Yearly Archives: 2012

Timeline of Newt’s affairs

Here is the timeline of Newt’s affairs from the Huffington Post article dated 7-11-11:

On Wednesday, Newt Gingrich is expected to formally announce he’ll be running for President in the 2012 election. The former Speaker of the House, whose past infidelities and messy divorces have long been fixtures in the press, is hardly the only politician with a complicated marital history (there’s also potential running-mates Buddy Roemer, Donald Trump, and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels). Still, framing his past to appeal to conservative voters will be a challenge. Here, a primer on Gingrich’s relationship history.

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Newt Gingrich met his first wife, Jackie Battley, while he was still in high school. Battley was his geometry teacher, and seven years his senior. (According to Gingrich’s second wife Marianne Ginther, the age difference was actually nine years–Gingrich was 16 when the student-teacher courtship began). Their secret relationship included nighttime dalliances in the back of a car. The pair married in 1962, and had two children before splitting in February 1980. According to Esquire, Gingrich served Battley with divorce papers while she was in the hospital recovering from uterine cancer.During Gingrich’s unsuccessful congressional campaigns in 1974 and 1976, “it was common knowledge that Newt was involved with other women during his marriage to Jackie. Maybe not on the level of John Kennedy. But he had girlfriends — some serious, some trivial,” his former campaign scheduler told Vanity Fair in 1995. A woman named Anne Manning admitted to having a relationship with Gingrich during his 1976 campaign. “We had oral sex,” she said. “He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, ‘I never slept with her.'”

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
During Gingrich and Ginther’s divorce proceedings, congressional aide Calista Bisek (above)–23 years Gingrich’s junior–admitted to having a six-year affair with the former congressman. Bisek and Gingrich were regularly seen having breakfast together at the Supreme Court cafeteria throughout the 1990s, though their affair wasn’t outed until 1999. At the time, Gingrich had publicly condemned former President Clinton’s infidelities with Monica Lewinsky, while discreetly carrying on an affair of his own. According to Ginther, “He’d already asked [Bisek] to marry him before he asked me for a divorce.” Gingrich and Bisek married in August 2000.

 
 
 
 
 
Newt Gingrich met his first wife, Jackie Battley, while he was still in high school. Battley was his geometry teacher, and seven years his senior. (According to Gingrich’s second wife Marianne Ginther, the age difference was actually nine years–Gingrich was 16 when the student-teacher courtship began). Their secret relationship included nighttime dalliances in the back of a car. The pair married in 1962, and had two children before splitting in February 1980. According to Esquire, Gingrich served Battley with divorce papers while she was in the hospital recovering from uterine cancer.
 
When questioned about his multiple marriages in March 2011, Gingrich admitted to Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody that he had done “things that were wrong” during his married life. “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” Gingrich said. “And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them…I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness.” Gingrich converted to Catholicism in March 2009, in part due to his third wife’s faith and Mass attendance. Along with his conversion, he formally requested that the Catholic Church nullify his marriage to Ginther.
Related posts:

Timeline of Newt’s affairs

Here is the timeline of Newt’s affairs from the Huffington Post article dated 7-11-11: On Wednesday, Newt Gingrich is expected to formally announce he’ll be running for President in the 2012 election. The former Speaker of the House, whose past infidelities and messy divorces have long been fixtures in the press, is hardly the only […]

White House interns again?

Bill Clinton said he always wanted to be like JFK. Earlier I posted about the recent claim of a White House intern who claimed to have a 18 month affair with JFK. Now I wanted to take a look back at the scandal in 1998 and I have included some info on Newt’s misdeeds and […]

Picture of Mimi Alford who claims to have had 18 month affair with JFK

The issue of White House interns has come up before. One of the late night shows commented that Newt knew exacting what he was going to do on the first day as president: “Rehire Monica Lewinsky!!!” I have talked about this issue before and have linked several related articles below. There are several articles about […]

 

Newt goes to church

  Newt makes his way to church on Sunday. By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune Published: January 29, 2012 Updated: January 29, 2012 – 3:03 PM » 97 Comments | Post a Comment TAMPA –Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gringrich sat in an aisle seat near the front of Idlewild Baptist Church Sunday morning, listening […]

Why conservatives back Gingrich I will never know.

Newt is a poor excuse for a candidate and I have written those words before. Why so many Christians are supporting him is shocking to me. Tim LaHaye and Don Wildmon were best friends with the late Adrian Rogers of Memphis. In a very well known sermon Rogers noted these verses concerning our national leaders: “It […]

Newt is a poor excuse for a candidate

I used to like Newt back in the 1990′s but a lot has changed since then. Take a look at this fine article from the Cato Institute: Gingrich Rise Is Triumph of Style over Substance by Gene Healy   Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of The Cult […]

 

Adrian Rogers’ sermon on Clinton in 98 applies to Newt in 2012

It pays to remember history. Today I am going to go through some of it and give an outline and quotes from the great Southern Baptist leader Adrian Rogers (1931-2005). Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times started this morning off with some comedy: From pro golfer John Daly’s Twitter account following last night’s Republican debate, […]

 

Newt and Clinton:Both were Southern Baptists living hypocritcal lives

EXCLUSIVE: Ron Paul Has A Secret Plan To Win America   I used to go to the Immanuel Baptist Church (Clinton was member there) Luncheon every week in Little Rock and in 1995 I visited the large Southern Baptist Church in the Atlanta where Newt was a member. Both men evidently shared some hypocritical habits […]

 

 

 

White House interns again?

