Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 21

I have mentioned earlier that my son Wilson Hatcher was named after Ronald Wilson Reagan. It is fitting that for the first time ever, Wilson had his picture in the Ark Dem Gaz High Profile Section today on the 100 anniversary of Reagan’s birth (Reagan was born on Feb 6, 1911).

Kahry Wright of Little Rock and Wilson Hatcher of Bryant

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c13657-36.jpg

President Reagan and Nancy Reagan with Princess Caroline and Prince Albert of Monaco after Nancy Reagan’s National Symphony Orchestra Performance of Saint Saens “Carnival of the Animals” at the Kennedy Center. Washington, DC. 3/28/83.

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

Reagan Roast

The clear facts show that lots of economic growth occurred during the Reagan years, but instead of denying that, lots of liberals just try to get that envy ploy going again. “Only the rich made money in the 1980’s while all the rest of us starved!!!” Many have said that about the success that Reagan had with the economy in the 1980’s. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.” I will be sharing portions of that article with you over the next few days.

Here is another myth:

In the 1980s the Rich Got Richer and the Poor Got Poorer

During the Reagan years, the total share of national income tilted toward the wealthiest Americans. From 1980 to 1988 the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans increased their share of total income from 16.5 to 18.3 while the poorest fifth saw their share fall from 4.2 to 3.8 percent.

Yet it is not true that the gains by the wealthiest Americans came at the expense of low-income Americans. From 1981to 1989, every income quintile–from the richest to the poorest–gained income according to the Census Bureaueconomic data.
The reason the wealthiest Americans saw their share of total income rise is that they gained income at a faster pace than did the middle class and the poor. But Reaganomics did create a rising tide that lifted nearly all boats.
By 1989 there were 5.9 million more Americans whose salaries exceeded $50,000 a year than there were in 1981 (adjusting for inflation). Similarly, there were 2.5 million more Americans earning more than $75,000 a year, an 83 percent increase. And the number of Americans earning less than $10,000 a year fell by 3.4 million workers.

The gains in incomes of all income groups is all the more impressive when we examine data on income mobility. Tens
of millions of Americans moved up the income scale in the 1980s–an economic fact that is obscured when only the static income quintile data from the start of the decade to the end are examined. 86 percent of households that were in the poorest income quintile in 1980 had moved up the economic ladder to a higher income quintile by 1990. Incredibly, a poor household in 1980 was more likely to have moved all the way up to the richest income quintile by 1990 (15 percent) than to still be in the poorest quintile (14 percent).

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

A statue of Ronald Reagan is unveiled in the U.S. Capitol’s Rotunda in 2009.

Little known presidential facts:

  1. When Mexican general Santa Ana demanded Zachary Taylor (“Old Rough and Ready,” 1784-1850) to surrender, Taylor said, “Tell him to go to hell.”i
    2. Andrew Jackson was involved in over 100 duels and fights
  2. Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was reportedly involved in over 100 duels, most to defend the honor of his wife, Rachel. He had a bullet in his chest from an 1806 duel and another bullet in his arm from a barroom fight in 1813 with Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton.g
February 6, 2011 – 7:07 am Categories: Ronald Reagan | Post a comment

Brantley:Move Jefferson into the 2nd and give Mike Ross Saline County

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

TolbertReport.com – Sen. Gilbert Baker on Redistricting

New Series on 2012 Congressional Districts Part 2

Max Brantley in his blog post “Redrawing congressional districts Update,” (Arkansas Times Blog, Feb 3, 2011), asserts, “Here’s an idea: Move Jefferson into the 2nd and give Mike Ross Saline County.”

The only problem I think the Democrats will experience with that is Tim Griffin’s Democrat opponent only got 38.2% of the vote. Putting Jefferson County into the 2nd district would all but guarantee Joyce Elliott’s Democrat Nomination again and then she would have to pick up about 25,000 votes to get over the hump. Is that possible? At the same time can a Democrat in the South continue to get elected in the next decade with the loss of Jefferson County?

