Buy my Booklet and A Lazy President Tries to Slide By!
I hope you will buy my booklet and read it and if you like it send to those on your own e mail list. I invite your comments (brokerberko@yahoo.com).
My computer guru, Paul LaFlamme, has arranged for my booklet to be available in book form in several weeks. It is currently available in PDF format (see below.)
Testimonials:
Dick, I read your book this weekend. I hardly know where to start. You did an excellent job of putting into one short book a compendium of the virtues which only a relatively short time ago all Americans believed. It’s a measure of how far we have fallen that many Americans, perhaps a majority of Americans, no longer believe in what we once considered truisms. I think your father would have agreed with every word, but the party he supported no longer has such beliefs.
I would like to buy multiple copies of your booklet..
You did a great job. I know your parents would have been proud and that your family today is proud.
Mike
You wrote a great book. The brevity is one of its strong points and I know it was hard to include that in and still keep it brief. Your father in haste once wrote an overly long letter to our client, then said in the last sentence, “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
"Dick, I indeed marvel at how much wisdom you have been able to share with so few words. Not too unlike the experience in reading the Bible. I feel that with each read of "A Conservative Capitalist Offers:…." one will gain additional knowledge and new insights…
Regards, Larry"
"A Conservative Capitalist Offers: Eleven Lessons and a Bonus Lesson for Raising America's Youth Born and Yet To Be Born"
By Dick Berkowitz - Non Expert
I wrote this booklet because I believe a strong country must rest on a solid family unit.Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" has morphed into "A Confused, Dependent and Compromised Generation."
I hope this booklet will provide a guide to alter this trend.
Please Buy My Booklet - Half The Proceeds Go To "The Wounded Warrior Project!"
You can now order a .pdf version from www.brokerberko.com/book that you can download and read on your computer, or even print out if you want.
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When I first moved to Savannah, I invited the editor of the local paper to lunch. At the end of our lunch he told me he was not in a position to offer me a column but would publish some of my LTE's if he thought them worthy. Tom Barton has lived up to his word and we have developed a respectful relationship. I send him my memos and assume he reads some of them.
We also had the publisher and his wife to dinner at our home and they too are lovely and bright people.
Recently Savannah was faced with a difficult situation because the City Manager turned out to be a disaster and the Mayor and City Council voted to fire her.
Tom Barton wrote an excellent editorial that reminded me of what old fashioned journalism was all about and one of the paper's investigative reporter did a superb job of tracking down the facts of the manager's ineptness.
I also asked Tom to think about a review of my booklet and he responded that he would pass the request to those more appropriate(see 1 below.)
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An e mail from a friend and fellow memo reader. (See 2 below.)
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Tonight we saw Obama for what he is - a lazy,an incompetent who decided, since he was ahead, he would coast. Consequently, he came across disinterested, unprepared, and willing to repeat untruths in the mistaken belief they would be believed.
No wonder he does not attend intelligence briefings. It would force him to fill the office's shoes.
Obama faded tonight because he believed the lies he and his minions have concocted and thought by repeating them could slide by, would work.
Fair, middle class, tax the rich etc. all the trite words Axelrod and Plouffe have dreamt up to distort, divide and conquer boomeranged.
Right between your eyes response from a respectful and up beat Mitt to our childish president who has been play acting for nearly four years getting us into deeper and new messes: "Mr. President, I’ve been in business for 25 years, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe I need to get a new accountant. The idea that you get breaks for shipping jobs overseas is simply not the case.”-Romney 10-3-2012 ."
No wonder Obama is the loser who picked Solyndra's and threw money at more such failed projects. They served as vehicles for transferring and laundering campaign funds.(See 3 and 3a below.)
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As I wrote last week, Jordan could begin down the path of disintegrating. Stay tuned. (See 4 below.)
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Woodward and Obama. (See 5 below.)
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CROWN removed from Obama's head - a must read!!!! (See 6 and 6a below.)
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My friend Stella Paul writes a book of her own. (See 7 below.)
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RUBIO: " Dick, After watching tonight's debate, the choice this November could not be clearer.
A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for four more years of economic stagnation and weak foreign policy; as well as higher taxes, debt, and healthcare costs. A vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for real reforms that will bring a real recovery, including 12 million new jobs, tax relief for the middle class, better healthcare at lower costs, a balanced budget, and leadership for an American century.
That's the kind of bold agenda Americans expect and deserve - and that's exactly what Mitt Romney outlined tonight.
Thanks,
Marco Rubio U.S. Senator, Florida"
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Romney reboots! Last night Obama got "fracked." (See 8 and 8a below.)
1) From: richard berkowitz [mailto:brokerberko@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 11:22 AM To: Barton, Tom Cc: Traynor, Michael Subject: Your editorial and my booklet
Tom: If you have perused my recent memos you know I underwent knee replacement surgery and my recovery has been restricted by excessive scar tissue which I am trying to overcome through painful post op therapy (I would not have made a good prisoner of war.).
Consequently, have been somewhat out of the loop on keeping current. Finally read Sunday's piece by you regarding the city manager episode.
You know I believe the press and media have failed, far too often, in serving their legitimate role of watch dog.
Your editorial was right on and I compliment you and your investigative reporter for a job well done. The mayor also deserves credit for rising to the occasion.
Toney should never have been hired but at least she is now being sent packing.
On another note , as you know, I have just published a booklet about my thoughts on raising future generations and would love it if you would have one of your reporters do a human interest piece on my meager effort. Is that something you would consider? Happy to provide any background material necessary.
Thanks in advance for any consideration shown this request. Me ---
From: "Barton, Tom" To: richard berkowitz Cc: "Traynor, Michael" ; "Catron, Susan" Sent: Wednesday, October 3, 2012 1:33 PM Subject: RE: You editorial and my booklet
Dick,
No, you wouldn’t have made a good POW because you probably would have escaped by now.
Thanks for the kind words. Our news department has done one heck of a job covering the story at City Hall. It looks like some things are shaking out today, as I write this. So stay tuned.
