress are already working on several new plans that will raise taxes and depress our economy even further which means even less ability to pay down the debt.)

With this type of insanity going on in Washington D.C., Glenn asks another very important question: "Why do we keep sending these bozos back to Congress?" Therein lies the crux of the title of this book. Sending the current crop of politicians back to D.C. defies common sense.

And here is another good excerpt:

President Obama announced that his 2009 budget was projected to produce a $1,700,000,000,000 deficit. If you break that down you find that we're spending $4,657 billion every day for a year, which breaks down to $53,906.64 per second.

Our government is spending in one second what most Americans don't even make in a year! How sustainable is that? It isn't, which is why all of this fiscal madness is only going to bring us to economic disaster and ruin.

And this brings us to one of the most poignant questions any commentator has ever asked:

Borrowed money has to be paid back - but it won't be us who will have to do it. Our children will question our sanity for spending money we did not have on "bridges to nowhere," skateboard parks, tattoo removel, and other pork-laden projects that politicians stuffed into "must pass" legislation. They will wonder why we tolerated such reckless behavior from our elected leaders instead of holding them accountable. How will we respond?

Indeed, how will we respond? More specifically, how will you respond if your child or grand-child comes up to you after they've turned 18 and asks why they are working to pay off a debt that they didn't vote to incur and from which they are getting no benefit at all?

I doubt anyone will have a good answer to that question. I know I don't.

I highly recommend this book to all Americans whether Democrat, Republican, Lbertarian or otherwise. The issues brought up by Glenn Beck are not political so much as they are national concerns that will touch every single one of us in very negative ways.

Each of us has a choice. Either a) stand up and finally tell Congress to bring spending under control or risk losing their next elections, or b) just sit back, do nothing and wait until the dollar collapses and our children wake up to find themselves up to their foreheads in a debt that they did not incur but will be held responsible for.

I'm sure that you can see choosing the latter will mean that you waited too long to become active.

Letter To America's "Leadership"

This is long, but read it all the way through. It was written by Janet Contreras of Arizona.

I put the word "Leadership" in quatation marks in the title because I do not really consider those idiots in Washington to be leaders.

The words are truer than most people even know:

I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me? Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation: One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration. Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal. Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it. Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say. Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down! Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there. Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate. Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit? Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves. Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us. Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me. Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave. I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending. From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons. We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution. Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

If you wish to sign the petition that is this letter, go to the following website:

An Open Letter To Our Nation's Leadership

Voting Against Obama Does NOT Make One A Racist

One thing that infuriates me more than anything else is when someone falsely accuses me of something. Most recently, I, and several million other Conservatives, have been accused of being racist because we are not going to vote for a black candidate.

Well, here's a news flash folks. I am not a racist. I am voting against Barack Obama because he is a leftist Socialist and his policies will wreck the American economy. There is absolutely nothing racial in that point of view at all. So, please dispense with the false accusations and save them for the real cases of racism, okay?

The new charges of racism stem from the fact that Barack Obama has a relationship with domestic terrorist William Ayers. Apparently, the Obama camp wants us to take the stance that mentioning this relationship is somehow racist.

Glenn Beck penned a column that captures my feelings on the subject. Writing for CNN, he notes the following about the Obama campaign and Democrats in general:

The defense on Ayers from the Obama camp is that they're not friends -- Ayers was "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," as Obama said. This strikes me as a strange argument from the same campaign that ran Spanish-language ads attempting to disparage McCain by highlighting his "Republican friends" like Rush Limbaugh. Besides the fact that Rush isn't a terrorist and had to be completely taken out of context in the attempt to smear him -- Limbaugh and McCain are best known for their adversarial relationship. Rush has spent the better part of a decade mocking him, most recently on the specific stance that was the focus of the commercial, immigration reform. If Rush qualifies as McCain's friend, then William Ayers might as well be Barack Obama's fiancé. But as The Associated Press claimed, even mentioning the association with Ayers, as Sarah Palin did in a speech earlier in the week, signifies a hidden "racial tinge." Is anyone else getting tired of this? Any and every time a question of Obama's history or record is asked, there is always someone to blame it on racism. Remember, William Ayers is a pasty white guy like me. Shouldn't the fact that Palin is criticizing a white terrorist show that it's not his color -- but his terrorism -- that she's not fond of? Instead, the AP tries to make the case that voters will think Obama is "not like us" since "terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims." Right, because nothing dredges up visions of radical Muslims with box-cutters like a guy named Bill. ... Charges of racism have even entered the financial meltdown. One recent criticism by conservatives has surrounded the Community Reinvestment Act. This act, passed in 1977 under Jimmy Carter and then strengthened by Bill Clinton, pressured mortgage companies to lend to those with poor credit and lower income. You might think that putting the government's endorsement of the loosening of lending standards under the microscope in the middle of a global financial crisis would be a no-brainer. Well, not to House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank: "The bizarre notion that the Community Reinvestment Act ... somehow is the cause of the whole problem, [conservatives] don't mind that. ... They're aware that the affordable-housing goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [and] the Community Reinvestment Act [aim to help] poor people. And let's be honest, the fact that some poor people are black doesn't hurt either from their standpoint." I guess when you're on record in July of this year saying "I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under," the only thing you can do is play the race card.