Bill Clinton said he always wanted to be like JFK.

Earlier I posted about the recent claim of a White House intern who claimed to have a 18 month affair with JFK. Now I wanted to take a look back at the scandal in 1998 and I have included some info on Newt’s misdeeds and some links. Taken from Wikipedia:

The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998 from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 25-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial.[1]

In 1995, Monica Lewinsky, a graduate of Lewis & Clark College, was hired to work as an intern at the White House during Clinton’s first term, and began a personal relationship with him, the details of which she later confided to her friend and Defense department co-worker Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded their telephone conversations.[2] When Tripp discovered in January 1998 that Lewinsky had signed an affidavit in the Paula Jones case denying a relationship with Clinton, she delivered the tapes to Kenneth Starr, the Independent Counsel who was investigating Clinton on other matters, including the Whitewater scandal, the White House FBI files controversy, and the White House travel office controversy. During the grand jury testimony Clinton’s responses were guarded, and he argued, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”.[3]

The wide reporting of the scandal led to criticism of the press for over-coverage.[4][5][6] The scandal is sometimes referred to as “Monicagate“,[7]Lewinskygate“,[8]Tailgate“,[9]Sexgate“,[10] and “Zippergate“,[10] following the “gate” nickname construction that has been popular since the Watergate scandal.

Allegations of sexual contact

Lewinsky alleged to have had nine sexual encounters with Bill Clinton:

  1. November 15, 1995
  2. November 17, 1995
  3. December 31, 1995
  4. January 7, 1996
  5. January 21, 1996
  6. February 4, 1996
  7. March 31, 1996
  8. February 28, 1997
  9. March 29, 1997

According to her published schedule, First Lady Hillary Clinton was at the White House for at least some portion of seven of these stated days.[11]

In April 1996, Lewinsky’s superiors relocated her job to the Pentagon because they felt that she was spending too much time around Clinton.[12] According to his autobiography, then-United Nations Ambassador Bill Richardson was asked by the White House in 1997 to interview Lewinsky for a job on his staff at the UN. Richardson did so, and offered her a position, which she declined.[13] The American Spectator alleged that Richardson knew more about the Lewinsky affair than he declared to the grand jury.[14]

Lewinsky confided in a coworker named Linda Tripp about her relationship with Clinton. Tripp convinced Lewinsky to save the gifts that Clinton had given her, and not to dry clean what would later be known as the “infamous blue dress”. Tripp reported these conversations to literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, who advised her to secretly record them,[15] which Tripp began doing in September 1997. Goldberg also urged Tripp to take the tapes to Kenneth Starr and bring them to the attention of people working on the Paula Jones case.[16] In the fall of 1997, Goldberg began speaking to reporters (notably Michael Isikoff of Newsweek) about the tapes.[17]

In January 1998, after Lewinsky had submitted an affidavit in the Paula Jones case denying any physical relationship with Clinton, she attempted to persuade Tripp to lie under oath in the Jones case. Instead, Tripp gave the tapes to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who was investigating the Whitewater controversy and other matters. Now armed with evidence of Lewinsky’s admission of a physical relationship with Clinton, he broadened the investigation to include Lewinsky and her possible perjury in the Jones case.

[edit] Denial and subsequent admission

News of the scandal first broke on January 17, 1998, on the Drudge Report website,[18] which reported that Newsweek editors were sitting on a story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff exposing the affair. The story broke in the mainstream press on January 21 in The Washington Post.[19] The story swirled for several days and, despite swift denials from Clinton, the clamor for answers from the White House grew louder. On January 26, President Clinton, standing with his wife, spoke at a White House press conference, and issued a forceful denial, which contained what would later become one of the best-known sound bites of his presidency:[20]

Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you.[21]

Pundits debated whether or not Clinton would address the allegations in his State of the Union Address. Ultimately, he chose not to mention them. Hillary Clinton stood by her husband throughout the scandal. On January 27, in an appearance on NBC‘s Today she famously said, “The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”

For the next several months and through the summer, the media debated whether or not an affair had occurred and whether or not Clinton had lied or obstructed justice, but nothing could be definitively established beyond the taped recordings because Lewinsky was unwilling to discuss the affair or testify about it. On July 28, 1998, a substantial delay after the public break of the scandal, Lewinsky received transactional immunity in exchange for grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with Clinton. She also turned over a semen-stained blue dress (which Linda Tripp had encouraged her to save without dry cleaning) to the Starr investigators, thereby providing unambiguous DNA evidence that could prove the relationship despite Clinton’s official denials.[22]

Clinton admitted in taped grand jury testimony on August 17, 1998, that he had had an “improper physical relationship” with Lewinsky. That evening he gave a nationally televised statement admitting his relationship with Lewinsky which was “not appropriate”.[23]

[edit] Perjury charges

In his deposition for the Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Lewinsky. Based on the evidence provided by Tripp, a blue dress with Clinton’s semen, Starr concluded that this sworn testimony was false and perjurious.