Regarding your booklet, I’m happy to share your request for a human interest story with our news department, which is independent from the editorial department. Another possibility is a book review.
Hope things get better with the knee. And since you don’t type with your toes, pain is no excuse for not writing letters to the editor.
Tom
--- Tom: You demonstrate again a great sense of humor. Thanks for forwarding my request of you and I understand completely. Would love to respond if I am called.
As for not typing with my toes. I generally have my foot in my mouth. In truth Dr. Sutker said I have a mouse finger from too much memo e mailing and now have arthritis in my right index finger..
Meant every word I e mailed regarding you and your staff. Good old fashioned journalism is alive and well in Savannah.
The mayor also deserves kudos for the action she took.Me
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2)
I was sitting at my keyboard halfway through my writing a letter to you about how Barack Obama was fulfilling his pledge to "Transform America" by "Changing the fundamentals of America", so that our government would become the plantation, he the owner, and we the slaves, when this article by Steve McCann appeared in my in box. After checking it for accuracy, and finding it so, I put my writing on hold and here present it to you, for I could not say it better.
...Is it already too late?
Obama's Second Term Transformation Plans The 2012 election has often been described as the most pivotal since 1860. This statement is not hyperbole. If Barack Obama is re-elected the United States will never be the same, nor will it be able to re-capture its once lofty status as the most dominant nation in the history of mankind.The overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand that Obama's first term was dedicated to putting in place executive power to enable him and the administration to fulfill the campaign promise of "transforming America " in his second term regardless of which political party controls Congress. That is why his re-election team is virtually ignoring the plight of incumbent or prospective Democratic Party office holders.
The most significant accomplishment of Obama's first term is to make Congress irrelevant. Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency.During the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democrats overwhelmingly controlled both Houses of Congress and the media was in an Obama-worshiping stupor, a myriad of laws were passed and actions taken which transferredvirtually unlimitedpower to the executive branch.The birth of multi-thousand page laws was not an aberration. This tactic was adopted so the bureaucracy controlled by Obama appointees would have sole discretion in interpreting vaguely written laws and enforcing thousands of pages of regulations they and not Congress would subsequently write.
For example, in the 2,700 pages of ObamaCare there are more than 2,500 references to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There are more than 700 instances when he or she is instructed that they "shall" do something and more than 200 times when they "may" take at their sole discretion some form of regulatory action. On 139 occasions, the law mentions that the "Secretary determines." In essence one person, appointed by and reporting to the president, will be in charge of the health care of 310 million Americans once ObamaCare is fully operational in 2014.
The same is true in the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which confers nearly unlimited power on various agencies to control by fiat the nation's financial, banking and investment sectors.The bill also creates new agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not subject to any oversight by Congress. This overall process was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branchcontrolled Barack Obama and his radical associates.Additionally, the Obama administration has, through its unilaterally determined rule making and regulatory powers, created laws out of whole cloth. The Environmental Protection Agency on a near daily basis issues new regulations clearly out of their purview in order to modify and change environmental laws previously passed and to impose a radical green agenda never approved by Congress. The same is true of the Energy and Interior Departments among many others.None of these extra-constitutional actions have been challenged by Congress. The left in America knows this usurpation of power is nearly impossible to reverse unless stopped in its early stages.
It is clearly the mindset of this administration and its appointees that Congress is merely a nuisance and can be ignored after they were able to take full advantage of the useful idiots in the Democrat controlled House and Senate in 2009-2010 and the Democrat Senate in the current Congress.Additionally, Barack Obama knows after his re-election a Republican controlled House and Senate will not be able to enact any legislation to roll back the power previously granted to the Executive Branch or usurped by them. His veto will not be overridden as there will always be at least 145 Democratic members of the House or 34 in the Senate in agreement with or intimidated by an administration more than willing to use Chicago- style political tactics. The stalemate between the Executive and Legislative Branches will inure to the benefit of Barack Obama and his fellow leftists.
The most significant power Congress has is the control of the purse-strings as all spending must be approved by them. However, once re-elected, Barack Obama, as confirmed by his willingness to do or say anything and his unscrupulous re-election tactics, would not only threaten government shutdowns but would deliberately withhold payments to those dependent on government support as a means of intimidating and forcing a Republican controlled Congress to surrender to his demands, thus neutering their ability to control the administration through spending constraints.Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by ignoring various court orders, e.g., the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium, as well as stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress. The Eric Holder Justice Department (DoJ) has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history. In a second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election.
Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? No one. Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people.Many Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with the prospect of Mitt Romney as the nominee for president are instead focused on re-taking the House and Senate. That goal, while worthy and necessary, is meaningless unless Barack Obama is defeated.The nation is not dealing with a person of character and integrity but someone of single-minded purpose and overwhelming narcissism.Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, he does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term, but rather to force his radical agenda on the American peoplethrough the power he has usurped or been granted.The governmental structure of the United States was set up by the Founders in the hope that over the years only those people of high moral character and integrity would assume the reins of power. However, knowing that was not always possible, they dispersed power over three distinct and independent branches as a check on each other.What they could not imagine is the surrender and abdication of its constitutional duty by the preeminent governmental branch, the Congress, to a chief executive devoid of any character or integrity coupled with a judiciary essentially powerless to enforce the law when the chief executive ignores them. Conservatives, Libertarians, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney must come to grips with this moment in time and their historical role in denying Barack Obama and his minions their ultimate goal. All resources must be directed at that end-game and not merely controlling Congress and the various committee chairmanships.
Steve McCann May 12, 2012 I would add but 6 words to those above mentioned, Conservatives, Libertarians, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney, to say "and we the American people also", must come to grips with this moment in time and our role in denying Barack Obama his life-long goal of "transforming" us into his slaves working on his government plantation.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3). . I swallowed hard and watched the follow-up on CNN. (Yes, I'll admit that!). But I did it to see what they'd say. And they said THE SAME THING . . . MITT CLEARLY WON! Even their scientific poll showed that 65% thought Romney won and 25% thought it was Obama.
