Glenn Beck and the Death of Free Speech

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Fox News has aired several interviews with Daily Caller editors and reporters on the influence of Media Matters, the Soros-funded left-wing attack machine. A series of articles in The Daily Caller sheds new light on the operations of the group, which masquerades as a non-profit but has partisan political ties to the Obama White House and the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, the interviews failed to touch on the most visible example of Media Matters working its will on the media—the sacking of Glenn Beck from Fox News.

One can imagine that this is a sensitive topic at Fox News.

It is even more sensitive in view of what News Corporation, the parent of Fox News, is doing to its staff at the British newspaper, The Sun. As part of an internal investigation of phone-hacking and bribery, News Corporation voluntarily turned over information to police authorities.

Sun associate editor Trevor Kavanagh reports that “30 journalists have been needlessly dragged from their beds in dawn raids, arrested and held in police cells while their homes are ransacked.” He said journalists were being treated like members of a criminal gang and that freedom of the press was in danger.

If News Corporation chief Rupert Murdoch would turn over his own journalists to authorities in Britain, why wouldn’t he sack Glenn Beck in response to an orchestrated campaign from George Soros and his operatives at Media Matters?

Read More at newswithviews.com By Cliff Kincaid, newswithviews.com

Rules for fools

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IN 1941 Franklin Roosevelt added two new items to America’s ancestral freedoms of speech and worship: freedom from fear and freedom from want. Today’s politicians offer a far more generous menu: freedom from unlicensed hair-cutters, freedom from cowboy flower-arrangers and, most important of all, freedom from rogue interior designers. What is the point of enjoying freedom from fear or want, after all, if you cannot enjoy freedom from poorly co-ordinated colour schemes?

In the 1950s, when organisation man ruled, fewer than 5% of American workers needed licences. Today, after three decades of deregulation, the figure is almost 30%. Add to that people who are preparing to obtain a licence or whose jobs involve some form of certification and the share is 38%. Other rich countries impose far fewer fetters than the land of the free. In Britain only 13% of workers need licences (though that has doubled in 12 years).

Some occupations clearly need to be licensed. Nobody wants to unleash amateur doctors and dentists on the public, or untrained tattoo artists for that matter. But, as the Wall Street Journal has doggedly pointed out, America’s Licence Raj has extended its tentacles into occupations that pose no plausible threat to health or safety—occupations, moreover, that are governed by considerations of taste rather than anything that can be objectively measured by licensing authorities. The list of jobs that require licences in some states already sounds like something from Monty Python—florists, handymen, wrestlers, tour guides, frozen-dessert sellers, firework operatives, second-hand booksellers and, of course, interior designers—but it will become sillier still if ambitious cat-groomers and dog-walkers get their way.

Getting a licence can be time-consuming. Want to become a barber in California? That will require studying the art of cutting and blow-drying for almost a year. Want to work in the wig trade in Texas? You will need to take 300 hours of classes and pass both written and practical exams. Alabama obliges manicurists to sit through 750 hours of instruction before taking a practical exam. Florida will not let you work as an interior designer unless you complete a four-year university degree and a two-year apprenticeship and pass a two-day examination.

America’s Licence Raj crushes would-be entrepreneurs. Consider three people who come from very different states and occupations. Jestina Clayton is an African hair-braider with 23 years of experience. But the Utah Barber, Cosmetologist/Barber, Esthetician, Electrologist and Nail Technician Licensing Board told her that she cannot practise her craft unless she first obtains a licence—which means spending up to $18,000 on 2,000 hours of study, none of it devoted to African hair-braiding.

Read More at The Economist Schumpeter, The Economist

Obama giving away Alaska’s oil rich islands to Russia

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Author’s note:  This is not a new issue.  In fact the Bush & Clinton administrations are directly at fault for the same inaction. A maritime agreement negotiated by the US State Department set the Russian boundary on the other side of the disputed islands, but no treaty has ratified this action.  Consequently, it is within the President’s power stop this giveaway.  The Alaska delegation’s failure to put pressure on the Administration is inexplicable. State Department Watch, an organization that assisted with this article, has confronted each administration & is currently confronting the Obama administration – and has been met by silence. I’m hoping this piece will help reinvigorate efforts to stop this handover.