If Brantley gets his way, we may actually see at some point a switch in both seats but still a 3 to 1 advantage by Republicans. Rolling the dice may give the possibility of  2 and 2 but it may also cause a 4 to 0 sweep by Republicans.

Yesterday I posted this:  The 2010 Congressional election proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that both Central Arkansas and North West Arkansas voted in Republican Congressmen with large margins. It seems that 125,000 of these voters from these two districts have to be moved to the other two districts (50,000 to 1st where Republican Rick Crawford won close race and 75,000 to 4th where Democrat Mike Ross won with 57% of the vote).

This is the general problem for Democrats. The state is turning red right before their eyes. I suggest they shove all the Democrats they got into the South and just try to save one district for the Democrats. In 2020 don’t be surprised if the Republicans try to put 55% Republicans in every district and then the Democrats will be wishing they had tried to hold on to at least one seat a little longer.

February 5, 2011 – 9:44 pm Categories: Jason Tolbert | Post a comment

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 20

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

Says Patti Davis of her father: “If he were here, he would not be at any of the celebrations for himself. He’d be watching the Super Bowl.”

84 presidential elections ad for Ronald Reagan campaign

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

You will notice the picture of Cary Grant below. I have to admit that I love the movies that Cary Grant did with Alfred Hitchock directing. The background music is tremendous in “North by Northwest.”

I also was amazed to learn that Hitchock was unable to get permission to shoot at the UN. Therefore, Hitchock set up in a van across the street and with a hidden camera filmed the scene when Grant walks out the front door of the UN. You will notice a person who passes Grant and looks back at him because he just saw a movie star.

There is no denying the growth in the economy during the Reagan years. So many times liberals will take shots at the nature of that success. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.” I will be sharing portions of that article with you over the next few days.Here is a myth:

Workers Had to Work Harder for Smaller Paychecks in the 1980s
“Caught between the lawmakers in Washington and the dealmakers on Wall Street have been millions of American workers forced to move from jobs that once paid $15 an hour into jobs that now pay $7” (Donald Barlett and James B. Steele, America: What Went Wrong? [Kansas City, Mo.: UniversalPress Syndicate, 1992], p. 3.)

Barlett and Steele never back up such anecdotal claims with any facts. Here they are: the correct way to measure changes in worker pay from one period to the next is not by examining wages alone, but by tallying the total compensation per hour–a measure that includes wages and benefits–paid to a worker.
Nonwage benefits havebeen an increasing share of total hourly worker compensation. In 1960, 9 percent of worker compensation was in theform of fringe benefits; in 1975, 16 percent of worker compensation was wage supplements; and by 1990, that percentage had risen to 20 percent.
So although it is true that average real wages have been falling over the past 20years, real compensation has been generally rising. The average real wage in 1990 dollars fell from about $11.00 anhour in 1980 to about $10.00 in 1988, a 9 percent decline. But real compensation per hour rose from $15.00 per hourin 1981 to $16.50 an hour in 1988.

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c5410-11A.jpg

President Reagan talking with Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. at a White House private dinner party in the yellow oval room. 12/4/81.

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C13442-5A.jpg

President Reagan meeting with Jerry Falwell in the Oval Office. 3/15/83.

Little known presidential facts:

  1. No president has ever been an only child.j
  2. At his first inauguration, George Washington added the “so help me God” to the end of the oath of office.b
  3. John Adams’ campaign propaganda against Jefferson said that if Jefferson was elected, “murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced.” They later resolved their differences and wrote many letters to each other.i
February 5, 2011 – 7:35 am Categories: Ronald Reagan | Post a comment

Brummett: What to do with 125,000 new Republican voters in Arkansas?

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

(Video from Robybrock) State Sen. Gilbert Baker discusses moving a portion of Pulaski Co. into Arkansas’ Fourth Congressional District.