Great job . . . maybe things have turned around. CNN also said that they think Obama will attack next time; which I think will hrt him even more as people will be aware he is doing so because of his failures in the first debate . . . and by extension, his failures as president.
Yes, Bert, AWESOME is absolutely right! (I loved Mitt's reference to Solyndra!).
3a)Romney lands punches against subdued Obama in first debate
By Justin Sink and Amie Parnes
Mitt Romney dominated the critical first presidential debate Wednesday night, landing punch after punch on a noticeably subdued President Obama.
The GOP nominee came into the evening needing to shake up the narrative of the race, and he appeared to succeed.
Throughout the 90-minute debate in Denver, the first showdown of the presidential contest, Romney aggressively questioned the president's record while defending his own economic priorities. Meanwhile, as Obama offered a safe defense of his record and policies, Romney often interrupted and seemed eager to engage.
He spent the evening on the offensive and came off well-prepared for his encounter with Obama, who seemed hesitant and forced.
And while Romney hit his marks, Obama missed opportunities when he failed to mention two of his campaign’s most effective attacks against Romney — the GOP nominee's tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital and the comments about the "47 percent" captured on video at a private fundraiser.
The president, wearing a clenched smile for much of the night, looked to depict Romney as deceiving people with his economic plans, arguing the GOP tax planwould shift the burden to the middle class.
"How we pay for that, reduce the deficit, and make the investments that we need to make, without dumping those costs onto middle-class Americans, I think is one of the central questions of this campaign," Obama said.
But despite polls regularly showing that voters see the president as more empathetic and concerned with the problems facing American families, it was Romney who spoke empathetically of the effect of the still-lagging economy on individuals struggling to find work.
There was also a notable contrast in style: Obama spent much of the debate looking directly into the camera, a strategy planned by his campaign to speak directly to the American people, while Romney addressed the president head-on.
Conservatives were exuberant following the debate, saying Romney had successfully captured the moment, while several Democrats and even some of the president’s staunchest supporters were disappointed in Obama's performance.
“He was rolled,” one former administration official said.
Obama’s top strategist, David Axelrod, said, “There’s no doubt he has a hungry challenger.”
“Gov. Romney's always been good on the attack," Axelrod told NBC News, conceding he would award Romney "style points."
Liberal MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz, along with a panel of other left-leaning pundits appearing on the network, said the president was disappointing.
And former adviser to President Clinton, James Carville, speaking on CNN, said that he had "one overwhelming impression ... It looked like Romney wanted to be there and President Obama didn't want to be there. … It gave you the impression that this whole thing was a lot of trouble." He added that "Romney had a good night."
A CBS News snap poll of undecided voters conducted after the debate concluded found that those on the fence generally agreed with the pundits. Of those surveyed, 46 percent gave the win to Romney, 22 percent to the president, and 32 percent called the contest a draw.
Throughout the evening, Obama spoke frequently in the abstract, while Romney scored points illustrating his disappointment with the president's with stories of specific individuals.
The hope from the Romney team was that the economic sparring would improve their candidate's polling on an issue that had been a core strength — and that displaying empathy could endear him to more voters.
Obama, meanwhile, looked to channel President Clinton's successful convention-night "arithmetic" argument to question Romney's assumptions.
"If you are lowering the rates the way you describe, governor, then it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and loopholes that only affect high-income individuals to avoid raising the deficit or burdening the middle class," Obama said. "It's math, arithmetic."
Obama argued even "when you add up all the loopholes and deductions that upper income individuals are currently taking advantage of, you don't come close to paying for $5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in additional military spending" that Romney had proposed.
The Republican nominee blasted back, saying that "virtually everything" the president described as part of his tax plan was inaccurate and pledging he would not shift tax burdens from the wealthy to the middle class.
Romney, meanwhile, found success challenging Obama on not having accomplished his economic goals during his first term. During a testy exchange on the deficit, Romney interrupted Obama as the president was detailing his economic plan to reduce the deficit through spending cuts and raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
"You have been president for four years," Romney said. "You said would you cut the deficit in half."
The candidates both refused to cede ground on the issue, crystallizing the differences between the parties.
“If we are serious, we have to take a balanced, responsible approach,” Obama said.
“When the economy is growing slow like this, you shouldn’t raise taxes on anyone,” Romney said.
But despite a few testy exchanges, the debate was frequently characterized by in-depth discussions of policy intricacies. Both candidates seemed willing to deliver on their pre-debate promise to provide policy specifics, but the conversation at times became bogged down with minor squabbles rather than grand visions.
The first 45 minutes centered on the economy and, as the discussion transitioned to Medicare, Obama argued that the Republican plan would implement a voucher system, causing "the traditional Medicare system will collapse and then you have folks like my grandmother at the mercy of the private health insurance.”
Romney again pounced on Obama's comments, saying, "I can't understand how you can cut Medicare $716 billion for current recipients for Medicare."
Obama's subdued performance could throw back into question a race that for months has shown him with a consistent though small lead.
A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released the night before the debate showed the president with a 3-point lead among likely voters, with Obama holding leads within the polls' margins of error in Florida and Virginia. In the crucial state of Ohio, Obama led Romney 50 percent to 43 percent.
On Thursday, the candidates head back out on the stump: The president will hold a campaign rally in Denver and then fly to Wisconsin, where an afternoon rally is scheduled in Madison. Vice President Biden will hold an event in Iowa, while Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will be campaigning in Virginia.
The debate also had a few lighter moments. At the start, Obama began by giving a nod to his wife, first lady Michelle Obama and their 20th wedding anniversary, which happened to fall on Wednesday.
"Twenty years ago, I became the luckiest man on earth because Michelle Obama agreed to marry me," he said, calling his wife "sweetie."
"A year from now, we will not be celebrating it in front of 40 million people," he said.