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The Obama administration, despite the nation’s economic woes, effectively killed the job-producing Keystone Pipeline last month. The Arab Spring is turning the oil production of Libya and other Arab nations over to the Muslim Brotherhood. Iraq is distancing itself from the U.S. And everyone recognizes that Iran, whose crude supplies are critical to the European economy, will do anything it can to frustrate America’s strategic interests. In the face of all of this, Obama insists on cutting back U.S. oil potential with outrageous restrictions.

Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.

The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake.

The State Department has undertaken the giveaway in the guise of a maritime boundary agreement between Alaska and Siberia. Astoundingly, our federal government itself drew the line to put these seven Alaskan islands on the Russian side. But as an executive agreement, it could be reversed with the stroke of a pen by President Obama or Secretary Clinton.

The agreement was negotiated in total secrecy. The state of Alaska was not allowed to participate in the negotiations, nor was the public given any opportunity for comment. This is despite the fact the Alaska Legislature has passed resolutions of opposition – but the State Department doesn’t seem to care.

Read more at WND.com HERE.

Sarah Palin Revisited

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I attended CPAC again this past weekend, and there is no question who stole the show: Sarah Palin brought the house down. Her reception was far and above even the Presidential field in attendance of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. I happened to be innocently walking through the lobby of the Marriott Wardsman in Washingtion, DC, where the event took place, and saw a large scrum forming to my front. I wondered what in the world was causing the frenzy, and ever-growing crowd: Sarah Palin, of course. CPAC also included a screening of the political documentary Undefeated, which chronicles her rise to political power in Alaska, her fall from the auspicious heights of America’s most popular governor and the Wonder Woman of the 2008 GOP Convention, and her phoenix-like resurrection during the 2010 mid-term elections and beyond.

I had the opportunity to meet the former Governor, while I was working on the Joe Miller for U.S. Senate campaign in the Last Frontier in 2010, and I have to say I was impressed. I guess I had a mixed view that had been formed, in part, by the media coverage of her during the 2008 Presidential campaign. My takeaway prior to meeting her (and something I’d heard from several others) was she’s right on the issues and has wonderful enthusiasm for the cause, but lacks the gravitas, experience, and depth of knowledge of the issues to effectively govern. What my time in Alaska, as well as seeing her incredible influence in 2010 election cycle, and now all reaffirmed at CPAC is that what she does have is the ability to connect with people and influence them to act. In this noisy age in which we live, that talent/gift is not something I’ve seen since Ronald Reagan occupied the White House.

During her CPAC address, she demonstrated the right combination of raw enthusiasm and righteous indignation that made her 2008 GOP Convention speech so compelling. Addresses before large crowds of conservative voters are clearly her strength. The line she delivered that brought the audience to its feet with the longest sustained applause was, “The Tea Party rose up because Americans woke up…We aren’t red Americans, we’re not blue Americans. We’re Red, White, and Blue and President Obama we’re through with you!” Another potent one-liner, “This government isn’t too big to fail. It’s too big to succeed.” That is the Tea Party encapsulated in a sentence and that is her gift: the ability to articulate what the crowd is thinking, and do it in a way that engenders an emotional response. Of course that emotion gets stirred both ways. A few minutes into the address, a handful of Occupy protestors started sounding off and were quickly drowned out by the crowd, and Sarah with joining in, “USA, USA..” The people then switched to, “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah…” Security escorted the protestors and a gaggle of reporters and photographers right in front of me, and in fact a reporter fell right on my feet.

My other Sarah Palin moment at CPAC was watching the documentary Undefeated, which was like seeing a prequel to my experience on the Joe Miller U.S. Senate campaign in the Great White North. Many of the same actors in the media, government and the Party leadership were still in place. I was given a front row seat to how character assassination works, Alaskan-style. What Palin faced in the months following her return to the 49th state after the 2008 campaign were a series of ethics complaints, which she had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of her family’s money (and they were not wealthy) and hundreds of staff hours defending against. Undefeated relates how the ethics complaints would often make front page news and lead stories on the evening news; and when she was cleared of each complaint, interestingly it never seemed nearly as newsworthy. The accusation is more exciting and titillating than the truth.

