AMHERST — Former Vice president Al Gore on Friday refuted claims that global warning is a myth, saying that 97 to 98 percent of the worlds’ scientists attest to its veracity. Gore was the keynote speaker at the inauguration of Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash Friday. The theme of Lash’s inauguration was “Educating for Change:
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Goracle Never at a Loss for Hyperbole: “My point is we must respond; what the scientists tell us is going to take place if we do not is too awful to…
Living like a liberal isn’t easy. Just ask Matt Labash, who tried it for ten days — doing his best to break none of the 538 commandments found in the book: 538 Ways to Live Work and Play Like a Liberal . To take one example, the book tells you to question the source of the foodstuffs at your local grocery or supermarket. Labash manned up to the task. Seeing a big pile of Chiquita bananas on display at a Trader Joe’s, he grilled a stock clerk, who played it safe by referring him to a manager named Sunshine. “Say, Sunshine,” he said. “You guys stock Chiquita bananas here. Don’t they lop off their workers’ hands to keep them in line?” “I’ve heard something like that,” she laughed nervously. “But I really couldn’t tell you specifics — though you should check our website if you’re curious about labor conditions.” At first glance, it might seem that all Labash got from his valiant and sustained effort of trying to think and live like a liberal was a brilliantly funny cover story in the Weekly Standard . But his story also clues us into an important reality. Most of us who aren’t liberals are caught up in the same dreary game of thinking it is necessary to go along with the liberal playbook in many matters. We do it without even thinking about it. This is how Labash described the scene at the Weekly Standard : Many of his other liberalizing-the-workplace suggestions I skip, because we already do them. We already recycle. We don’t have plastic water coolers. We already have environmentally friendly toilets… Krebs [i.e. the author, Justin Krebs ] says to relax the office dress code. But if our dress code were any more relaxed, we’d be wearing cut-offs and half-shirts to work, making us look like some sort of neocon Mountain Dew commercial. Our acquiescence to liberal norms allows liberals to think that they have already won the cultural war and have only a mopping up exercise to do before getting back to the kind of raw political power that they enjoyed at the outset of the Obama administration. This allows the president to act in a magnanimous way — like a cat playing with a mouse that has no chance of escape. In such a mood Mr. Obama went out of his way to sing the praises of free enterprise in his speech on Wednesday to the Associated Press. Perhaps you didn’t know that Barack Obama might be the second coming of Milton Friedman or F. A. Hayek. But this is straight from the official transcript of his speech:
WASHINGTON — There are some campaign advisors who would counsel former governor Mitt Romney to jog on the campaign trail tirelessly, probably in short pants and with a catchy T-shirt emblazoned with some memorable phrase, say, “Fred Fna Ate Here,” à la Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Jimmy Carter started the presidential candidates’ jogging craze, and since him there have been a horde of presidential joggers, all wearing little boys’ outfits, the notable exception being Ronald Reagan — possibly because, as he campaigned from 1976 on, he was considered too old to be president. On the other hand, the old cowboy had a sense of dignity that all other would-be presidents in recent years have lacked. Perhaps Romney should be photographed windsurfing as John Kerry was in 2004 and downing shots of firewater as Hillary did in 2008. Or he could filch a page from President-elect Vladimir Putin, and campaign shirtless. Adopt the he-man look, Mitt! Alas, Romney is a normal middle-aged American. He is the kind of man we would all like to have live next door. Facts are facts — all the aforesaid candidates save Reagan and now Romney are weird! Americans do not mind having them wearing funny hats and eating ethnic food on the campaign trail, but almost no American would want them as neighbors. Not so Romney. He would be welcome in our neighborhoods, and maybe even trusted with a key to the house. Romney is NORMAL. That is one fundamental reason why, as this campaign season draws to an end, I am glad he will get the nomination. Think about it. Practically everyone who has run for the presidency over the last few decades is odd. You would not want them in your neighborhood. Why would you want one of them in the White House? Rick Santorum ran a fine, if improbable, race, emphasizing values many of us share. Dr. Ron Paul reminded us of our constitutional principles that set Americans apart from the citizenry of other nations. Yet Newt Gingrich was the standard-issue candidate of recent decades. He was as bizarre as Bill Clinton and lacks Bill’s charm — if that is the word for it. Romney is normal. That is what the press corps really means when they say things like he fails to inspire or he