Jordan capital tenses for pro-King and rival Islamist demos
A showdown is looming between Jordan's government and the Islamist
opposition, with two massive rival demonstrations slated for Friday in the
capital Amman, raising fears of an escalation of tension
According to organisers, around 200,000 supporters of King Abdullah II's
plans for reforms will rub shoulders with an expected 50,000 backers of the
Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition bloc, with the rallies set to take
place at the same time at the same location.
"Our demonstration will be peaceful and civilised," said Zaki Bani Rashid, a
Brotherhood official, reiterating the group's demands for a "fair electoral
law, a serious fight against corruption and constitutional reforms."
"We will not challenge anyone, and we will not provoke anyone," he added.
He dismissed as "provocative rumours" claims that the rally would call for
the king to leave power, blaming "suspicious parties who want to spark a
crisis."
"We must stop demonising the Islamist movement, and stop inciting it."
In response to a protest movement that has since January 2011 called for
political and economic reforms, King Abdullah II has announced elections due
to take place before the end of the year.
The Muslim Brotherhood, however, has said it will boycott the polls as they
did in 2010, to protest a lack of reform, arguing that the electoral system
favours rural regions seen as loyal to the government.
They have instead called for a parliamentary system where the prime minister
is elected, rather than appointed by the king. They have not called for the
king to leave power.
The demonstration, dubbed "The Friday of the country's salvation," has
called for Islamists to march from the Al-Husseini mosque after midday
prayers to Al-Nakhil Square, about a kilometre (half a mile) away.
At the same time, around 200,000 people are expected to attend a rally to
"support the king's reform plans," said Jihad al-Sheikh, one of the
organisers of the rival demonstration which is being held under the banner
"Allegiance and Belonging."
Demonstrators will wear hats and T-shirts bearing photos of the king, and
will be ferried from various parts of Jordan to Al-Nakhil Square aboard more
than 100 buses, Sheikh said.
"The goals of the Muslim Brotherhood demonstration are questionable," he
said.
"They are looking for a confrontation, and anyone who supports the interests
of Jordan should face them."
According to analysts, the pro-government rally is an attempt to undermine
the opposition.
"This time, it is not just about a show of force, but an attempt to crush
the other side and that is dangerous," said Oraib al-Rintawi, the head of
the Al-Quds Centre for Political Studies.
"The Islamists have led several peaceful rallies that have been within the
framework of the law" and Friday "will not be an exception," he said.
Rintawi dismissed "rumours that the Brothers want to get into a
confrontation with the police."
Labib Qimhawi, another political analyst, concurred: "This is an attempt to
break the opposition. The choice of the same place at the same time for a
counter-demonstration aims to create a crisis."
He accused "the government of trying to enflame the situation with a strong
media campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood."
"It is also possible that the interior minister bans both demonstrations,
pointing to the risk of violence, when in fact he wants to ban the
Brotherhood protest," Qimhawi said.
Another possibility that risks raising tensions is a potential "absence of
security forces on the streets," as has been mooted by government newspaper
Al-Rai, which noted that security forces fear being pitted by one side
against the other.
According to Qimhawi, "the threat of such an absence is a call for chaos and
confrontation."
In a statement on Wednesday, Jordan's head of public security, General Hazza
al-Majali, said his forces would ensure the safety of the protesters and
called on the organisers to "cooperate" with the police.
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I’m a fan of NBC’s First Read blog, and consider its morning briefings pretty much the best, well, first read that you could ask for. But they had anitem a couple weeks agothat was unintentionally hilarious:
What’s particularly striking about the new Bob Woodward book is that, unlike his past works, he’s making an argument rather than trying to recreate and report on a past event and letting others draw the conclusions. Woodward’s argument here: Obama didn’t lead in the debt-ceiling debate. Woodward told ABC, per Political Wire: “President Clinton, President Reagan. And if you look at them, you can criticize them for lots of things. They by and large worked their will, Woodward said. On this, President Obama did not.” He added, “Now, some people are going to say he was fighting a brick wall, the Republicans in the House and the Republicans in Congress. Others will say it’s the president’s job to figure out how to tear down that brick wall. In this case, he did not.” Does the Woodward book on such an ugly inside the Beltway fight have legs in the swing states in these final days? We’ll see.
The notion that an inside-Beltway account of the debt-ceiling debate would have “legs in the swing states” is a delightful window into the solipsism of the Washington bubble: we care about Bob Woodward, so those people in Dayton and Denver and Danville must, too. It’s right up there with David Gergen’s declaration after Obama’s convention speech in Charlotte that Obama’s favorable reference to the Simpson-Bowles commission’s recommendations to balance the budget would help him with undecided voters:
They’re rallying around Simpson-Bowles because it’s one of the most popular ideas around the country. If you travel everyone says, why didn’t they take Simpson-Bowles?
I travel around a lot but clearly not to the right places, because I don’t have a lot of people button-holing me about Simpson-Bowles, or Bowles-Simpson, or even its near cousins Rivlin-Domenici and Domenici-Rivlin!
Joking aside, the fact of the matter is that political scientists and pollsters have found that truly undecided, late-deciding voters tend to be very “low-information”—the industry euphemism for “not reading Bob Woodward in their spare time to help them decide how to vote.” Saturday Night Live captured this contingent pretty brilliantly last weekend.
But lo! This week it became apparent that Mitt Romney’s campaign believes that the science on this is wrong. It broke out an ad built entirely around Woodward’s book, specifically his claim—vigorously denied by Nancy Pelosi—that she muted out a conference call with Obama so that she could get back to a meeting with Harry Reid during the debt ceiling showdown last year. The ad concludes: “If he cannot lead his own party, how can he lead America?”
If this ad shows any signs of swaying swing-state undecideds outside of McLean, Virginia, I’ll eat a strategically-placed flowerpot.
Businesswoman and philanthropist Susan Crown, a former Obama supporter and a member of one of Chicago’s most influential families, told an audience of over 300 women and men, “In the midst of the Obama administration, I became profoundly disappointed, disillusioned and actually a little angry.”