New Series on 2012 Congressional Districts Part 1

John Brummett in his article “New day confronts congressional districts,” (Arkansas News Bureau, Feb 3, 2011), asserts:

We now have three Republicans in these four congressional seats. We have Republicans composing more than 40 percent of the Arkansas General Assembly that must redraw the districts in this session. We have a Senate State Agencies Committee, which will consider the matter, that consists of four Democrats and four Republicans.

Based on still-preliminary numbers and generous rounding, we have the 1st District needing to gain about 50,000 persons; the 2nd District needing to lose about 15,000; the growth hotbed of the 3rd District needing to lose about 110,000; and the 4th District across southern Arkansas needing to gain about 75,000.

Now let me make an observation. The 2010 Congressional election proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that both Central Arkansas and North West Arkansas voted in Republican Congressmen with large margins. It seems that 125,000 of these voters from these two districts have to be moved to the other two districts (50,000 to 1st where Republican Rick Crawford won close race and 75,000 to 4th where Democrat Mike Ross won with 57% of the vote).  

Brummett does know how it will all settle out but he puts out a educated guess:

If Democrats eventually settle on a compromise designed to do as little damage as possible, it probably will look this way:

The 1st District would be extended westward across northern Arkansas all the way to Marion and Boone counties (arch-conservative Harrison, that is to say) and into a portion of Carroll County, then trade Cleburne County to the 2nd District in exchange for Van Buren County.

The 2nd, which need not change much, would be taken care of by that Cleburne-Van Buren trade and by losing Yell County and a sliver of Perry County to the 4th District.

The population-exploding 3rd District would constrict around Washington and Benton Counties but keep Fort Smith and Sebastian County.

The 4th would reach northward to pick up Franklin and Johnson counties (Ozark, Clarksville) from the 3rd District and Yell County and that sliver of Perry County from the 2nd.

The real gamble will be if the Democrats try to make a run at the 2nd district. I think that Tim Griffin has a bigger margin of victory now with the rapid growth of Saline County and Faulkner County to work with, and it would take a lot to put him at a disadvantage.


February 4, 2011 – 11:23 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 19 (Buddy Rich the best drummer in the world?)

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

Patti Davis, daughter of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, wrote a book about the last few years spent with her father as he suffered through Alzheimer’s disease.
https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C4882-8A.jpg
Benny Goodman playing clarinet and Buddy Rich playing drums at State Dinner for King Hussein of Jordan. 11/2/81.
You will notice that the late Buddy Rich is pictured above playing the drums. I remember several years ago when I noticed that Ringo Starr was coming in for a concert. I went to buy a ticket but noticed that I had to go to Florida on a business trip when the concert was to take place. I commented to someone that I was going to miss seeing “the most famous drummer in the world.” I was corrected quickly. “No Buddy Rich is both the best and the most famous drummer in the world.” I have to admit that I did not know his name at the time.
Liberals hate to give Reagan any credit. Have you heard the lie that Presidential policy does not matter, but economic cycles come and go and we can not hold our politicians to blame. Many have said that about the success that Reagan had with the economy in the 1980’s. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.” I will be sharing portions of that article with you over the next few days.
Here is the myth:
The Robust Reagan Economic Expansion Was Only a Result of the Steep Economic Decline in the Early 1980s
Reagan’s political adversaries maintain that the economy expanded rapidly from 1983 to 1989 only because of theunderused resources from the severe recession of 1981-82. This interpretation of the 1980s expansion is contradictedby two facts. First, even taking into account the deep recession years of 1981-82, the economy grew at a faster rateover the entire Reagan period than it did over the Ford-Carter years and the Bush-Clinton years.
Second, the economic expansion of the 1980s was notable for not only its strength but also its length. The Reagan recovery lasted 92 months, making it the second longest uninterrupted economic
expansion in the century–outlasted only by the 1961-69 boom.
https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C5409-18A.jpg
Nancy Reagan talking with Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton at a movie screening for “Reds” in the Family Theater. 12/5/81.
_______________________________________
Little known facts about our presidents: 