Voting against Obama is not racist. It's American.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Commentary: Voting Against Obama Doesn't Make You A Racist
Glenn Beck
CNN
October 9, 2008

CNN's Glenn Beck: Your Gas Money For A Flat Screen?

I was watching Glenn last night when he had Rudy Giuliani on talking about the current oil crisis. Yes, I said "crisis" because that is what we are in. When the price of a barrel of oil has gone up so dramatically in the space of a year and a half, I'd say we are in a crisis.

Mayor Giuliani has the right ideas about what to do. Drill, drill, drill. There is no other solution. Right now, the Democrat controlled Congress seems to want to do nothing but wait and watch gas prices go higher, our economy sink lower and then sit back, enjoy their perks and privilidges while pointing the finger of blame in the wrong direction.

Glenn Beck has a few words to say about that. In fact, it is clear that drilling at home and producing domestically is the only rational solution. The alternative is to wreck our economy and turn the U.S. to chaos. But what about the standard stock arguments from the greens? What do those arguments really mean and are they even valid? From CNN:

"It's not going to help for another 10 years!" Here's the thing. America is a long-term plan for me. I don't know where these people plan to be in 10 years, but I plan to be here. This is, of course, the same argument heard around President Clinton's veto of ANWR drilling in 1995. Among other things, if we had started drilling ANWR then, oil would be already flowing. At its peak, ANWR could supply 1.45 million barrels per day, enough to tell Hugo Chavez and all his Venezuelan oil to shove it (with a little change left over). Of course, Clinton didn't have Chavez to deal with back then. If only he were thinking 10 years into the future.

And this:

"We can't drill ourselves out of this problem!" Maybe not solely, or forever, but it sure can help. With new technology, who knows what we can do over time? The government estimates that the outer continental shelf alone has 76 billion barrels of oil that are recoverable, and that's just with today's technology. To put that number into perspective, it's equal to every barrel of oil that we'd import from everywhere outside of North America for 31 years at our current pace. But instead of developing these resources, we throw up endless roadblocks. If you don't think that pumping more of our own oil would affect prices, ask yourself what would happen if we did the opposite. What if we announced today that we were turning all of our existing pumps off?

More:

"What about the environment?" This may surprise those who think I'm the pre-eminent murderer of the Earth, but the only real argument against owning our own oil destiny is an environmental one. Under this theory: High gas prices equal less gas usage, which equals a saved planet. Thomas Friedman, in a recent column, laid it out in an honest fashion: "Now that [gas] is $4 a gallon, the government should at least keep it there, since it is really having the right effect." He went on to describe Chrysler's promotion that guarantees cheaper gas as "the moral equivalent of tobacco companies offering discounted cigarettes to teenagers." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, apparently agrees, saying that coal and oil are making us sick along with "ruining our country" and "ruining our world." If you believe such nonsense, then it's perfectly rational to ignore our ample energy resources. (It's not rational to combine that with complaints about high gas prices, sorry Harry Reid.) For the rest of us, while visions of the Exxon Valdez may dance through your head, the National Academy of Sciences found that the offshore industry is among the safest industrial activities in the United States. And please, next time you hear someone complaining about environmental risks of drilling at home, remember this from a 2003 speech from the director of the US Minerals Management Services: "Imports present an environmental risk of spills about 13 times greater than domestic production" and "natural seeps account for 150-175 times more oil in the ocean than outer continental shelf oil and gas operations." NATURAL SEEPS? Now we know who the real polluter is -- that evil wench -- Mother Nature.

Some very profound words of wisdon in their. Domestic production is the way to go until the day comes when we do build cars, freight trains and ships that run on pixie dust and unicorn whiskers. But those technologies are years into the future, if they are even possible at all. Solar power, wind power and ethanol could only supply us a fraction of what we need. Right now, domestic production would supply us all that we need.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Commentary: Your Gas Money For A Flat Screen?
Glenn Beck
CNN.com
July 3, 2008

The $53 Trillion Asteroid

I like watching Glenn Beck and so does my wife. But Glenn can put together a pretty good column too. Lately, he takes on Social Secuirty and laments how everyone knows it is going to go belly-up but no one seems to want to fix it.

As an analogy, Glenn uses an asteroid strike. We know the asteroid is getting closer and closer, but because the actual impact is so many years in the future, everyone assumes a future government will take care of it. Apparently, our government has the same attitude towards the Social Security crisis.