Democrats, Republicans and self-described independents recently came together to hear how one of President Obama’s own prominent supporters is now using her considerable talent and energy to get Gov. Mitt Romney elected the next President of the United States. They gathered at a modest complimentary luncheon in the ballroom of a hotel in Naperville, Illinois sponsored by the DuPage Business Council. The event was a “Women in Leadership” forum, where Crown gave a brief introduction, then took questions from the audience. Outside the ballroom, four self-employed women from a neighboring suburb sold red-white-blue elephant earrings, US flag pins, GOP/elephant jewelry, and t-shirts with glittery “Romney” lettering.
“I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and don’t think the government belongs in a lot of those issues,” Crown said.
So how could a woman with this sort of background on “social issues”, who gave money to Obama’s 2008 campaign, and who worked with him on the Annenberg Challenge board support Gov. Romney, who is pro-life and pro-traditional marriage?
Crown spent nearly one hour answering questions from the audience to fully explain her conversion.
Her reasons and responses were wide-ranging, thoughtful, brutally honest and humorous.
OBAMA’S TREATMENT OF ISRAEL “MADE ME MAD; I’M SO EMBARRASSED BY OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT”
Top on Crown’s list is the way President Obama has been treating Israel.
“In 2011, when Barack Obama suggested that Israel return to 1967 borders--the country is about the size of Rhode Island--it was hard fought, hard won. And the idea of telling all the people who have who lost loved ones in the 1967 war, that we were going to have a ‘do-over’,really made me mad.”
Crown was referring to President Obama’s speech at the State Department in May 2011. There he called for a Palestinian state using boundary lines before the Six Day War of 1967, where Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria, capturing the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights. As Obama stated last year: “We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” For Crown and other Jewish citizens who are supporting Gov. Romney, that declaration, which came the day before Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to arrive in the US for talks with Obama, was unacceptable.
In an interview with longtime Chicago writer, Carol Felsenthal, Crown told Chicago Magazine “the day that really made a difference for me was the day he suggested that Israel go back to 1967 borders. That infuriated me. That was the day I switched candidates.”
Fast forward to September 2012, when Netanyahu asked for a meeting with President Obama. Instead of receiving the Israeli Prime Minister, Obama accepted other invitations: to attend a campaign fundraiser hosted by music mogul Jay-Z and his superstar wife Beyonce at a sports club in New York City, where people paid $40,000 to attend; to appear on TV entertainment programs “Late Show with David Letterman"; and to join the hosts of the talk show “The View.” When Letterman asked Obama what the national debt was ($16 trillion and rapidly climbing, according to the National Debt Clock), the President casually responded that he did not know. However, he was able to inform the women on “The View” that he was their “eye candy.”
"I am so embarrassed that our current President, instead of taking a meeting with Netanyahu, is going to New York and hanging out with Jay-Z and Beyonce.” The audience erupted in applause.
She continued: “Netanyahu is not the most uncomplicated or simple man to deal with and that’s a given. Netanyahu’s angst is about the existential threat to the state of Israel. Iran has declared that destroying Israel is at the top of its list. It’s equipping itself with nuclear arms for ‘energy’ purposes.' And why Jay-Z and Beyonce are your priority? I don’t get it.”
OBAMA’S DANGEROUS “MIXED MESSAGES” TO ISRAEL; DEBACLE IN MIDDLE EAST POLICY
As for her fellow Jewish voters who support Obama, Crown is mystified.
“I really can’t speak for all members of the tribe—they are all over the place. I don’t really understand anyone who really cares about the survival of the state of Israel or who really wants things to be smoothed over in the Middle East, how they can vote for a candidate who is sending mixed messages, open to interpretation. Which is to me the worst of all worlds.”
Those mixed messages are key to her disappointment in Obama: “He is sending mixed messages in a volatile and increasingly violent world. And America is being perceived as weaker and weaker. And in a more dangerous place.”
With the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others in our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the uprisings at the U.S. embassy in Cairo and beyond, Crown sees the need for new leadership.
“It is really critical that we have friends in a part of the world that has huge numbers of unemployed poor people, an oppressive religious society, and no access to Internet or basic media. Those are considered the three most important factors in violent eruptions.”
Crown knows of what she speaks. She is Co-Chair of CARE’s national conference on global poverty. She sees Israel being the “Rock of Gibraltar” and playing a role.
“The United States does not have a more important ally in the world. It is our only reliable and capable ally in the Middle East, which, as we can see, is disintegrating, volatile, fractionalized. It is our only partner on the ground there. Not only that, but we share a lot of aspirational goals about democracy, about opportunity.”
The last four years under President Obama have tattered the United States’ reputation on the world stage. Crown related a conversation between Gov. Romney and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. When asked how the US is being perceived around the world, Kissinger responded with one word: weak.
That weakness was on full display at the United Nations when President Obama tried to sell the notion that the attacks were the result of an amateur’s short video, which makes a caricature of Islam’s prophet Mohammed. Shockingly, Obama refused to recognize even the possibility that al-Qaeda was responsible.
Yet Libya’s own President Mohammed Magarief told NBC’s Ann Curry that it was a “pre-planned act of terrorism” and that the movie had “nothing to do with this attack.”
THE PHONY “WAR ON WOMEN, WAR ON MIDDLE CLASS, WAR ON DOGS” and “47% OUTRAGE”
When an audience member asked about the Obama campaign’s attempt to attach the “war on women” label on Romney, Crown’s critique was swift—but it didn’t stop there.
“This idea that there is a ‘war on women’, a ‘war on the middle class’, a ‘war on dogs’ (laughter from the audience) is David Axelrod at work.”
Given the latest emails Obama’s close advisor and campaign director, David Axlerod, has sent out, Crown is spot on. In fact, there has been a tinge of desperation to the daily missives the Obama campaignsends as it tries to navigate a sinking ship through a sea of failed and false narratives.
