'76 Blog

Meditating on the murky meaning of 2012

Sat, 25 May 2013 05:46:00 -1100

(Eagle Bay, N.Y.) “See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet …America’s the Greatest Land of All!” Thus did Dinah Shore- an appealing songstress of the 40’s and 50’s- close her immensely popular weekly television show. In doing so she evoked one of our nation’s most powerful images: The Lure of the Open Road. Much like Jack Kerouac’s manic novel On The Road or Willie Nelson’s mournful classic “On the Road, Again” this simple lyric conveyed compelling notions of Freedom and Limitless American Horizons.

The Central Planning Mentality will always yearn for more orderly forms of Mass Transit- Light Rail etc. – but time and again that impulse is defeated by America’s enduring love affair with the automobile and its’ accent on Anytime, Anywhere.

In thrall to this spirit my wife and I recently undertook a meandering journey that stretched from Boston to Florida and back touching ten states and renewing our awe at the beauty and diversity of our country. Central to our purpose was the opportunity to visit a host of old friends who represented a cross section of our lives and that of the broader American Experience.

They included a Marine combat veteran, a University Vice-President, a retired CIA Officer, a school superintendent, a legendary union organizer, a politician, a Hall of Fame Football Coach, a psychologist, and my oldest friend. Their viewpoints ranged from the very liberal to very conservative. Together we watched the evening news on MSNBC, FOX, or PBS. Some viewed the resurrection of Mark Sanford as an “outrage”, others as a welcome omen; Benghazi stories were either “old news” or “shocking revelations”; and all were depressed at the thought of Anthony Wiener as a plausible Mayor of New York. Happily all differences of opinion were trumped by ties of personal affection.

A disproportionate number of this group were self-confessed “political junkies” and none of us failed to note the report released by the U.S. Census Bureau on May 8^th (available online) analyzing voter participation in last November’s election. Though somewhat plodding and verbose Census Bureau analysis compels respect owing to its large sample size (60,000 households compared to most media polls of fewer than 1,000) and avoidance of the “skewing” that frequently infects exit polls or bias deriving from the wording of questions. The Census Bureau does not ask people who they voted for or why but simply reports on “Who Voted”.

The content of the Census Bureau report shows that most media election analysis (liberal and conservative) over the last six months has focused on the wrong things and missed the right things.

President Obama did not win because of Hispanic or Youth turnout ( both declined) but because of other factors best summed up by the front page headline in USA Today (May 9, 2013): “ In 2012 White Vote Down For First Time”.

2012 was an election of remarkable precedents.

For the first time black turnout (66.2%) surpassed that of non-Hispanic whites (64.1%).

For the first time the total number of white voters declined. Though there were over a million more eligible white voters in 2012 than 2008, their vote totals fell by more than 2 million.

As shown by demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution if voter turnout rates among blacks and whites had been the same as 2004 Mitt Romney would be President.

Despite the media and even Republican obsession with the Hispanic vote that is driving the star-crossed Immigration Bill, the Census Bureau Report reveals that it is far from a decisive factor.

Though the number of eligible Hispanic voters grew since 2008 this was largely cancelled by a decline in turnout to 48%. Furthermore the Hispanic share of the total vote was only 8.4%.

These figures demonstrate that the Republican obsession with the Hispanic vote is based on a fantasy. As a detailed analysis by political scientist Michael Barone has shown if Romney- instead of the 27% he did get- had achieved a miraculous 70% of the Hispanic vote he still would have lost the Electoral College.

The great mystery of the 2012 election and the one both parties should be obsessing over is what happened to the nearly 3 million disappearing white voters. This is particularly vital for Republicans who usually win about 60% of this demographic.

Still, we must remember that shifting poll numbers and updated election returns can confound the cleverest analysis. Attitudes change (Bush and Obama currently have the same 47% Approval Rating). Some opinions are more persistent. Since the Great Recession began between 56% and 70% of Americans believe the country is “On the Wrong Track” (My “focus group” of old friends divides similarly).

