Filed under: Bureaucracy, Heartwarming, History, Humor, The United States | Tags: Congress Sings, February 7 1987, Ronald Reagan
A brief trip back in history: when Congress sang Happy Birthday to President Ronald Reagan.
It’s interesting to think about how our politics and national life have changed by the constant presence of cameras. The lives of miscreants have become far more risky since there are almost always people present with phones in their pockets to take their picture. But now even history has changed. What was once a rare filmed event, is now choosing between different versions. Events are not only recorded, but photoshopped, people are added or subtracted from the scenes.
This was February 6, 1987. Apparently this was the day of the State of the Union Speech, and the happy birthday song was saved until the end of the speech, which was eliminated to capture the song. An historic occasion. You don’t often get Congress all singing the same song in good humor.
Thanks to Weasel Zippers for the link
Filed under: Canada, Europe, Freedom, History, Military, United Kingdom | Tags: D-Day, Ronald Reagan, U.S. Army Rangers
Here is Ronald Reagan on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, speaking on that windswept coast at the very spot where Allied soldiers waded ashore to liberate Europe from the yoke of Nazi tyranny. He spoke to the veterans of Pointe du Hoc where he unveiled memorials to the 2nd and 5th U.S. Army Ranger battalions who stormed the cliffs.
The President and Mrs. Reagan greeted each of the veterans after the speech. Other Allied countries represented at the ceremony by their heads of state and government were Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, King Olav V of Norway, King Baudouin I of Belgium, Grand Duke Jean Of Luxembourg and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau of Canada.
You can read the speech or listen. Might be a good one to share with the kids, as this is one of the great speeches. Such things are no longer a usual part of the curriculum in school, and kids need to know what their country is about, and a little about the men who fought to preserve their liberty. The youngest of the Rangers are 95 now, and all too soon there will be none left.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Freedom, History, The United States | Tags: 52 Years Ago This Last Weekend, Quotations Worth Remembering, Ronald Reagan
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well-taught lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”
Filed under: Conservatism, Freedom, History, Politics, Pop Culture | Tags: Christmas, Gifts, Republicans, Retro, Ronald Reagan
Just in time for Christmas, and exclusively available from American Elephants, the original, official, iconic, 1980 “Reagan for President” primary-election campaign logo, AND the official, 1980 “The Time is Now. Reagan & Bush” general-election campaign logo t-shirts. (Coming very soon in buttons, bumper stickers and other items. So check back soon!)
Classic, iconic, historical gifts ANY Reagan fan would love to receive!
These official 1980 campaign logos are not available anywhere else! …I checked! I wanted them for myself because they’re a better design than the 1984 campaign logo, they don’t include the year (so they’re timeless) and they’re from the campaign that started it all! …so I reproduced them myself.
Be a part of history! Be a part of the 1980 campaign that launched the Reagan Revolution — the longest period of peace and prosperity in American history. Show your support for the greatest president of the 20th century! Especially now — especially as Obama and the Democrats are doing everything in their power to dismantle all the real progress Reagan made!
And while you’re at our shop, be sure to check out our other designs too!
We hope you have a very Merry Christmas!
Love,
The Elephants
Filed under: Conservatism, Election 2012, Politics, Progressivism | Tags: americans for prosperity, Obama, Ronald Reagan
A nice tribute to the Gipper on what would be his 101st birthday from Americans for Prosperity. Reagan v. the anti-Reagan. Better yet, they’re airing on TV.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Election 2012, Energy, Freedom | Tags: American Exceptionalism, Ronald Reagan, Why is America So Great?
If our stalwart presidential candidates could pause in attacking each other long enough to talk about just why this is such an important election, and what they hope to do about it, I suspect we would all appreciate it.
When Barack Obama spoke during the campaign about hope and change, not enough people paid attention to his record as the most liberal senator in the Capitol. We were dazzled by footwork, and halos that appeared about the candidate’s head, presidential seals and promises to bring peace and non-partisanship to Washington DC.