Recently, Axelrod used examples of Obama’s mother dying of cancer and his own daughter’s epilepsy to elicit donations. In an an email sent the day before the first Presidential debate, Axelrod actually used "Barack and Michelle's" wedding anniversary to solicit more money. His campaign did something similar during the summer, asking couples who were getting married (or having an anniversary or birthday) to contribute to the Obama campaign in lieu of giving and getting gifts.
Crown sees through all the desperation and says Obama’s claim of a GOP “war on women” is contrived.
“It’s a construct,” she says. While the Obama camp would like Americans to believe the GOP has a reproductive “war on women” (see the use of radical activist Sandra Fluke at the Democratic National Convention, where she fabricated the claim that the GOP wants to "control birth control"), Crown sees the “war on women” being an economic one.
“I believe that the war on women is really an economic war. And I would not say it’s being waged by the Romney administration. I think it’s a very convenient catchphrase. When I talk to women their real concern is in putting the pieces together in their lives. The average household since Obama took office has decreased annual income by an average of $4000.”
While Crown is “very much pro choice”, she says “my priorities have been completely rejiggered. They have to be. We’ve got a $16 trillion debt. We don’t know if there’s going to be Medicare there for us. So I think the ‘war on women’ is a construct. I think it’s been effective in that it reaches people who are stuck in sort of the old mold of thinking about what our priorities are.”
She respects the fact that for Romney/Ryan, the economy is the priority.
“Our primary issue is the economy. It’s a double-dip recession and a terrible economy. Companies are afraid to make investments. They are hanging on to cash. They are not quite sure what’s going to drop next. Europe? Greece?
“The middle class issue is front and center of all those. When we have a thriving economy, when people can get loans, when people can get jobs, when people can have the dignity of providing for their family, we have a stronger middle class and a pathway out of poverty."
The businesswoman and Mother of two says she is also troubled by Obama’s aversion to free markets and the “not so benign neglect of the deficit.”
"I do not think Barack Obama has ever taken an accounting class. (laughter and applause from the audience.)
"I believe--like obviously most of you do--that capitalism is an incredibly efficient system. And it works. And it really works in the United States to carry people from a current economic standing to a better economic place. And what we have now is a government that is trying to govern more than 16% of the economy with the new health care law. And it should just stay out of it. My view is that the middle class will be best served by an unencumbered and promoted economy.”
“I don’t think he appreciates the genius of capitalism (applause). And he will do what he can do to interfere rather than let it operate. And I think that is going to hurt a lot of people.”
Part of Gov. Romney’s campaign strategy is to direct this message to Independents and voters who are still undecided, rather than to the roughly 47% who are dependent to some extent on the federal government. While the Obama campaign tried mightily to twist Gov. Romney's comment to insinuate he "doesn't care" about "the 47%", Crown points out the 47% comment referred to a campaign strategy which targets only those in the electorate who are winnable.
"What the governor was saying--which has been misinterpreted by the press--is...that a certain large percentage--47% or so will vote for Obama. And another large percentage 47% will vote for him. So his point was 5 or 10% of the electorate--one of the narrowest margins anywhere--will be deciding the election. So, independents and people who haven't made up their mind are really the target. It's not that he doesn't care about the 47% of the population, it's that he's not going to target them in his ads and things like that. Because he knows where they stand politically. So there's no disparagement. And that characterization--it strikes me as really strange for a guy who has spent all his life helping others."
THE MILITARY
When a Mother of a soldier stood up and asked how Gov. Romney would handle the Obama administration’s plan to cut military spending, Crown acknowledged she was not an expert. However, Obama’s cuts--cuts his own Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called “dangerous” and that “would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families and our ability to protect the nation”--“blows my mind.” It would handicap the soldiers who are “performing this extraordinary service—which is as much international development as it is peace keeping.”
WHY SHE SUPPORTS ROMNEY
By her own admission, Crown has never been directly involved in politics. Her resume reveals that her time has been spent in other endeavors: Vice President of Henry Crown & Company, a Chicago-based investment firm and Chairman/Founder of SCE, a social investment organization that connects talent and innovation with market forces to drive social change. SCE is now working on the development and distribution of digital media to help children learn skills necessary for the 21st Century workplace and civic life.
Additionally, Crown recently co-chaired CARE’s national conference on global poverty, advocated for legislation on food security programs and global warming, and is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
But when her husband introduced her to Gov. Romney last year, she was sold.
“For the first time in my life I felt: what can we do for this guy? How do we get him in office? This is a quality of human being that doesn’t normally subject themselves to this kind of grueling and brutal political process. And since that time, I have been working as hard as I can for Mitt.”
Crown respects Romney’s record as a leader in both the public and private sectors: as Governor of Massachusetts and as CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, which he successfully turned around after it was sullied by scandal. Romney refused to take a salary if the Olympics did not make a profit. It did. They gave him the $250,000 designated salary. He then gave it to charity.
Perhaps Romney’s ability and plans for turning around the current Obama-soured economy is what further cements Crown's solid endorsement. She noted that Romney’s guiding principle for the economy is “a rising tide lifts all boats", a classic free market outcome.
On a personal level, she recounted several instances where Romney dropped what was on his own plate in life to help those around him. One case in point: a colleague at Bain Capital whose child was missing. Romney shut down the office and formed a team of investigators to find her.
“I have been blessed in my life to work with some of the most capable mentors and leaders. And I think I can spot them at this point. He is extraordinary. He is smart. Capable. Focused. Driven. Principled. Humane. Clear. He’s a gentleman. And to have a person of his quality? We ought to jump on this opportunity to get someone of his quality elected."
The American Left used to champion free expression. We were lectured -- correctly -- that the price of being repulsed by occasional crude talk and art was worth paying. Only that way could Americans ensure our daily right to criticize those with greater power and influence whom we found wrong and objectionable.
When 1950s comedian Lenny Bruce titillated his audiences with the F-word and crude sex talk, liberals came to his defense. They reminded us that vulgar speech is not a crime: The First Amendment was not just designed to protect uplifting expression, but also rarer blasphemous and indecent speech.