Things change in the course of a journey. Just a few days ago sailors were driven ashore by dark scudding clouds and howling winds on the Outer Banks of the Jersey Shore. Today- here in the Adirondacks- sunshine and gentle breezes wafting across a placid lake beckon a lonely Kayaker to imbibe the silence and calm of Nature.

Things are changing for America too. Our people are moving on, getting ready for whatever lies around the next bend in the river.

Dinah had it right. And it’s still true.

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St. Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, and Human Events.

Ethicist: World doesn't need more Americans

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:04:00 -1100

"The last thing the world needs is more Americans," asserted population-control advocate and global-warming worrier Phillip Cafaro in an Issue Monday debate at CCU on May 13.

"No, the best thing the world could have is more Americans," rejoined his opponent, energy expert and space scientist Robert Zubrin.

The exchange went hot (with heavy CO2 emissions from both debaters) and heavy from there for 90 minutes.

The formal proposition was, ""Resolved: To help slow global climate change, the U.S. should reduce immigration levels and stabilize our population, as part of efforts to cut back sharply on greenhouse gas emissions."

A video clip from the debate is here.

Cafaro, a professor of philosophy and environmental ethics at Colorado State University, used the following slides [to come]

and spoke from a prepared text as follows issue monday cafaro talk 051313.docx (150.58 kb)

Zubrin, founder of Pioneer Astronautics and the author of Merchants of Despair and Energy Victory, among other books, used the following slides [to come]

After the debate, Phillip Cafaro (2nd from left) and Robert Zubrin (right) posed with the latter's daughter Rachel (left) and CCU student Kellie Klaus to illustrate one thing they agree on: Policymakers must consider not only the next election but the next generation.

CBS, ABC, CNN execs have family ties to Obama aides

Sun, 12 May 2013 13:40:00 -1100

This you can hardly believe.

David Rhodes, president of CBS News, is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.

Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News, is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Obama's special assistant.

Ciaire Shipman, national correspondent for ABC's "Good Morning America," is married to Jay Carney, Obama's press secretary.

Virginia Moseley, deputy bureau chief for CNN in Washington, is married to Tom Nides, deputy security state for management and resources (under Secretary Clinton and now under Secretary Kerry).

So how aggressively can we expect CBS, ABC, and CNN to pursue the truth about Benghazi?

If Cheryl Atkisson, the CBS reporter who seems to want to pursue the truth, is muzzled or let go, would the David Rhodes - Ben Rhodes brother team (covering for the latter's key role in changing the talking points) possibly have something to do with it?

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Shipman

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/05/11/fox-abc-and-cbs-news-presidents-have-siblings-working-white-house-tie#ixzz2T1LlkPbG

The media: What difference does it make?

Sat, 11 May 2013 15:25:00 -1100

('76 Contributor) Stretching Oscar Wilde’s adage “I never put off til tomorrow what I can do the day after,” some in the mainstream media have finally started to Think Again about the Benghazi attack launched last year on the anniversary of 9/11 — thanks to new revelations by high-ranking State Department whistle-blowers including experts in security, counterterrorism, and the No. 2-ranking diplomat in Libya under slain Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Contrary to the “spin” that the U.S. Consulate assault was a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam YouTube video, the truth is that American officials knew “from the get-go” that it was a premeditated terrorist attack by al-Qaida-linked terrorists. In fact, failures to heed Stevens’ calls for increased security due to heightened terrorist threats and decisions to have Special Forces “stand down” rather than respond to the attack proved lethal for four brutally murdered Americans.

While most in the media prefer covering the Jodi Arias murder trial and the coming-out of gay basketball player Jason Collins, CBS News elder statesman Bob Schieffer and colleague Sharyl Attkisson aren’t buying White House press secretary Jay Carney’s line that “Benghazi happened a long time ago.” On Sunday on “Face the Nation,” Schieffer probed “whether there was a cover-up” based on “startling new details about the Benghazi attack ... totally at variance with what some American officials were saying in public on this broadcast five days after the attack.”