We experienced this in spades on the Miller campaign with many media outlets chomping at the bit to force us to deny whatever accusation this or that blog put out. The most astounding incident of all involving the media, was a producer from the Anchorage CBS news affiliate accidentally leaving a voice message on my phone literally plotting how they could manufacture an incident at a Sarah Palin rally for Joe, as well as the need to look for a child molester among Joe’s campaign staff. Palin talked about the incident on Fox News Sunday. By-the-way, the anchor for that affiliate was hired by Lisa Murkowski, Joe’s opponent, as her Communications Director a few months after the election. 🙂

I could go on-and-on. The not too former news director and anchor for the Anchorage – Juneau NBC affiliate was a paid media consultant for the Murkowski campaign. That affiliate saw fit to run a “bio piece” 3 days before the election with the brand new false accusation that Joe Miller may have committed “felonious” acts over two-and-a-half years earlier while working as a part-time Fairbanks borough attorney. (Just this week, the Borough Attorney, when forced to testify under oath in litigation stemming from these false allegations, conceded that Joe had committed absolutely no such criminal acts.) Interestingly, this new accusation came after Miller had weathered a tremendous storm of negative press about the most manufactured and sensationalized topics one can imagine and he was starting to see a rise again in the polls. Many Alaskans were beginning to see through the dust cloud created by certain members of the press and the political establishment and realize these people were trying to bamboozle them about Miller, who had served his nation and state with distinction, both as an officer in war and as a state and federal magistrate judge in peace.. Joe ultimately was not able to overcome these negative forces and came up short by a few percentage points in 2010.

Less than one year after her loss in the 2008 Presidential race, Sarah Palin stepped down as Alaska’s governor amidst the same sort of media/political establishment toxic cocktail. Many seemed to think that was the end of her. Ah, but then came SarahPAC and her incredible success endorsing winning candidates in the 2010 election cycle. Playing off the Tina Fey jab during the 2008 Presidential campaign, Palin quipped during the spring of 2010, “I can see November from my house.” Based on the reception she received at CPAC, I think she can see this November too, and wield just as much influence over its outcome.

Follow Joe Miller at Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Detroit News poll: Rick Santorum leads Mitt Romney in Michigan

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Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has a slim lead over Mitt Romney, an indication the Michigan native son has yet to convince state voters he should be the Republican nominee for president, a Detroit News poll shows.

Santorum leads Romney 34 percent to 30.4 percent among likely Republican primary voters, but the gap is within the margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had support from 11.6 percent of respondents, former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul had 8.9 percent and 12.4 percent was undecided.

Despite Romney’s win here in 2008 and the built-in advantages of name recognition and familiarity, party regulars appear to have doubts about his conservative credentials and the worth of his Michigan ties. It may cost him the dominant primary victory many expected.

Greg Rotter, an attorney and Santorum supporter from Indian River, said: “Is (Romney) saying things to get elected?”

Read More at Detroit News By Mike Wilkinson, Detroit News

Video: “Romney Is An Echo, Not A Choice”

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Libertarian commentator Nick Gillespie from Reason Magazine appeared earlier this week on the final episode of Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Fox Business Network program “Freedom Watch” to discuss the 2012 presidential race.

Foreclosures on the Rise Again

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After a year-long reprieve from rising foreclosures, the numbers are going up again.

One in every 624 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in January, up 3 percent from the previous month, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. Foreclosure activity froze in many states in 2011, due to processing delays after fraud, or so-called “Robo-signing,” were uncovered in the fall of 2010. The thaw is now on.

“We expect the pattern of increasing foreclosures to continue in the coming months, especially given the finalized mortgage and foreclosure settlement reached in early February between 49 state attorneys general and five of the nation’s largest lenders,” said RealtyTrac’s CEO Brandon Moore in a written release. “Foreclosure activity increased on a year-over-year basis for the first time in more than 12 months in Florida, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania, following a pattern we saw in late 2011 in states such as California, Arizona and Massachusetts.”

While states that do not require a judge to preside over foreclosure proceedings, like California, saw a jump in filings toward the end of last year, judicial states have all but stalled. That will now change, thanks to the $26 billion dollar government-lender/servicer settlement. There will still be some delays on individual state levels, but the wheels are turning again, and that means more bank repossessions and more foreclosed properties heading to the re-sale market.

Bank repossessions, the final stage of the foreclosure process, increased at least 30 percent year-over-year in several states, including Massachusetts, which saw a 75 percent spike. Bank-owned or REO (real estate owned) activity hit a 16-month high in Illinois and a 15-month high in Indiana. Default notices, the first stage of foreclosure, were flat nationally in January, but spiked in judicial states, like Connecticut and Pennsylvania (up 112 percent) and even in non-judicial states like Maryland (up 100 percent).