Liberals are puzzled by our continuing affection for Ronald Reagan, whom they detested. Ronald Reagan from 1975 to 1979 made more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, two-thirds of which he wrote himself. They covered all sorts of topics from labor policy to the nature of communism, from World War II to the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, from the future of Africa and East Asia to that of the United States and the world. *
Richard Mitchell, whom I quote often, said in The Graves of Academe:
Thinking is done in language, and understanding, a result of thinking, is expressed in language, but, when we simply adopt and recite what has been expressed, we have committed neither thinking or understanding.
It’s not easy to get your ideas down on paper. The radio broadcasts were roughly 400-500 words long, and about every subject ranging from Cuba, to Peace, Human Rights, Intelligence and the Media, Rhodesia, SALT Talks, Arms Control. In these thousand broadcasts, Reagan said succinctly what he thought about a vast array of subjects. And it’s why he could explain so clearly to Mr. Gorbachev just what he had in mind.
Richard Mitchell also said that the business of writing is to stay put on the page so that you can go back and look at the words and see where you have been stupid. Writing is a special case of language that allows you to get it right.
If our candidates had thought a little more deeply about just why America is so important, maybe we wouldn’t have an incumbent who believes that America is not exceptional.
Herbert Meyer, assistant to the director of the CIA during the Reagan administration, wrote at American Thinker “Why, Precisely, is America so Great?”
“The one thing that President Obama and all the GOP contenders for is job agree about is that America is the greatest country in the world. They all use this line in ever speech they make, and it always brings the crowd cheering to its feet. But none of these politicians ever quite gets around to explaining precisely why we’re the world’s greatest country. That’s too bad, because it’s a serious question that deserves a serious answer — right now, before Republicans choose their candidate and before the voters make their choice in November.”
He goes on to point out that politics is the relationship between the individual and the State, the relationship that we have been struggling to get right for thousands of years. Our Constitution established a relationship between the individual and the State that was unique in history. The individual was in charge, the State would serve the individual, and there would be an arms’ length distance between the two. It is this unique relationship that made all the difference.
If you think of this relationship as a kind of operating system — like the operating systems that drive our computers and our cell phones — you can see how it’s been steadily modified and upgraded throughout our history. In this sense, each new law enacted by Congress has been an effort to improve the operating system. At times in our history, for instance during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, the changes have been so substantial that it’s less like an upgrade and more like a wholly new version of the operating system that’s been installed. But never in our history have we replaced the original operating system — that extraordinary, uniquely American relationship between the individual and the State — upon which our country was founded.
Until now.
Do read the whole essay, it’s worth your while.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Law, Media Bias, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics | Tags: FDR, Obama, Ronald Reagan, SEIU, Unions, Wisconsin
Obama chanting SEIU after promising, as president, to “paint the nation purple”. Almost everything this president has done since in office has been to pay back unions for getting him elected. The vast majority of stimulus money went to unions, both directly and indirectly. “Shovel ready projects”, “High speed rail” and “infrastructure” all have the same purpose — to grow the public unions and provide more compulsory union dues, which in turn are spent to re-elect Democrats, who then give more of your money to unions to get themselves elected. This is why Democrats wanted to unionize the Department of Homeland security, and TSA. Not because it is in the nation’s best interest, and not to protect any fallacious rights (you dont have a right to strike against the people); they want to unionize as many workers as possible, because those union dues go directly to electing more Democrats.
It’s incestuous, inherently corrupt, patently unfair and by definition against the public interest.
Unions were major proponents for Obamacare, even though they already have healthcare, because they figure when Obamacare destroys the private healthcare industry (as it is designed to do), and the American people are left with no choice but to beg for government run socialized medicine — they can then turn around and demand that they KEEP the money that used to pay for their healthcare as salary.
Public employee unions are the most selfish, most corrupt groups in the nation. They are enjoying boom times on your dollars, on the dollars that are taken away from employers, on the dollars that are taken out of the economy to grow government. And their lavish salaries and benefits are bankrupting the states and the federal government. While the people who pay their salaries take pay cuts, and lose their jobs, public employees are getting raises, bonuses, and in the case of the Federal Government, Obama is freezing their pay for two years, which is utterly meaningless since they already make twice what you do.