Schieffer cited an investigative report by the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes describing the wholesale rewriting of the CIA’s post-attack talking points, edited to eliminate references to terrorism, al-Qaida and five previous attacks in Libya. These talking points never mentioned an anti-Islamic YouTube video, providing fresh evidence that “senior Obama officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened in the days following the assaults.”

As if in the Soviet Union, where dissidents joked, “The future is known; it’s the past that’s always changing,” the fraudulent narrative about a YouTube video was peddled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before the victims’ caskets and their grieving families, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on five Sunday news shows, President Obama in his September address to the U.N., and consistently by Carney.

Weeks later, those who disputed this false narrative because it jeopardized U.S. national security — including Mitt Romney — were accused by media mavens such as “Meet the Press”’ David Gregory of “launch(ing) a political attack even before facts of embassy violence were known.” But wasn’t the administration guilty of politicizing Benghazi by deliberately misleading the world about a deadly terrorist attack they failed to anticipate?

Consider Watergate, another cover-up that preceded a presidential election, though there were no deaths or lost consulates. Imagine Woodward and Bernstein averting their eyes had Richard Nixon deflected responsibility for Watergate by accusing his opponents of “politicizing” the matter or asking, as Hillary Clinton asked about Benghazi, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Good journalists know what difference it makes, as did Abraham Lincoln, who said, “If given the truth, (Americans) can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

Yet the media — CBS News notwithstanding — seem to have abandoned their constitutionally protected role to safeguard Americans from the government, tending instead to protect the government from Americans.

Why else do they show scant interest that no senior administration officials have been held accountable for the four deaths, nor have the terrorists who launched the attack — although the YouTube filmmaker is in jail? Considering the terrorist-infested region, why didn’t leaders equipped with the world’s strongest military have contingency plans available to rescue the two Navy SEALs who lasted seven hours before succumbing? Sixty-plus years post-conflict, we have military capacity in Germany, Japan and South Korea; why not North Africa?

As Vladimir Lenin understood, government accountability derives from an active media and an informed citizenry. That’s why the Soviet people were subjects, not citizens. As Lenin explained, “Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinion calculated to embarrass the government?”

But America’s founders guaranteed a free press so we’d be informed citizens — not helpless subjects. As Thomas Jefferson said, “When the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” All wasn’t safe for Americans abandoned in Benghazi, which reminds us that as a self-governing people, it’s our duty to be informed enough to safeguard one another’s life and liberty.

This is the answer to Hillary’s question — “What difference does it make?” When armed with the truth, “We the People” can humble governments, secure justice, frustrate deceit, help the disenfranchised and know the world that is, not the utopia politicians try to sell us.

Think Again — shouldn’t all presidential aspirants be able to answer Hillary’s question?

Melanie Sturm lives in Aspen. Her column runs every other Thursday. She reminds readers to Think Again. You might change your mind. She welcomes comments at melanie@thinkagainusa.com.

300 take the dare at Conservative Persuasion Bootcamp

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:08:00 -1100

A couple of hundred people, 100 each from the Weekly Standard's May 2-4 policy conference and the Colorado Front Range, had signed up for a half-day interactive training session on May 3 called Conservative Persuason Bootcamp, jointly hosted by Centennial Institute and the magazine.

But when the day came, bootcamp organizers John Andrews, Krista Kafer, Melanie Sturm, and Rich Sokol were surprised to have more than 300 show up at the Colorado Springs event.

The learning objective for the Colorado Springs event was: "To equip each trainee, by active participation,with knowledge, skills, and attitudes for winsomely vindicating with our fellow citizens America’s founding principles."

Bill Kristol, editor of the Standard, and Stephen F. Hayes, one of its writers, both of whom are frequently seen on Fox News, were interviewed by Andrews and Kafer during the first part of the program about how to persuade (see photo below).