commits gaffes. Compared to whom, to Joe Biden? The other day Joe addressed the perfectly nice female president of Scott Community College, a Dr. Theresa Paper, as “Dr. Pepper.” Joe’s list of gaffes is encyclopedic. Moreover, Romney is campaigning for things most Americans believe in, and, in fact, many consider exigent. He will repeal Obamacare and give Medicaid block grants to the state. It costs less for Medicaid in Idaho than in New York City. He says he will take seriously an alternative healthcare proposal involving Premium Support, after the healthcare proposal of Congressman Paul Ryan. He has promised to cut taxes: a 20 percent across-the-board cut in marginal rates, eliminate the Death Tax, eliminate taxes on capital gains, interest, and qualified dividends on those with an Adjusted Gross Income of $200,000 or less, plus cut the corporate tax rate to 25 percent. What is more, he will repeal Dodd-Frank, amend Sarbanes-Oxley, and initiate a review of all of Obama’s Nanny State regulations. That ought to get the economy revved up! In foreign policy, he has promised in his first 100 days to reverse Obama’s cuts in missile defense, modernize our Navy, and reverse the decline in the aging inventories of the Air Force, Army, and Marines. He would pressure Iran to stop building nuclear weapons and improve our relations in the Middle East, starting with Israel. He has promised to open America’s energy reserves for development and prevent the overregulation of shale gas and extraction, helping to make America energy independent. He has promised to amend the Clean Air Act, excluding carbon dioxide from its jurisdiction. These are policies that all conservatives can applaud and independents too. So why is there any doubt that Romney is a conservative? He has already won broad segments of the conservative vote and the Tea Party movement. Soon he will win over large numbers of independents. America is facing a crisis in spending and overreach. I think Romney can meet the crisis and restore America to Happy Days.
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Romney Is Coming On Strong
RINO Radio? Republican In Name Only Radio? Taking on… Rush Limbaugh???????? And demeaning the audience of one’s would-be customers… this is a business proposition? Seriously? There’s two parts of this discussion: talk radio and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Let’s start with talk radio and the basics. All of which are now out there in the Land of Google thanks to the sponsors of this project seeking — and getting — their fair share of tons of PR. So that being the case… let’s work our way through their pitch and what they’re saying. Saying on the record, incredibly enough. Cumulus Media, says Reuters , recently “sent out an email blast to fellow radio station owners with a photoshopped picture of former U.S. Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, promoting him as the conservative talk radio host of the future.” Cumulus, you need to know, recently swallowed Citadel, setting it up with about 570 stations across the country, notably including WABC in New York, one of the nation’s largest and the flagship station for Rush Limbaugh. On this past Sunday, the Cumulus/Huckabee venture to capture the conservative radio market got a roll out in… yes, really… the New York Times . Says the Reuters story — really! — (emphasis in bold): “They are going after Rush’s affiliates,” said one radio company executive who received Cumulus’ email and spoke on condition of anonymity. “They are positioning Huckabee as the safe, non-dangerous alternative to Rush and saying to station owners, ‘If you are looking for conservative content, we want you to consider our guy instead of theirs.’” Another story, this one in the Wall Street Journal, reports : With the slogan “more conversation, less confrontation,” the syndicator behind “Huckabee,” Cumulus Media Networks, has been pitching the new show to advertisers as a less combative alternative to Mr. Limbaugh. Cumulus is a unit of Cumulus Media Inc., which owns 570 radio stations. According to the story in the New York Times (more of which shortly), Huckabee would be appearing on 180 stations (Rush is on over 600), and Cumulus itself carries the Limbaugh show on “dozens of its stations” including on New York’s WABC, the nation’s largest. Contracts being what they are, Rush won’t be moving anywhere in the immediate future in terms of WABC. But contracts also have to be renewed, and what happens to Rush Limbaugh in New York when his contract is up in 2013 and Cumulus is in charge? According to the WSJ story: In an interview, Cumulus’s Mr. Dickey said he would “honor” existing contracts with the Limbaugh show, including at WABC. But he didn’t rule out a switch to Mr. Huckabee in the future. “We are in favor of eating our own cooking,” he said. We are in favor of eating our own cooking? Aside from quite obviously dissing his own current radio superstar — a decidedly novel way of doing business… what is that supposed to mean?
Current TV (co-owned by Al Gore) has dismissed Keith Olbermann after less than a year on the air. Olbermann has been replaced by former New York Governor (and former CNN Host)