For liberals, the burning of a flag on campus and the full frontal nudity of Penthouse magazine were also First Amendment issues.
When artist Andres Serrano photographed a crucifix in a jar with his own urine ("Piss Christ"), the avant-garde Left not only protected Serrano's constitutional right to offend millions, but also saw no problem in the U.S. government subsidizing the talentless Serrano's sophomoric obnoxiousness.
But the worldview of the Left is self-contradictory. One of its pet doctrines is multiculturalism -- or the idea that non-Western cultures cannot be judged critically by our own inherently biased Western standards.
Female circumcision or honor killings in the Muslim world don't merit our attention in the way that a woman's right to free abortion pills from her Catholic employer does in the West. When it comes to the Middle East, we neither criticize strongly enough the region's sexism, homophobia or racism, nor do we defend without qualification our own notions of free expression as inherently superior to the habitual censorship abroad.
Fear plays a role, too. Championing the right of Andres Serrano to show his degrading pictures of Christ wins liberal laurels. Protecting novelist Salman Rushdie's caricatures of Islam might earn death.
The Obama administration went to great lengths to blast -- and even arrest -- an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian for posting on the Internet a juvenile movie trailer ridiculing Islam and offending Muslims. After riots across the Middle East and the murder of the U.S. ambassador in Libya, American officials did not wish to concede that radical Islam hates the United States -- even when Barack Obama is president. And they did not want to admit that their own lax security standards, not a film trailer, led to the horrific murders in Libya, or that in an election year their Middle East reset policy is in shambles.
No obnoxious American in the last half-century -- not Larry Flynt, not Daniel Ellsberg, not even Julian Assange -- has warranted so much condemnation for his antics from the president of the United States, the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as have one crackpot preacher in Florida and an inept Coptic film producer.
Outraged Arab-Americans in Dearborn, Mich., demonstrated in favor of anti-blasphemy laws last week. They demanded an end to any expression that they find religiously offensive -- and thereby prove to be embarrassingly clueless as to why many in their communities left their own homelands to come to America in the first place.
The new Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, recently lectured the U.S. on its decadence and wants a global ban on the caricaturing of Islam. He, too, forgot why he once fled to the United States to be educated, employed and to freely say things that would have gotten him killed in his native Egypt.
Another Egyptian immigrant, frequent CNN and MSNBC guest pundit Mona Eltahawy, recently spray-painted over a public anti-jihadist poster that she disliked. In her world, defacing public property is OK if by her own standards she judges it offensive. Eltahawy, like the Dearborn protestors, is oblivious to the fact that her self-appointed censorship would soon turn her adopted country into just the sort of intolerant society from which she, too, fled.
It is past time for U.S. officials to insist that our traditions and laws apply equally across the board, regardless of where we come from, or what we look like, or the anger and danger we incur from abroad.
Schools could do better by cutting back on their multicultural classes and reintroducing study of the U.S. Constitution. All immigrants need to pass a basic test on the Bill of Rights as part of winning citizenship.
"Speaking truth to power" is not Sandra Fluke grandstanding to ovations at the Democratic convention on behalf of government-supplied free contraception. It is instead our elected officials reminding rampaging Middle Eastern terrorists and bigots that they will not alter our Constitution -- and better not try.
I'm thrilled to report the publication of What I Miss About America, my first e-book, which is now available at Amazon.
What I Miss About America takes you on a tragicomic tour of what’s gone missing in America, during our Golden Age of Hope and Change. With a barrage of one-liners, it summons up the lost world of American greatness, and inventories the treasures that have been snatched from under our noses.
Readers are saying about What I Miss About America:
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"Stella Paul works on the heart, mind, soul, and gut levels, all at once, letting us realize how much we are in the process of losing."Thomas Lifson, editor, American Thinker
What I Miss About America is attractively priced for the Obama economy at just $1.99. Buy one for yourself, and a dozen for your friends and family to spread the word about what we're missing - and what we absolutely must get back.
The Republican dominates the first Presidential debate
Election Day is only a month away, but for our money the Presidential campaign really began in earnest Wednesday night in Denver at the first Presidential debate. Mitt Romney met the challenge of appearing Presidential, showed a superior command of fact and argument than the incumbent, and made a confident, optimistic case for change. These columns have often criticized the former Massachusetts Governor, but this was easily his finest performance as a candidate, and the best debate effort by a Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Mr. Romney has been losing the tax issue to Mr. Obama, but he certainly didn't lose the tax debate in Denver. For the first time, the Republican made a systematic, principled case for his tax reform and for lowering tax rates as a spur to economic growth.
Mr. Obama tried his familiar class warfare lines and the need for a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction that must raise taxes. But Mr. Romney rose above by making the case that higher taxes will hurt growth and job creation and thus reduce government revenues.
His one mistake was saying that a reform like his has never been tried before, when he could have said Ronald Reagan did it with Democrats in 1986. But overall, and more than once, we caught ourselves saying, Where has this Romney guy been hiding?
Mr. Romney was also strong and fluent on health care, somewhat remarkably. The only major point Mr. Obama scored was noting the similarities between his plan and Mr. Romney's Massachusetts model, but the Republican brushed off those attacks by describing the broader harm ObamaCare will inflict on U.S. medicine and the abusive way Democrats jammed the bill through Congress over the objections of the American public.
In particular he put Mr. Obama on the defensive about the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board, the 15-member "expert" and unelected commission that will tell doctors how to practice and seniors the treatments they are allowed to receive. The President struggled to stick to his own talking points, perhaps because the damaging details speak for themselves.
Mr. Obama was also on the backfoot on Medicare, which was supposed to have doomed Mr. Romney. For the first time we can recall, the President was forced to at least semi-accurately describe the plan Mr. Romney is running on and not his own distortions. That's likely because he knew his opponent would expose the straw men, and Mr. Romney responded in detail about why "premium support" isn't a voucher program that will consign Grandma to a snowbank.