  1. An anarchist and lawyer named Charles Guiteau shot James Garfield in the back with a five-barrel, .44-caliber pistol called a British Bulldog in 1881. He said he chose the gun because it would look good on a display in a museum someday. No one currently knows where the gun is.b
  2. The first attempt to assassinate a president was on Andrew Jackson by Richard Lawrence, a house painter. Both of his guns misfired, however—an event that statisticians say could occur only once in 125,000 times. Andrew Jackson then chased Lawrence with his walking stick.j
  3. James Garfield didn’t die from the gunshot wounds from his assassin’s gun; he died of blood poisoning after doctors and experts (including Alexander Graham Bell) tried to remove the bullet from his back with their dirty fingers and instruments, causing him to linger in pain for 80 days before dying. His assassin, Charles Guiteau, later claimed that he didn’t kill the president, the doctors had.i
February 4, 2011 – 10:03 am Categories: Ronald Reagan | Post a comment

Lyons: Republicans are acting like socialists

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

Glenn Beck on Che Guevara

Series on young people’s attitudes towards Socialism and Communism part 2

Gene Lyons in his article “The GOP’s bait-and-switch game, Strategy: Prey on fear, promise a return to fiscal conservatism, rake in donations, don’t follow through,” asserts, “Socialism? When it comes to economics, today’s GOP has nothing to advocate except the very policies that got us into this mess to begin with. They’re simply trying to trick tea party activists into believing that this time, Republicans will deliver the fiscal conservatism they always advocate but haven’t delivered since Herbert Hoover.”
I have to agree that there have been many times in the past that the Republicans have been guilty of supporting socialist policies. It is my hope now that they really mean it when they say they will cut the budget and reduce the size of government.
Socialism and Communism are appealing in many ways and they lure many people in with all of their lofty goals. My son Hunter told me that there is a popular shirt being sold all through the USA with the picture of Che Guevara on it because the musical group “Race against the Machine” has made this shirt “cool” to wear.
Bradley Gitz had an excellent article “Socialist Comeback,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 30, 2011 provides some more insight into what is going on with this. Here is what he had to say:
The left today benefits from a form of historical amnesia as well. The young people who go about wearing Che Guevara T-shirts know virtually nothing about Stalinism, the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge or conditions inside the Soviet Union under what Leonid Brezhnev called “real existing socialism”-or Guevara’s murderous record either, for that matter.

Young people want to have liberty and rights, and people like Marx use talk of this future utopia when everyone will share and share alike, but what actually happens under Communism is much uglier.
Hugo Chavez’ inspirational debt to Ernesto “Che” Guevara is such that he titled his regime’s socio-economic model, “Mision Che Guevara.” Don’t look for much of this in the MSM–but as I write Venezuela’s youth are hitting the streets in the tens of thousands and with raised fists–AGAINST Castro/Che brand- socialism (having gotten a taste.)

In response, Chavez’ police and brownshirt goon-squads (some mimicking their national leader by wearing Che T-shirts) bludgeon, tear gas, shoot and arrest hundreds of rebellious Venezuelan youth.

In fact, nothing could be more fitting. In a famous speech in 1961 Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”

Youth, wrote Guevara, “should learn to think and act as a mass.” Those who “chose their own path” (as in growing long hair and listening to Yankee-Imperialist Rock & Roll) were denounced as “delinquents.” In his famous speech Che Guevara even vowed, “to make individualism disappear from Cuba! It is criminal to think of individuals!” he raved.
Socialists and Communists want to make to take from the rich and give to the poor. However, if the government forces this to occur then the results are rarely what was expected. The best form of government ever  created to help reduce poverty is the free market system. Many young people after they leave the confines of the University and spend time out in the world usually come to more conservative political views over time. They will at least see that Che Guevara is not advocate of their individual liberties. 

che-guevara1232976553

A few years ago in a Vibe magazine interview Depp proclaimed his “digging” of Che Guevara.  As a rocker-hipster fan of Che Guevara Johnny Depp has plenty of company.