During the deposition, Clinton was asked “Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1.” The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the agreed definition. Afterwards, based on the definition created by the Independent Counsel’s Office, Clinton answered “I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.” Clinton later stated, “I thought the definition included any activity by [me], where [I] was the actor and came in contact with those parts of the bodies” which had been explicitly listed (and “with an intent to gratify or arouse the sexual desire of any person”). In other words, Clinton denied that he had ever contacted Lewinsky’s “genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks”, and effectively claimed that the agreed-upon definition of “sexual relations” included giving oral sex but excluded receiving oral sex.[24]

Two months after the Senate failed to convict him, President Clinton was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan D. Webber Wright.[25] His license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years and later by the United States Supreme Court.[26] He was also fined $90,000 for giving false testimony.[27]

Newt Gingrich, Representative (R-GA) and leader of the Republican Revolution of 1994,[42] resigned from the House after admitting in 1998 to having had an affair with his intern while he was married to his second wife, and at the same time he was leading the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury regarding an affair with his intern Monica Lewinsky.[43][44]

Related posts:

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Timeline of Newt’s affairs

Here is the timeline of Newt’s affairs from the Huffington Post article dated 7-11-11: On Wednesday, Newt Gingrich is expected to formally announce he’ll be running for President in the 2012 election. The former Speaker of the House, whose past infidelities and messy divorces have long been fixtures in the press, is hardly the only […]

White House interns again?

Bill Clinton said he always wanted to be like JFK. Earlier I posted about the recent claim of a White House intern who claimed to have a 18 month affair with JFK. Now I wanted to take a look back at the scandal in 1998 and I have included some info on Newt’s misdeeds and […]

Picture of Mimi Alford who claims to have had 18 month affair with JFK

The issue of White House interns has come up before. One of the late night shows commented that Newt knew exacting what he was going to do on the first day as president: “Rehire Monica Lewinsky!!!” I have talked about this issue before and have linked several related articles below. There are several articles about […]

 

Newt goes to church

  Newt makes his way to church on Sunday. By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune Published: January 29, 2012 Updated: January 29, 2012 – 3:03 PM » 97 Comments | Post a Comment TAMPA –Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gringrich sat in an aisle seat near the front of Idlewild Baptist Church Sunday morning, listening […]

Why conservatives back Gingrich I will never know.

Newt is a poor excuse for a candidate and I have written those words before. Why so many Christians are supporting him is shocking to me. Tim LaHaye and Don Wildmon were best friends with the late Adrian Rogers of Memphis. In a very well known sermon Rogers noted these verses concerning our national leaders: “It […]

Newt is a poor excuse for a candidate

I used to like Newt back in the 1990′s but a lot has changed since then. Take a look at this fine article from the Cato Institute: Gingrich Rise Is Triumph of Style over Substance by Gene Healy   Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of The Cult […]

Adrian Rogers’ sermon on Clinton in 98 applies to Newt in 2012

It pays to remember history. Today I am going to go through some of it and give an outline and quotes from the great Southern Baptist leader Adrian Rogers (1931-2005). Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times started this morning off with some comedy: From pro golfer John Daly’s Twitter account following last night’s Republican debate, […]

Newt and Clinton:Both were Southern Baptists living hypocritcal lives

EXCLUSIVE: Ron Paul Has A Secret Plan To Win America   I used to go to the Immanuel Baptist Church (Clinton was member there) Luncheon every week in Little Rock and in 1995 I visited the large Southern Baptist Church in the Atlanta where Newt was a member. Both men evidently shared some hypocritical habits […]

 

 

Picture of Mimi Alford who claims to have had 18 month affair with JFK

The issue of White House interns has come up before. One of the late night shows commented that Newt knew exacting what he was going to do on the first day as president: “Rehire Monica Lewinsky!!!” I have talked about this issue before and have linked several related articles below.

There are several articles about Mimi Alford but the best one I have found is linked here. Below is a picture of her from the early 60’s and another article below. 

Mimi Beardsley Alford PHOTO

mimi alford 1 Mimi Alford photos

PHOTO! Here is a picture of a young Mimi Beardsley who is now writing about her alleged affair with John F Kennedy Jr. Mimi Beardsley Alford is authoring a book about her alleged affair with the then president, says her publisher Saturday.