In the second part of the program, Centennial Institute facilitators led role-playing discussions at each table so trainees could practice making their case both intellectually and emotionally. They were given imaginary skeptical questions and a briefing packet with backgrounders on several major issues, linked here: Bootcamp Issue Packet 050313.pdf (689.86 kb)

Participants' feedback forms rated the bootcamp as "very good" or "good" by 79%. Centennial Institute is preparing to offer two more rounds of Conservative Persuasion Bootcamp this summer, July 28 in Denver and August 16 in Aspen.

Hard left: Legislators shaping a different Colorado

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:03:00 -1100

(Denver Post, Apr. 28) Watch closely as the legislature enters its final ten days of the 2013 session. This year is shaping up as a game-changer for the way Coloradans govern ourselves and seek the common good.

Over the decades, we’ve seen a Republican-led House and Senate confronting a Democratic governor, and vice versa. We’ve seen the House and Senate controlled by opposite parties. We’ve seen the GOP in complete control, as they were briefly under Gov. Bill Owens, and the Dems in complete control, as they are now under Gov. John Hickenlooper.

But never in my 40 years here have we seen so aggressive an ideological agenda rammed through by one party – and with a nasty kicker in the form of rigged election rules that could lock in the dominant party’s gains for a generation. That’s what I mean by game-changer.

House Speaker Mark Ferrandino and Senate President John Morse, with Hickenlooper riding along, have done nothing wrong. Democrats got the car keys when voters turned over five House seats last November, and their leaders wasted no time in steering leftward and mashing the accelerator. Fair enough.

It’s been a joyride for the Obamian progressives. The result for Colorado working families, however, may be a hollow feeling like that bumper sticker you’ve seen: “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” After this year’s liberal legislative rout, we’ll all be diminished as citizens – because bigger, bossier government is on the way.

Majority Dems in both chambers are decent people with good intentions. Most are sensible enough to see the joke in saying you’re from the government and you’re here to help me. Yet they’re also utopian enough to think that in their own case, it’s really true. So from a leftist viewpoint, no doubt their 2013 agenda looked noble. But not when viewed from the right.

For all of us who believe that citizens’ possibilities are nearly unlimited when government is limited, the future that Morse, Ferrandino, and Hickenlooper envision is a very different Colorado than we’ve known – a Colorado where opportunity and liberty are narrowed.

Look at what this legislature has done with the bills that have already passed, or that are likely to pass before adjournment on May 8. They’ve impaired job-creators and employers to the advantage of unions and trial lawyers. They’ve obstructed oil and gas production and raised the cost of electricity with draconian green mandates. Economic growth will be the worse for it.

They’ve infringed the constitutional right of self-defense with unenforceable universal background checks and pointless ammunition restrictions. The emotional outlet of passing such laws won’t prevent the next Aurora massacre – but it may embolden the next Tsarnaev brothers.

There’s more. The legislature has signaled “Come on in” to border-jumpers and visa-jumpers with subsidized college tuitions and driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. If this is the rule of law, Chris Christie is a ballerina.

They’ve doubled down on a dysfunctional Medicaid program – unsatisfactory for patients and providers alike – by expanding it with megabucks of borrowed federal money; the same money Dick Lamm recently called “economic cocaine” in these pages. And that money will soon taper off, sticking Coloradans with the tab; the same Coloradans this legislature hopes will raise school taxes by a billion dollars.

The diabolically clever topper is something called House Bill 1303. It mandates fraud-friendly same-day voter registration. Upon its passage (effective even this fall), presto – Democrats will have tilted the electoral playing field permanently their way. Republican chances for regaining power and repealing any of this stuff will fade.

When progressives in 1913 passed the income tax, currency manipulation by the Fed, and new election rules for senators, they gave us a very different America. Progressives’ legislative rout in 2013 will give us a very different Colorado. Brace yourself.