Humberto Fontova on Che Guevara part 1

February 4, 2011 – 6:42 am Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 18

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

Navy sailors wave American flags as the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier docks at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, Calif.  The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and its crew of nearly 5,000 sailors returned to San Diego from a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf and Western Pacific Ocean.  It was the first mission for the ship since being commissioned in 2003.
https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C3326-14A.jpg
Nancy Reagan posing with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Grace Kelly (Peter McCoy at far left) during a dinner at Winfield House during trip to London for the Royal Wedding. 7/26/81.
President Reagan’s Address at the Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-day at Point-du-Hoc – 6/6/84.
You will notice that Grace Kelly is pictured above. I got to visit Monaco back in July of 1981 and I saw the outside of her beautiful home. My wife and I love the film “To Catch a Thief,” that stars Cary Grant with Grace Kelly and we watch it several times a year. There are some car race scenes in that movie.
I remember thinking back in 1981 that there were winding roads back up in those hills and I was glad the bus driver knew what he was doing since the views out the window looked pretty scary from those heights. Unfortunately, about a year later on September 14, 1982, Grace Kelly died on one of those same roads.
Have you heard the lie that Presidential policy does not matter, but economic cycles come and go and we can not hold our politicians to blame. Many have said that about the success that Reagan had with the economy in the 1980’s. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.” I will be sharing portions of that article with you over the next few days.
Here is the myth:
The 1980s Expansion Was a Classic Keynesian Economic Recovery Driven by the Stimulative Effects of High Deficits

Reagan’s economic program actually amounted to the longest and most successful Keynesian recovery the world has yet seen. 

If the 1980s expansion had been a classic, demand-driven Keynesian recovery, nominal demand should have grown rapidly in the 1980s. However, as Figure 9 shows, over the course of the 1980s the rate of nominal demand growth fell.
The Keynesian explanation of the economic recovery in the 1980s is also fundamentally inconsistent with the sharpfall in inflation throughout that decade. If the recovery had been driven by a hike in the demand for goods and servicesrather than by a supply-side effect of greater output, inflation would have risen rather than fallen. But it did fall. Thisis why the near-universal predictions by Reagan’s opponents from 1979 to 1981 of higher inflation from tax cutsproved to be entirely misguided.
Finally, if budget deficits are highly stimulative, the post-Reagan period of 1990-95 should have produced strongeconomic growth. The budget deficits of that period were very nearly of the same magnitude as the deficits of 1982-89(4.2 percent of GDP versus 3.9 percent of GDP); in the 1980s, however, we had rapid growth and in the 1990s wehave had anemic growth. The answer seems to be the supply-side effects of tax and regulatory reductions in the 1980s versus the tax hikes and reregulation in the 1990s.

Ronald Reagan roast.
https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C3552-11A.jpg
President Reagan talking with Charlton Heston, Lydia Heston, Ricardo Montalban and Georgina Montalban at a Dinner at Bloomingdale residence in Beverly Hills, California. 8/19/81
https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c31323-10.jpg
President and Nancy Reagan posing with Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen during a state dinner for Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. 10/8/85
https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C31673-17.jpg
Nancy Reagan photo with Lab School Honorees Tom Cruise, Bruce Jenner, Cher and Robert Rauchenberg in State Dining Room. 10/30/85
Little known presidential facts:
  1. The capital of Liberia is called Monrovia after President James Monroe.k
  2. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter, the first Southerner elected to the presidency following the Civil War, restored U.S. citizenship to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.i
  3. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated the broken ankle of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth and whose name led to the saying “Your name is mud,” received a presidential pardon in 1869 from Ulysses S. Grant.i
February 3, 2011 – 10:46 pm Categories: Ronald Reagan | Post a comment

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 17

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

Son Michael Reagan says: “Everybody wants to be, ‘I’m the next Reagan.’ We ought to just be happy we had a Ronald Reagan.”