The then White House intern had an affair while serving her internship at the White House, claims the book. Alford will reveal details four decades in her new memoir to hit shelves from Random House, either this year or in 2010.

Details of her secrets came out from the Daily News six years ago, reportedly finding her identity then as Marion Fahnestock. She was since divorced and remarried.

She alleges the affair that “involved … a sexual relationship” with Kennedy was between June 1962 to November 1963. She was 19 at the time.

No date for release is reportedly set .

Related posts:

Timeline of Newt’s affairs

Here is the timeline of Newt’s affairs from the Huffington Post article dated 7-11-11: On Wednesday, Newt Gingrich is expected to formally announce he’ll be running for President in the 2012 election. The former Speaker of the House, whose past infidelities and messy divorces have long been fixtures in the press, is hardly the only […]

White House interns again?

Bill Clinton said he always wanted to be like JFK. Earlier I posted about the recent claim of a White House intern who claimed to have a 18 month affair with JFK. Now I wanted to take a look back at the scandal in 1998 and I have included some info on Newt’s misdeeds and […]

Picture of Mimi Alford who claims to have had 18 month affair with JFK

The issue of White House interns has come up before. One of the late night shows commented that Newt knew exacting what he was going to do on the first day as president: “Rehire Monica Lewinsky!!!” I have talked about this issue before and have linked several related articles below. There are several articles about […]

 

Newt goes to church

  Newt makes his way to church on Sunday. By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune Published: January 29, 2012 Updated: January 29, 2012 – 3:03 PM » 97 Comments | Post a Comment TAMPA –Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gringrich sat in an aisle seat near the front of Idlewild Baptist Church Sunday morning, listening […]

Why conservatives back Gingrich I will never know.

Newt is a poor excuse for a candidate and I have written those words before. Why so many Christians are supporting him is shocking to me. Tim LaHaye and Don Wildmon were best friends with the late Adrian Rogers of Memphis. In a very well known sermon Rogers noted these verses concerning our national leaders: “It […]

Newt is a poor excuse for a candidate

I used to like Newt back in the 1990′s but a lot has changed since then. Take a look at this fine article from the Cato Institute: Gingrich Rise Is Triumph of Style over Substance by Gene Healy   Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of The Cult […]

Adrian Rogers’ sermon on Clinton in 98 applies to Newt in 2012

It pays to remember history. Today I am going to go through some of it and give an outline and quotes from the great Southern Baptist leader Adrian Rogers (1931-2005). Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times started this morning off with some comedy: From pro golfer John Daly’s Twitter account following last night’s Republican debate, […]

Newt and Clinton:Both were Southern Baptists living hypocritcal lives

EXCLUSIVE: Ron Paul Has A Secret Plan To Win America   I used to go to the Immanuel Baptist Church (Clinton was member there) Luncheon every week in Little Rock and in 1995 I visited the large Southern Baptist Church in the Atlanta where Newt was a member. Both men evidently shared some hypocritical habits […]

 

 

Federal Revenues by Source

Federal Revenues by Source

Most federal revenues come from individuals. Personal income taxes provide the largest portion of total tax revenues, though some of this is small-business income. Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes are the second-largest source.

PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL FEDERAL REVENUE (2010)

 
 
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Federal Revenues by Source

Source: Congressional Budget Office.

Chart 15 of 42

In Depth

  • Policy Papers for Researchers

  • Technical Notes

    The charts in this book are based primarily on data available as of March 2011 from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The charts using OMB data display the historical growth of the federal government to 2010 while the charts using CBO data display both historical and projected growth from as early as 1940 to 2084. Projections based on OMB data are taken from the White House Fiscal Year 2012 budget. The charts provide data on an annual basis except… Read More

  • Authors

    Emily GoffResearch Assistant
    Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy StudiesKathryn NixPolicy Analyst
    Center for Health Policy StudiesJohn FlemingSenior Data Graphics Editor

 
 

An open letter to President Obama (Part 1 of State of Union Speech 1-24-12)

President Obama’s state of the union speech Jan 24, 2012

Barack Obama  (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

Feb 6, 2012

President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

Obama’s Unwelcome Mat

by Mark A. Calabria

This article appeared in The New York Daily News on January 26, 2012.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama let us know that he will be “sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates.”

What he failed to tell us is that such a push would do nothing to turn around either the housing market or the broader economy. In fact, by continuing his trend of confusing redistribution of wealth with its creation, the effort will likely hurt both the economy and the housing market.

Let’s start with the impact on the economy at large. The logic is that when you lower mortgage rates for thousands of families, reducing their monthly payments, you thereby increase disposable income and spending. That spending then increases demand and helps turn around the economy.

In other words, it’s a no-cost stimulus.

Continued efforts to delay foreclosures only prolong the inevitable adjustment of the housing market.