From Glenn's column:

Let me give you three numbers that will put this economic asteroid into perspective: $200 billion, $14.1 trillion, and $53 trillion. - $200 billion is the approximate total amount of write-downs announced so far as a result of the current credit crisis. - $14.1 trillion is the size of the entire U.S. economy - And $53 trillion is (drum roll please) the approximate size of this country's bill for the Social Security and Medicare promises we've made. While no one will ever mistake me for Alan Greenspan, it seems to me that the third number is quite a bit larger than the other two. It also seems very few people care. According to the latest Social Security and Medicare Trustees report (and I use that term loosely since it has the word "trust" in it) released earlier this week, the economic asteroid will first make impact in the year 2019 when the Medicaid trust fund becomes insolvent.

Let's see, that is a little over ten years away. So what are the plans for dealing with this? Nothing, so far.

More:

Realizing that Americans have become pretty much numb to these kinds of ridiculous sounding proposals, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson tried to up the ante this week. "Without change," he said, "Rising costs will drive government spending to unprecedented levels, consume nearly all projected federal revenues, and threaten America's future prosperity." Now, I know we're all worried about important sounding things that none of us understand, like CDO's, SIV's, and Credit Default Swaps, but did you hear what our Treasury Secretary just said? "Rising costs will ... consume nearly all projected federal revenues ..." Translation: Every single tax dollar that is sent to Washington will be used to pay for just these two programs. That means no money is left for anything else. Nothing. No Department of Defense or Homeland Security, no Department of Energy, no Department of Justice, no Environmental Protection Agency, no Internal Revenue Service. Actually, knowing our government, they'd probably keep the IRS going somehow.

It seems pretty clear that Social Security is going to go under and it is threatening to drag the entire U.S. economy down with it. Either we need to seriously reform it (perhaps personal, private retirement accounts) or do away with it altogether by phasing it out.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

The $53 Trillion Asteroid
Glenn Beck
CNN.com
March 14, 2008

La Raza And The Anti-Defamation League Push For Censorship

It always amazes me how leftist groups claim to be fanatically committed to freedom (e.g. the ACLU) and yet they actively engage in activities specifically designed to curtail the freedom of others. We already know how the ACLU has been on an anti-Christian Crusade for the past several years and we know how that same ACLU works to silence the Boy Scouts while trying to give terrorists a louder voice.

But they are not alone.

The radical Hispanic group La Raza along with the Anti-Defamation League have been on a massive campaign to silence anyone who speaks out against illegal immigration. According to Roy Beck at NumbersUSA:

Led by the National Council of La Raza and the Anti-Defamation League, the open-borders groups have started a concerted campaign to persuade Cable TV executives to either bar me and our Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks from their shows, or to always introduce us as representing an "extremist" organization with ties to hate and racist groups. Their characterization of NumbersUSA and our members is without any connection to reality, facts or even common decency. But if all of us remain silent in the face of this campaign of character assassination, we might indeed be silenced on TV and beyond.

And more specific targets include Lou Dobbs of CNN, Pat Buchanan of MSNBC, Glenn Beck of Headline News and Sean Hannity of Fox.

You can access an Associated Press article about it here:

Group: Immigration Talks Rouse Hate
Associated Press via USA Today
February 1, 2008

Knowing how left-leaning most news networks are, it is not a question of if they will cave in but a question of when.

So, what can we do? We can notify the heads of the various networks that we will not be pleased if they give in to the propaganda of groups such as La Raza and ADL. You can contact them thus:

CNN Jim Walton President CNN Worldwide Atlanta, GA Email: jim.walton@turner.com Jonathan Klein President CNN U.S. New York, NY Email: jonathan.klein@cnn.com Richard Davis Executive Vice President of News Standards and Practices Atlanta, GA Email rick.davis@turner.com Viewer Response Line/Comments Call 212-275-7800 ask for Viewer Response Line FOX NEWS Roger Ailes Chairman and CEO New York, NY Email roger.ailes@foxnews.com Bill Shine Senior Vice President Programming New York, NY Email bill.shine@foxnews.com Brian Lewis Executive Vice President Corporate Communications New York, NY Email brian.lewis@foxnews.com Public Feedback Yourcomments@foxnews.com MSNBC Phil Griffin Senior Vice President of News New York, NY Email phil.griffin@nbc.com

And Roy Beck reminds us:

Please remember that these executives are not our enemies. Although we may not always agree with their balance in covering immigration, these three cables have been far more open than broadcast TV and the nation's newspapers to allowing the majority of Americans' concerns about immigration to be expressed. The La Raza Censorship Campaign is telling these executives that if they allow leaders from FAIR, the Minutemen, ALIPAC, or if they allow Rosemary and me, to continue to express our views on TV, the executives will be inculcating "good people" to hate all immigrants. The La Raza website says it goes beyond the bounds of free speech to say that our nation's immigration policies threaten our communities and our values. I say that statement itself threatens the values of our nation. Let these executives know that you know about the effort at censorship and that you back them 100% in keeping the immigration forum open to all sides -- including the open-borders people who want to censor us.

You can access the NumbersUSA website here:

NumbersUSA