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c2456-24.jpg

President Reagan with Charlton Heston at a meeting with the Presidential Task Force on the Arts and Humanities in the cabinet room. 6/15/81

This is a commercial from the 1950’s with Ronald Reagan. In this commercial he explains the evils of socialized medicine. How it can lead to total socialism, even back in the 50’s people were worried about what the government was trying to do with universal health care.

In the above picture you see Reagan with his good friend Charlton Heston. My wife Jill in 1992 was in charge of giving out signs for the Bush campaign. She was constantly going to political events. Mike Huckabee invited her over when he had Charlton Heston over to raise funds for him during his run for Senate. Jill had her picture taken with Moses, but Moses was unable to provide a miracle victory for Huckabee.

A few days later I saw Huckabee in Little Rock at a Baskin Robbins during his race for Lt. Governor, and he said he felt real good about his chances to win. Of course, the rest is history.

I have heard a lot of things said about the Reagan economic policies and many of them are not true. People want to go back and change history and instead they want to invent history. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.” I will be sharing portions of that article with you over the next few days.

Here is the first myth that must be destroyed:

Clinton’s Economic Record Has Outperformed Reagan’s
Our economy is the soundest it’s been in a generation.
The growth rate under Clinton has been 2.7 percent, half a percent below the 3.2 percent growth rate under Reagan
and a full percentage point below the 3.8 percent growth rate during the 1983-89 expansion. Standard government forecasts predict a 2-2.5 percent growth rate through the end of the decade. Yet, if even the high end of that forecast proves to be accurate, the 1990s will be the lowest economic growth decade since the Great Depression and the second lowest in the 20th century.

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c2733-18.jpgPresident Reagan meeting with 1981 Miss Universe Shawn Weatherly and 1981 Miss USA Kim Seel Brede in the oval office. 6/30/81.

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c23833-21.jpg

President  and Nancy Reagan with Ray Charles after acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Dallas, Texas.  8/23/84.

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c29913-19a.jpg

President Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the Medal of Freedom at a White House Ceremony. 6/20/85.

Little known facts about our presidents:

  1. On his epitaph, which he composed, Jefferson mentions that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statuette of Virginia for Religious Freedom and that he was the father of the University of Virginia. He neglected to mention he had been the President of the United States.g
  2. Teddy Roosevelt’s last request before dying was “Please put out the light.” Thomas Jefferson’s last words were “This is the Fourth?” John Adam’s dying words were “Thomas Jefferson still survives,” unaware that Jefferson had passed away a few hours earlier.k
    3. George Washington
    George Washington had to borrow $600 to get to his own inauguration
  3. George Washington didn’t have enough money to get to his own inauguration so he had to borrow $600 from his neighbor.i
  4. Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman did not attend college. Harry Truman is the only twentieth-century president without a college degree.b
February 3, 2011 – 12:07 pm Categories: Ronald Reagan | Post a comment

Ark Times: Describes Tea Party as angry people against socialism

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

Francis Schaeffer points out how Communism is based on materialism which leads to repression while countries with a reformation base truly have a solid basis for law and the people enjoy freedom.

Series on young people’s attitudes towards Socialism and Communism part 1

On the Arkansas Times Blog on April 1, 2010 the Arkansas Times staff noted that the Tea Party group in Little Rock were made up of  “angry people who were there took turns bulling on a bullhorn and carried signs with messages like Just Say No To Socialism.”

Today, many people like to picture conservatives that oppose socialism as angry and ignorant nuts. Today in our colleges you will find that image put forth by many professors. Socialism and even at times Communism is put in a good light.
I am going to start a series today that will attempt to explain why communism and socialism is very appealing to young people, but today I also wanted to talk also about the reformation base that our country was built on.
Bradley Gitz had an excellent article “Socialist Comeback,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 30, 2011. Here is what he had to say:
The collapse of the Soviet Union was assumed to have meant the end of socialism as a viable political ideology.