The error in this logic is that it looks only at one side of the balance sheet. A mortgage is one person’s liability, but it is also another’s asset. Lowering rates may cut monthly payments, but it also drives down payments on mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Since you will have made mortgage investors poorer, they will, by the same logic, reduce their spending, lowering demand.

At best, the impact on spending will be zero. But then, that’s what you get when you redistribute income.

The President wants you to believe that even if he is taking from citizen A and giving to citizen B, the latter is more deserving. But for government-owned or guaranteed mortgages, about half of those outstanding, the taxpayer is the one taking the hit. Because homeowners are wealthier than taxpayers in general, the President’s proposed redistribution is regressive.

For the remainder, the investor is often a pension or mutual fund. Why retirees should pay to benefit younger homeowners is far from clear.

The President implies his plan is free because it will be paid for by a tax on the largest banks. But again, nothing is free; for every economic action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. The tax would reduce bank equity, thereby reducing new lending. In effect, it would punish potential borrowers by reducing the availability of credit while also increasing its costs, simply to benefit existing borrowers.

Not to mention: The rewriting of existing contracts will reduce the willingness of lenders to provide new mortgages, exactly at a time when we desperately need private capital flowing into the mortgage market.

A mass refinancing is also sold as a cure for the weak housing market. Those looking to refinance, however, are not in the market to either buy or sell a home. In fact, by lowering their mortgage rates, you will reduce their offering price next time they look to trade up, because if the buyer faces higher rates in the future, prices will be depressed to compensate for giving up their current low-rate mortgage.

In other words, this could reduce future home prices.

The fundamental problem facing our housing market is a glut of homes, coupled with weak demand. The President’s plan does not change these facts. In fact, by reducing the supply of new capital for mortgages, we run the risk of reducing the demand for housing, leading to further price declines.

Mark A. Calabria is director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute.

 

More by Mark A. Calabria

It is time for Washington to understand: Underwater borrowers are not victims. They borrowed money at a particular rate and are paying back at that rate. They knew going in that to refinance, they’d need equity. If said borrowers wanted to take advantage of interest rate declines, they could have gotten an adjustable-rate mortgage. Instead, those borrowers chose the certainty of a fixed rate.

They have what they selected. That’s something that cannot be said for the taxpayers who continue to pay for Washington’s meddling in the mortgage market.

Finally, the President also promises a new financial fraud unit to investigate lenders. Appointing New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to head it may be enough to earn his support for a settlement with the banks, but it will do little to help the housing market. In fact, by increasing litigation risk for lenders, the move is likely to further reduce the supply of mortgage credit.

Continued efforts to delay foreclosures only prolong the inevitable adjustment of the housing market. If lenders have committed crimes, then they should be prosecuted in open court, not subject to back-room shakedowns.

If we wish to turn around our housing market and broader economy, we must stop taking from Peter to pay Paul and disguising it as public policy.

___________

The main points of the article above from the Cato Institute is nothing is free and you always have to look at both sides of the balance sheet.

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Protectionism does not work

Do you think protectionism would help, in the long run, if we don’t implement pro-growth reforms?

Sometimes I wonder what are the motives of those who oppose free trade.

Eight Questions for Protectionists

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

When asked to pick my most frustrating issue, I could list things from my policy field such as class warfare or income redistribution.

But based on all the speeches and media interviews I do, which periodically venture into other areas, I suspect protectionism vs. free trade is the biggest challenge.

So I want to ask the protectionists (though anybody is free to provide feedback) how they would answer these simple questions.

1. Do you think politicians and bureaucrats should be able to tell you what you’re allowed to buy?

As Walter Williams has explained, this is a simple matter of freedom and liberty. If you want to give the political elite the authority to tell you whether you can buy foreign-produced goods, you have opened the door to endless mischief.

2. If trade barriers between nations are good, then shouldn’t we have trade barriers between states? Or cities?

This is a very straightforward challenge. If protectionism is good, then it shouldn’t be limited to national borders.

3. Why is it bad that foreigners use the dollars they obtain to invest in the American economy instead of buying products?

Little green pieces of paper have little value to foreign companies. They only accept those dollars in exchange for products because they intend to use them, either to buy American products or to invest in the U.S. economy. Indeed, a “capital surplus” is the flip side of a “trade deficit.” This generally is a positive sign for the American economy (though I freely admit this argument is weakened if foreigners use dollars to “invest” in federal government debt).

4. Do you think protectionism would be necessary if America did pro-growth reforms such as a lower corporate tax rate, less wasteful spending, and reduced red tape?

There are thousands of hard-working Americans that have lost jobs because of foreign competition. At some level, this is natural in a dynamic economy, much as candle makers lost jobs when the light bulb was invented. But oftentimes American producers can’t meet the challenge of foreign competition because of bad policy from Washington. When I think of ordinary Americans that have lost jobs, I direct my anger at the politicians in DC, not a foreign company or foreign workers.