The Republican stitched all of this together into a frontal assault on the economic reality of the last four years. This is something Mr. Obama doesn't want to discuss, preferring to talk about "the mess" he inherited and the hope and change that will finally arrive in a second term. He even said during the debate that the crucial question is "not where we've been but where we're going."
Mr. Romney kept reminding Americans about the unpleasant facts about where we've been as a way of casting doubt on what four more years of Mr. Obama would be like. But significantly, and for the first time, he didn't merely criticize the Obama record.
Mr. Romney went further and explained with some specificity how his policies would improve the lives and economic prospects for middle-class Americans. He was notably good on the case for education choice for poor families, while fending off Mr. Obama's stock line that Mr. Romney is anti-education because he won't pay to hire 100,000 more union teachers.
The President seemed off his game overall, verbose as he often is but with his famous restraint seeming more diffident than cool as Mr. Romney bore in with details about his record. It's clear Mr. Obama isn't used to someone challenging the attack lines that he uses to describe Mr. Romney's various proposals on the stump.
So when Mr. Romney defended those plans with his considerable and passionate detail, Mr. Obama seemed to have no answer but to repeat the charges. He was out of arguments. This was notable in particular on taxes, where Mr. Obama's trope that Mr. Romney would raise middle-class taxes by $2,000 was left shredded on the stage as a patent falsehood.
It's going to be fascinating to see how this debate influences a race that the pundit class and most Democrats had all but declared to be over. The Romney campaign apparatus now has its own challenge to rise to the level of Wednesday's performance by the candidate, in particular by improving its lackluster advertising that continues to traffic in general promises and platitudes. We'd also suggest a reworked stump speech.
What worked for Mr. Romney on Wednesday was his confident demeanor and mastery of the policy detail, stitched together into a critique of the incumbent and clear explanation of the election stakes. Undecided voters saw a different challenger than they've been reading about, or seeing on TV, and the race is finally on.
8a)Henninger: The Romney Reboot Arrives
In a role reversal, Mitt Romney went on offense and put Barack Obama on defense for 90 minutes.
Barring revelations by the Obama campaign that Mitt Romney has an identical twin, whoever that guy representing the GOP ticket was in Denver has just given the United States a real presidential election. At last.
It would be asking too much for anyone to believe that the Romney campaign planned to spend two years saying very little about the substance of public policy as a ruse to anesthetize Barack Obama on debate night, but that is clearly what happened.
Gov. Romney came to the debate prepared to press Mr. Obama in detail about the president's record, to defend the substance of his own proposals and even draw sharp philosophical distinctions with Mr. Obama. We're happy to tip a hat to his pre-debate sparring partner, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, but this level of competence and detail wasn't acquired in the past 10 days.
We may all wonder why he waited until now to liberate the real Mitt, but five weeks from election day, that question is beside the point and behind us.
This is the candidate, and he proved in Denver he deserves to be the candidate. At last.
It is safe to say that no one expected or predicted that Barack Obama could be so pushed off his game or look so flustered in a contest of articulating ideas. What happened?
Barack Obama showed the dangers and risks of presidential incumbency. For all the powers of the office, the U.S. presidency inevitably causes the person holding it to place outsized belief and faith in the correctness of his own policies and ideas. In a word, hubris. It has happened before.
Barack Obama, perhaps the most self-confident person to occupy that office in our lifetime, was always skating along the edge of a cliff of self-destructive arrogance. No other president would have though to berate the members of the Supreme Court as they sat in front of him during his State of the Union speech. The famous George Washington University speech in which he ridiculed his Republican partners in the deficit-negotiation talks, who had come to the speech expecting to here a policy response, was another sign of potential danger.
And finally there was the report a few weeks ago that Mr. Obama did not respect Gov. Romney and did not consider him competent to be president.
This is a president, dismissive and condescending to any opposition, who went into that debate in Denver and essentially got his head handed to him by better-prepared opponent.
What was especially damaging to Mr. Obama is that when it became clear early in the initial discussion of tax policy that Mitt Romney was going to take his argument to a deeper level, the president's response was essentially to start cutting and pasting stock lines from speeches he's been giving for years. After awhile, he looked like a guy who was rummaging through a drawer for old audio cassettes. "The oil industry gets $4 billion a year in corporate welfare." He even rolled out the corporate jets.
The president sounded like someone who had simply run out of ideas. His challenger was elaborating detail on his policies, and the president was the candidate living in the past. His references to what he would do with a second term were minimal. Instead, he had to spend most of the 90 minutes trying to defend his policies from Mr. Romney's critique.
This was most notable on the biggest issue of all— the future of ObamaCare. Mr. Obama's defense of the 15-member review board came down to citing some process reforms at the Cleveland Clinic. Gov. Romney immediately turned that around as an example of a privateinstitution experimenting its way toward new ideas—a difference of policy and philosophy.
Not least, Mr. Romney has finally found his way to a workable defense of his Massachusetts health-care plan, emphasizing that whatever its merits, it was a major legislation that was passed on a bipartisan basis. Mr. Obama was left muttering that the Washington GOP should have taken cues from Massachusetts.
The debate ultimately produced a reversal of expectations and roles. Based on past performances, it was Mitt Romney who should have been scattershot in his discussion and defensive about his ideas. He's always been defensive about his ideas. Instead, it was Gov. Romney on offense and the president on defense for most of the debate.
Mitt Romney may not have won the election in the first debate, but he established a new baseline. In 90 minutes in Denver, Mr. Romney finally aligned himself with the political zeitgeist of the electorate. They have wanted to know more about his plans. They wanted to know why he thinks their current president has failed and what he'd do differently. Now they do.
Will it last? It would be passing strange, even a little weird, if Mr. Romney reverted to a candidacy skimming along the surface of issues and arguments. He can go deep. He should keep doing it. Besides as he said minutes into the debate, "It's fun, isn't it?" It is. Give the voters more of it.
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