Read More at CNBC By Diana Olick, CNBC

Megadeth frontman backs Rick Santorum

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Dave Mustaine, leader of the heavy metal band Megadeth, is ready to rock out for Rick Santorum.

“Earlier in the election, I was completely oblivious as to who Rick Santorum was, but when the dude went home to be with his daughter when she was sick, that was very commendable,” Mustaine recently told MusicRadar.com. “… You know, I think Santorum has some presidential qualities, and I’m hoping that if it does come down to it, we’ll see a Republican in the White House… and that it’s Rick Santorum.”

Weighing in on the rest of the field, Mustaine called Newt Gingrich an “angry little man” and said Ron Paul will “make total sense for a while, and then he’ll say something so way out that it negates everything else.”

As for Mitt Romney, the rocker said, “I’ve got to tell you, I was floored the other day to see that Mitt Romney’s five boys have a $100 million trust fund. Where does a guy make that much money? So there’s some questions there.”

Still, Mustaine would pick any of the GOP candidates over President Barack Obama.

Read More at Politico By Caitlin McDevitt, Politico

How did Paul Krugman get it so Wrong?

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Many friends and colleagues have asked me what I think of Paul Krugman’s New York Times Magazine article, “How did Economists get it so wrong?”

Most of all, it’s sad. Imagine this weren’t economics for a moment. Imagine this were a respected scientist turned popular writer, who says, most basically, that everything everyone has done in his field since the mid 1960s is a complete waste of time. Everything that fills its academic journals, is taught in its PhD programs, presented at its conferences, summarized in its graduate textbooks, and rewarded with the accolades a profession can bestow, including multiple Nobel prizes, is totally wrong. Instead, he calls for a return to the eternal verities of a rather convoluted book written in the 1930s, as taught to our author in his undergraduate introductory courses. If a scientist, he might be an AIDS-HIV disbeliever, a creationist, a stalwart that maybe continents don’t move after all.

It gets worse. Krugman hints at dark conspiracies, claiming “dissenters are marginalized.” Most of the article is just a calumnious personal attack on an ever-growing enemies list, which now includes “new Keynesians” such as Olivier Blanchard and Greg Mankiw. Rather than source professional writing, he plays gotcha with out-of-context second-hand quotes from media interviews. He makes stuff up, boldly putting words in people’s mouths that run contrary to their written opinions. Even this isn’t enough: he adds cartoons to try to make his “enemies” look silly, and puts them in false and embarrassing situations. He accuses us of adopting ideas for pay, selling out for “sabbaticals at the Hoover institution” and fat “Wall street paychecks.” It sounds a bit paranoid.

It’s annoying to the victims, but we’re big boys and girls. It’s a disservice to New York Times readers. They depend on Krugman to read real academic literature and digest it, and they get this attack instead. And it’s ineffective. Any astute reader knows that personal attacks and innuendo mean the author has run out of ideas.

That’s the biggest and saddest news of this piece: Paul Krugman has no interesting ideas whatsoever about what caused our current financial and economic problems, what policies might have prevented it, or what might help us in the future, and he has no contact with people who do. “Irrationality” and advice to spend like a drunken sailor are pretty superficial compared to all the fascinating things economists are writing about it these days.

Read More By John H. Cochrane

“Reckless lunacy”: In latest anti-American move, Obama considers cutting nuke stockpile to 300

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Congressional Republicans on Wednesday vowed to block the Obama administration from sharply cutting the U.S. nuclear force, calling potential reductions of as much as 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons “reckless lunacy.”

Pointing to the growing number of trouble spots, from Iran to Syria to Egypt, members of the House Armed Services Committee said any significant cuts would undermine the U.S. ability to deter aggression. The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the administration is weighing several options for new reductions from the current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee that no decision has been made and maintaining the current level is one of the options. But that did little to assuage GOP lawmakers.

“I just want to go on record as saying that there are many of us that are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that this preposterous notion does not gain any real traction,” said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.

The most modest option under discussion would return the United States to a level not seen in more than half a century, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. pushed ahead in a Cold War nuclear arms race. The administration is weighing at least three options for lower total numbers, cutting to around 1,000 to 1,100, 700 to 800, or 300 to 400.

Read more HERE at Yahoo.com.

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