5. Do you think protectionism would help, in the long run, if we don’t implement pro-growth reforms?

If we travel down the path of protectionism, politicians will use that as an excuse not to implement pro-growth reforms. This condemns America to a toxic combination of two bad policies – big government and trade distortions. This will destroy far more jobs and opportunity that foreign competition.

6. Do you recognize that, by creating the ability to offer special favors to selected industries, protectionism creates enormous opportunities for corruption?

Most protectionism in America is the result of organized interest groups and powerful unions trying to prop up inefficient practices. And they only achieve their goals by getting in bed with the Washington crowd in a process that is good for the corrupt nexus of interest groups-lobbyists-politicians-bureaucrats.

7. If you don’t like taxes, why would you like taxes on imports?

A tariff is nothing but a tax that politicians impose on selected products. This presumably makes protectionism inconsistent with the principles of low taxes and limited government.

8. Can you point to nations that have prospered with protectionism, particularly when compared to similar nations with free trade?

Some people will be tempted to say that the United States was a successful economy in the 1800s when tariffs financed a significant share of the federal government. That’s largely true, but the nation’s rising prosperity surely was due to the fact that we had no income tax, a tiny federal government, and very little regulation. And I can’t resist pointing out that the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff didn’t exactly lead to good results.

We also had internal free trade, as explained in this excellent short video on the benefits of free trade, narrated by Don Boudreaux of George Mason University and produced by theInstitute for Humane Studies.

Uploaded by  on Aug 31, 2011

According to Prof. Don Boudreaux, free trade is nothing more than a system of trade that treats foreign goods and services no differently than domestic goods and services. Protectionism, on the other hand, is a system of trade that discriminates against foreign goods and services in an attempt to favor domestic goods and services. In theory, free trade outperforms protectionism by bringing lower cost goods and services to consumers. In practice, the benefits of free trade can be seen in countries like America and Hong Kong. Both countries have a relatively high degree of free trade, and, as a consequence, have experienced an explosion of wealth.

________

Free Trade v. Protectionism

My closing argument is that people who generally favor economic freedom should ask themselves whether it’s legitimate or logical to make an exception in the case of foreign trade.

Danny Woodhead has found satisfaction in his Christian faith, Brady still looking for satisfaction despite 3 Super Bowl rings (Part 3)

Tom Brady “More than this…”

Uploaded by on Jan 22, 2008

EWC sermon illustration showing a clip from the 2005 Tom Brady 60 minutes interview.

To Download this video copy the URL to www.vixy.net

Below you will see several video clips. Evidently despite all the super bowl rings Brady is still looking for true satisfaction, and Danny Woodhead has already found it in a relationship with Jesus Christ (the article below indicates this.)

Tom Brady, the answer is Jesus Christ!

Uploaded by on Jan 28, 2008

Everyone needs Jesus, even Super Bowl champions. See the rest of Pastor Greg Laurie’s message “What Do You Live For?” at www.harvest.org.

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Tom Brady ESPN Interview

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Great article below that mentions Woodhand’s faith:

A Big Talent in a Small Package

By 
Published: February 1, 2012

INDIANAPOLIS — With the New England Patriots, “Rudy” doesn’t beg to get in the game.

Built for another position, cornerback or place-kicker, Danny Woodhead takes handoffs from Tom Brady, catches passes out of the backfield, returns kickoffs and allows Coach Bill Belichick yet another snicker at the expense of Rex Ryan.

Remember when Ryan and the Jets waived the 5-foot-maybe-8-inch, possibly 200-pound Woodhead in September 2010, after signing him as an undrafted free agent out of little Chadron State College two years earlier? It was then speculated that Belichick, master of reconnaissance, was merely interested in pumping Woodhead for information for that week’s showdown against the Jets.

Inactive that week, Woodhead proceeded to gain 926 yards in 14 games for the 2010 Patriots, was re-signed to a two-year contract and sat down for an interview Wednesday at the Patriots’ Super Bowl hotel to insist that he never once considered himself to be Belichick’s tool of subterfuge.

No more, at least, than he ever succumbed to the notion that his dream of a career in football was actually more of a fantasy.

Woodhead said he did not think that when he wasn’t offered a scholarship to play football for his beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers or from any other major program, or when he went undrafted after smashing N.C.A.A. rushing records, or when Ryan and the Jets cut him loose after 15 carries and 8 receptions during the 2009 season.

“People always ask me, ‘If you could change anything, what would it be?’ ” Woodhead said, his shaggy hair poking free from his wool hat. “I always say: ‘I wouldn’t change anything. It’s all been part of my journey.’ ”

Woodhead will not be the only undrafted player in Sunday’s Super Bowl rematch between the Patriots and the Giants. He will be far from the most accomplished, considering the breakout season that Victor Cruz has had for the Giants and the fact that Woodhead plays behind BenJarvus Green-Ellis in the New England backfield.

But every Super Bowl brings with it a name or two with a college next to it that makes us think, “He played where?” In Woodhead’s case, it was Chadron State, a small-town school of about 2,800 students in the northwestern corner of Nebraska.