That obituary appears to have been premature. Socialism not only didn’t die but it continues to exert a powerful appeal, particularly among the young and idealistic (an overlapping constituency).

The source of that appeal is not difficult to identify, residing as it does in socialism’s promise to satisfy basic human needs and usher in a classless utopia of equality and plenty.

Socialism appeals today for the same reasons it appealed in the time of Marx and Engels-because it suggests a better world. Capitalism might be the superior system in terms of generating wealth, but its dependence upon profits and self-interest means it will never be able to occupy the moral high ground.

In some respects, the virtual disappearance of communism as the logical extrapolation of the socialist ideal may have saved other forms of socialism. Few could have plausibly argued that communist societies were superior to capitalist democracies at the time the Berlin Wall was falling and Chinese demonstrators were erecting their papier-mâché statue of liberty in Tiananmen Square.

No one on the left wanted to compare East Germany to West Germany or North Korea to South Korea, let alone America to the Soviet Union. The failed Soviet experiment was a giant millstone around the neck of the left, dragging down the original vision of socialism as “the future that works.”

Gitz brings up the issue of oppression. How you ever wondered why communist countries have to operate on that basis?Let’s first take a look at the foundation that our country was built on and see if we can find any differences.

Our country was founded on a reformation base.

Notice in the video above is from the episode “The Revolutionary Age” from the film series “How Should We Then Live?” by Francis Schaeffer that a system like communism is based on a materialistic base, and must use internal repression to keep in power. Communism always comes in with promises, but what you end up with is a loss of freedom of the press and freedom of religion too. This can be seen even today in the 5 communist countries which exist. However, when you contrast these communist countries to those countries that have a reformation base you find a large difference in protection of human rights.

Francis Schaeffer has pointed out that in these countries (with the reformation base ) the biblical basis did give absolutes upon which to combat injustice. In contrast, the humanist has no way to say that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. This is because for the humanist the final thing that exists is the impersonal universe and that is silent and neutral about right and wrong and about cruelty and noncruelty.

However, our public schools in the USA are just as humanistic as they are in communist countries. This is seen by the teaching of humanism in the area of moral choices. Our students are being taught that we all are a product of chance and there are no absolutes.

The Bible tells us, “{God} has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV). The secularist calls this an illusion, but the Bible tells us that the idea that we will survive the grave was planted in everyone’s heart by God Himself. Romans 1:19-21 tells us that God has instilled a conscience in everyone that points each of them to Him and tells them what is right and wrong (also Romans 2:14 -15).

It’s no wonder, then, that a humanist would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” THE HUMANIST, May/June 1997, pp. 38-39)

Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-given conscience and not from humanist philosophy. However, I know how moral relativism works, and I expected that Mrs. Leitner would soon be challenged by her fellow humanists. It wasn’t long before she received criticism. Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (THE HUMANIST, September/October 1997, p. 2)

Do you see where our moral relativism has taken us in the USA?

I had a chance back in 1991 to visit with a gentleman by the name of Robert Lester Mondale while he was retired in Missouri.  He was born on May 28, 1904 and he died on August 19, 2003. He was an Unitarian minister and a humanist. In fact, he was the only person to sign all three of the Humanist Manifestos of 1933, 1973 and 2003. In my conversation with him he mentioned that he had the opportunity to correspond with John Dewey who was one of Mondale’s fellow signers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I.

I really believe that the influence of John Dewey’s humanistic philosophy has won the battle of the textbooks in the USA today (with evolution teaching being a key component). As a result, we have people like humanist Abigail Ann Martin who wrote, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?”

(I wanted to recommend an article “Making a monkey out of Darwin” by Adrian Rogers. This article shows the damage that the belief in evolution has done. )

Socialism and Communism do have lots of promises that entice young people,  but eventually the freedoms of people may be compromised down the road, and those promises are not fulfilled.

_________________________________________________

February 3, 2011 – 7:44 am Categories: Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 16

Ronald Reagan salutes members of the Reserve Officers Association in 1988.