Americans are on our side on this, they know the gravy train must be cut off. It is the right side, and I think we will win big.
But Republicans also need to make sure this sticks to Obama. This is who he is, a union organizer, a Chicago-Daly Machine thug as corrupt as they come, and its time Americans understood that. It’s imperative they understand it, before he can wreak any more devastation on the country than he already has.
So contact Republicans, contact your representatives, and Republicans in Wisconsin, and let them know you support them, and not to give in to the thuggery.
Public employee unions should be illegal, as they were until the 1960’s. No one who works directly for the American people should be allowed to organize against them, or hold vital services hostage in demands for more wages. Even FDR was against public unions. As was our first union-dues paying president:
Now THAT is how to deal with these thugs!
Filed under: Capitalism, Conservatism, Freedom, History, News, Politics, The Constitution | Tags: Birthday, Centennial, Ronald Reagan
Filed under: Europe, Freedom, History, United Kingdom | Tags: D-Day, Ronald Reagan, U.. Army Rangers
Here is Ronald Reagan on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, speaking on that windswept coast at the very spot where Allied soldiers waded ashore to liberate Europe from the yoke of Nazi tyranny. He spoke to the veterans of Pointe du Hoc where he unveiled memorials to the 2nd and 5th U.S. Army Ranger battalions who stormed the cliffs.
The President and Mrs. Reagan greeted each of the veterans after the speech. Other Allied countries represented at the ceremony by their heads of state and government were Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, King Olav V of Norway, King Baudouin I of Belgium, Grand Duke Jean Of Luxembourg and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau of Canada.
You can read the speech or listen. Might be a good one to share with the kids, as this is one of the great speeches. Such things are no longer a usual part of the curriculum in school, and kids need to know what their country is about, and a little about the men who fought to preserve their liberty. The youngest of the Rangers are 84 now, and all too soon there will be no one alive who was there, and remembers what it was all about.
Filed under: Europe, Freedom, History, Politics | Tags: Peter Robinson, Ronald Reagan, The Berlin Wall
Germany today celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of East and West Germany that resulted, and the collapse of Communism. It was a big day for the Germans, and they have been celebrating for some time. The leaders of all the Western Democracies were there.
The United States sent a delegation headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Obama did not attend. He sent a video of himself, noting that Jack Kennedy once spoke at the Brandenburg Gate, and that he, Obama, was the first African-American President of the United States. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John-Paul, Helmut Kohl and all the people who had a real part in bringing the wall down, were not mentioned.
Power Line has printed an excerpt from Peter Robinson’s memoir How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. Robinson was the speechwriter assigned to write the Brandenburg Gate address and the excerpt is an account of how the speech came about.
The usual liberal pieces have appeared on schedule today, noting all the world’s walls. The Israeli wall, the wall between the U.S. and Mexico — supposedly comparable. What they never seem to grasp are the differences. The Berlin Wall was constructed to keep the German people in East Germany in. It was a prison wall, tall— with barbed wire, watch towers, floodlights armed guards and machine guns — to keep desperate citizens from escaping to freedom.
And the idea that communism killed over 100 million of their own people has been conveniently assigned to the memory hole.
It was 25 years ago on this very day that Ronald Wilson Reagan accepted the nomination of the Republican party for his second term as president of the United States of America. He had put the country on the mend from the devastation wreaked by Jimmy Carter and a Democrat congress. He spoke without equivocation of tried and true conservatism, and was the poster child for its efficacy. The speech is particularly appropriate today as Barack Obama leads the nation back to the malaise and command and control Statism of the Carter years. Should be required watching for every Republican politician in America.
Compare Reagan’s confident conservatism with the uncertainty inherent in the speeches by so-called moderates like John McCain for whom government is sometimes the answer and sometimes not. How can you lead when you have to take a poll to find out what you believe?
Listen closely to this speech, you will hear much of it copied by Barack Obama in 2012.
(h/t The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library)
American Elephants 