“We got a lot of rural kids, off the ranch,” said Brad Smith, the athletic director at Chadron State, who recruited Woodhead out of North Platte (Neb.) High School, made him the program’s first full scholarship player and coached him in his freshman season.

Here is one place where the “Rudy” (of Notre Dame screen lore) simile fails to hold up: Woodhead may have been too small for major-college recruiters — much less N.F.L. scouts — but he was a superior athlete, a track and basketball star in high school, with enough hops to throw down a dunk.

“Went to one of his high school basketball games when I was recruiting him and if he scored 28 or 29 points, 20 of them were penetrating to the basket because the guys guarding him just couldn’t keep up,” Smith said in a telephone interview. “He was just too fast.”

However disappointed that Nebraska contacted him once and never called back, Woodhead chose Division II Chadron State not so much as a consolation prize but as an opportunity to reunite with his older brother, Ben, a wide receiver. In his first game, Woodhead ran for a 16-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown. He moved past two upperclassmen into the starting lineup by the following week.

“I didn’t even have to say anything to them, they approached me and said, ‘Coach, you’ve got to play this kid,’ ” Smith said. “That’s how obvious it was.”

Woodhead spent four years chewing up yardage in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference against the likes of Western New Mexico, Colorado School of Mines and Chadron’s intrastate rival, Nebraska-Kearney. There were few star perks, no glamorous bowl games and a lot of 10- to 12-hour bus rides. At least there was a pathway to the pros, walked by Don Beebe as a third-round pick (82nd over all) by the Buffalo Bills in 1989.

Beebe went on to play in six Super Bowls, winning one with Green Bay. Back in Chadron, they named the small football stadium after him. He, in turn, reached out when Woodhead was a senior, telling him, “I did it, so can you.”

“I don’t know if playing at a smaller school has motivated me more,” said Woodhead, who often cities his faith and the ability not to look back as he runs forward. “It was just the fact that I wanted to be the best I could be, big school or smaller school. Who knows what would have happened if I had gone to a bigger school?”

He might have had to beg some dismissive coach for a spare minute. If there was one true “Rudy” moment for Woodhead on the way to his first Super Bowl, it was early last season during a practice when Ivan Fears, the Patriots’ running backs coach, wanted to see what he was made of.

“We had the linebackers blitzing, and you could see he wanted to light them up, wanted the contact,” Fears said. “He’s a little guy with a big heart. If you say to him, ‘You can’t,’ he’s going to tell you, ‘How do you know?’ ”

Chances are, Belichick will know enough not to risk Woodhead’s having to protect Brady on obvious passing downs against the Giants’ oppressive rush, but he may well be of value in the Patriots’ hurry-up offense given his ability to catch and run.

First things first: Woodhead got a call from Smith in Chadron on Tuesday night, and his old mentor offered this advice.

“Look around this week, take it all in and keep it there,” he said. “You made it to the Super Bowl.”

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Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 133)

 

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

On May 11, 2011,  I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:

Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner.  I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.

Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself:

  • End low-priority programs that should never have been created in the first place, including:
  1. The Denali Commission (2004 spending: $56 million, discretionary);12
  2. The Conservation Reserve Program ($1,879 million, mandatory);13
  3. The Commission of Fine Arts ($8 million, discretionary);
  4. The Historic Whaling and Trading Partners Exchange Program ($9 million, discretionary);
  5. The Office of Navajo and Hopi Relocation ($14 million, discretionary);
  6. AmeriCorps ($324 million, discretionary);
  7. The National Endowment for the Humanities ($131 million, discretionary);
  8. Farm subsidies for wool, mohair, lentils, and chickpeas ($28 million, mandatory);
  9. The Marine Mammal Commission ($3 million, discretionary);
  10. The East−West Center ($20 million, discretionary);
  11. The Legal Services Corporation ($341 million, discretionary);
  12. The protectionist programs of the International Trade Administration ($364 million, discretionary);
  13. The Bureau of International Labor Affairs ($105 million, discretionary);
  14. The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science ($1 million, discretionary);
  15. The U.S. Institute of Peace ($17 million, discretionary);
  16. The Agriculture Department’s wood utilization research ($6 million, discretionary);
  17. The National Endowment for the Arts ($112 million, discretionary); and
  18. Most of the 945 federal advisory committees and commissions scattered across 52 agencies.14

This is how bad it is getting:

Entitlement Spending

Three Major Entitlements and Tax Revenues, 2000-2050

Should Steve Jobs have been ashamed of the sweatshops he used in China? (Part 2)

In the first post I included the liberal case against Steve Jobs concerning the “sweat shop” he used. Here I am just going to show the conservative view.  It is best done by this 9 minute video clip and transcript.