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

Ronald Reagan salutes members of the Reserve Officers Association in 1988.
https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c2232-34.jpg
President Reagan and Nancy Reagan receiving a baseball from Frank Sinatra during a meeting with the 1981 National Multiple Sclerosis Society Mother and Father of the Year in the oval office. 6/3/81.
President Reagan’s remarks during the 1984 National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony.

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C19401-20.jpg

Nancy Reagan with Dinah Shore and Burt Reynolds in the Blue Room during a state dinner for Premier Zhao Ziyang of the Peoples Republic of China. 1/10/84.

I remember going down to the Robinson Center in Little Rock back around 1995 to see “An evening with Burt Reynolds.” It was very enjoyable as Reynolds told stories about his life. One story I found very funny was the night that Frank Sinatra took Reynolds out to a restaurant.  Dinah Shore was a longtime friend of Sinatra and he always wanted to protect her. He had a talk with Reynolds and he wanted to know Reynolds intentions.
Before the evening started, Reynolds told Dinah that he was not going to stay out late with Sinatra and he was going to leave after he got his “Sinatra story.” Well, Sinatra was served in a private room in the back of his favorite restaurant and there was a server who was nervous and he spilled some soup at Sinatra’s table. The owner came out and fired the server on the spot. Sinatra responded, “Everytime I come back here in the future, I better see this particular server working here or I will never come back again.”
Reynolds got up from the table and started to leave. Sinatra said, “Where are you going?” Reynolds said he was leaving because he told Dinah he would be back as soon as he got a “Sinatra story” and now he had one.
I really got a lot out the article “The Real Reagan Economic Record: Responsible and Successful Fiscal Policy” by Peter Sperry. In the next few days I will be sharing portions of this article.

The Real Reagan Economic Record: Responsible and Successful Fiscal Policy

Published on March 1, 2001 by Peter Sperry

No matter how advocates of big government try to rewrite history, Ronald Reagan’s record of fiscal responsibility continues to stand as the most successful economic policy of the 20th century. His tax reforms triggered an economic expansion that continues to this day. His investments in national security ended the Cold War and made possible the subsequent defense spending reductions that are largely responsible for the current federal surpluses. His efforts to restrain the expansion of federal government helped to limit the growth of domestic spending.

If Reagan’s critics had been willing to work with him to limit domestic spending even further and to control the growth of entitlements, the budget would have been balanced five to ten years sooner and without the massive tax increase imposed in 1993. Today, Members of Congress from across the political spectrum should stand on the evidence and defend the Reagan record.

To the extent that President Bush’s proposals mirror those of Ronald Reagan, his plan should be a welcome strategy to lower the tax burden on Americans and to make the system more responsible. If the advocates of big government in Congress cooperate with President Bush rather than merely continuing to fund obsolete, wasteful, and redundant programs, there is no limit to the prosperity that Americans can generate.

Peter Sperry is the Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

https://i0.wp.com/www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/C2403-4A.jpg

President Reagan meeting with Henry Kissinger in the residence. 6/10/81.

Little known facts about our presidents:

  1. At 325 pounds, William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who was dubbed “Big Bill,” was the largest president in American history and often got stuck in the White House bathtub. His advisors had to sometimes pull him out.b
    2. poker
    Warren Harding once lost priceless White House China playing poker
  2. Harding was obsessed with poker and once bet an entire set of priceless White House China and lost it.k
  3. During his second run for presidency, Teddy Roosevelt was shot by a would-be assassin while giving a speech in Milwaukee. He continued to deliver his speech with the bullet in his chest.i
  4. Thomas Jefferson was convinced that if he soaked his feet in a bucket of cold water every day, he’d never get a cold.k
  5. Calvin Coolidge liked to have his head rubbed with petroleum jelly while eating his breakfast in bed.b
  6. Woodrow Wilson (born Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924) would paint his golf balls black during the winter so he could continue playing in the snow.a
February 3, 2011 – 6:31 am Categories: Ronald Reagan | Post a comment