“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman)
Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman

Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day

FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market

Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians who lived here traded the 22 square miles of soggy Manhattan Island to the Dutch for $24.00 worth of cloth and trinkets. The newcomers founded a city, New Amsterdam at the edge of an empty continent. In the years that followed, it proved a magnet for millions of people from across the Atlantic; people who were driven by fear and poverty; who were attracted by the promise of freedom and plenty. They fanned out over the continent and built a new nation with their sweat, their enterprise and their vision of a better future.

For the first time in their lives, many were truly free to pursue their own objectives. That freedom released the human energies which created the United States. For the immigrants who were welcomed by this statue, America was truly a land of opportunity.

They poured ashore in their best clothes, eager and expectant, carrying what little they owned. They were poor, but they all had a great deal of hope. Once they arrived, they found, as my parents did, not an easy life, but a very hard life. But for many there were friends and relatives to help them get started __ to help them make a home, get a job, settle down in the new country. There were many rewards for hard work, enterprise and ability. Life was hard, but opportunity was real. There were few government programs to turn to and nobody expected them. But also, there were few rules and regulations. There were no licenses, no permits, no red tape to restrict them. They found in fact, a free market, and most of them thrived on it.

Many people still come to the United States driven by the same pressures and attracted by the same promise. You can find them in places like this. It’s China Town in New York, one of the centers of the garment industry __ a place where hundreds of thousands of newcomers have had their first taste of life in the new country. The people who live and work here are like the early settlers. They want to better their lot and they are prepared to work hard to do so.

Although I haven’t often been in factories like this, it’s all very familiar to me because this is exactly the same kind of a factory that my mother worked in when she came to this country for the first time at the age of 14, almost 90 years ago. And if there had not been factories like this here then at which she could have started to work and earn a little money, she wouldn’t have been able to come. And if I existed at all, I’d be a Russian or Hungarian today, instead of an American. Of course she didn’t stay here a long time, she stayed here while she learned the language, while she developed some feeling for the country, and gradually she was able to make a better life for herself.

Similarly, the people who are here now, they are like my mother. Most of the immigrants from the distant countries __ they came here because they liked it here better and had more opportunities. A place like this gives them a chance to get started. They are not going to stay here very long or forever. On the contrary, they and their children will make a better life for themselves as they take advantage of the opportunities that a free market provides to them.

The irony is that this place violates many of the standards that we now regard as every worker’s right. It is poorly ventilated, it is overcrowded, the workers accept less than union rate __ it breaks every rule in the book. But if it were closed down, who would benefit? Certainly not the people here. Their life may seem pretty tough compared to our own, but that is only because our parents or grandparents went through that stage for us. We have been able to start at a higher point.

Frank Visalli’s father was 12 years old when he arrived all alone in the United States. He had come from Sicily. That was 53 years ago. Frank is a successful dentist with a wife and family. They live in Lexington, Massachusetts. There is no doubt in Frank’s mind what freedom combined with opportunity meant to his father and then to him, or what his Italian grandparents would think if they could see how he lives now.

Frank Visalli: They would not believe what they would see __ that a person could immigrate from a small island and make such success out of their life because to them they were mostly related to the fields, working in the field as a peasant. My father came over, he made something for himself and then he tried to build a family structure. Whatever he did was for his family. It was for a better life for his family. And I can always remember him telling me that the number one thing in life is that you should get an education to become a professional person.

Friedman: The Visalli family, like all of us who live in the United States today, owe much to the climate of freedom we inherited from the founders of our country. The climate that gave full scope to the poor from other lands who came here and were able to make better lives for themselves and their children.

But in the past 50 years, we’ve been squandering that inheritance by allowing government to control more and more of our lives, instead of relying on ourselves. We need to rediscover the old truths that the immigrants knew in their bones; what economic freedom is and the role it plays in preserving personal freedom.

That’s why I came here to the South China Sea. It’s a place where there is an almost laboratory experiment in what happens when government is limited to its proper function and leaves people free to pursue their own objectives. If you want to see how the free market really works this is the place to come. Hong Kong, a place with hardly any natural resources. About the only one you can name is a great harbor, yet the absence of natural resources hasn’t prevented rapid economic development. Ships from all nations come here to trade because there are no duties, no tariffs on imports or exports. The power of the free market has enabled the industrious people of Hong Kong to transform what was once barren rock into one of the most thriving and successful places in Asia.

“Music Monday” Countdown of Coldplay’s best albums (part 2)

I think that Viva La Vida is their 4th best CD. It is balanced better than all of their albums. This CD had many songs that were very similar. Although this album has their only number one hit in the US, Viva La Vida. I loved “VIVA LA VIDA” “VIOLET HILL” “LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR” “YES” “42” LOVERS IN JAPAN” “STRAWBERRY SWING”! I would give this album a 9/10!

Coldplay

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Chris Martin Life In Technicolor ii 1/29

Uploaded by on Jan 30, 2009

Chris Martin does a solo performance of Life In Technicolor ii for XFM Radio on January 29th, 2009.