MRC Report Released Recalling Hateful Rhetoric Directed at Reagan

As the nation prepares to pay tribute to former President Ronald Reagan on the 100th anniversary of his birth, it is amazing to consider that his success at turning the U.S. away from 1960s-style liberalism was accomplished in the face of a daily wave of news media hostility. The media’s first draft of history was more myth than reality: that Reagan only brought the nation poverty, ignorance, bankruptcy, and a dangerously imbalanced foreign and defense policy.

The Media Research Center has assembled a report documenting the “objective” national media’s most biased takes on President Reagan, his record and his times, including 22 video clips and matching MP3 audio:

I. Reagan the Man: Reporters often agonized over why the American public liked Reagan, that they couldn’t see through the White House spell and see Reagan in the contemptuous light that the media did.

II. The Reaganomics Recovery: Reagan’s policies caused a dramatic economic turn-around from high inflation and unemployment to steady growth, but the good news was obscured by bad news of trade deficits, greedy excesses of the rich, and supposedly booming homelessness.

III. Reagan and National Defense: Ronald Reagan may have won the Cold War, but to the media, the Reagan defense buildup seemed like a plot designed to deny government aid to the poor and hungry, and was somehow the only spending responsible for “bankrupting” the country.

IV. Reagan and Race: Using their definition of “civil rights” — anything which adds government-mandated advantages for racial minorities is “civil rights” progress — liberal journalists suggested that somehow Ronald Reagan was against liberty for minorities.

V. The Reagan Legacy: The media painted the Reagan era as a horrific time of low ethics, class warfare on the poor, and crushing government debt.

To download a PDF copy of the MRC report, click here.

PolitiFact.com Confirms Virginia AG Cuccinelli's EPA Claim

On January 17, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was speaking at a political rally about a number of the EPA's job killing regulations.

In that speech, Ken said:

"[Tailpipe emissions rules], if fully implemented with all the regulations that go with it, they will keep the temperature from rising nearly five one-hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit by 2050."

Since his speech, the regional and national media has taken issue with AG Cuccinelli's statement and claimed that it is false, as the press has done with many of his other statements regarding the environment and EPA. 

Thankfully, PolitiFact.com, a non-partisan fact-check organization started by the St. Petersburg Times to help find the truth in American politics, completed a review of AG Cuccinelli's statement and confirmed its validity.

PolitiFact said:

"The EPA said the reductions would be between 0.011 degrees Fahrenheit and 0.027 degrees Fahrenheit and would occur by 2100. The agency's claim is even more modest than Cuccinelli suggested."

What's the big deal with this?

According to PolitiFact: "The agency says these new rules would add about $950 to the price of each new car but that the higher price would be offset by lower fuel costs over three to five years."

Let's recap:

The EPA wants to impose $950 per car in regulatory costs - to affect a change of, at most, .027 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.

Click here to see the entire PolitiFact article.

FactChecking President Obama's SOTU Address

From our friends at FactCheck.org regarding last night's SOTU:

We found no outright false factual claims in Obama's State of the Union address, but we did note some that were arguable, and some promises that may prove unrealistic.

* He called his Race to the Top initiative "the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation." That's debatable. Some independent experts say Bush's No Child Left Behind program had a greater impact.

* The president set a goal of generating 80 percent of the nation's electricity from "clean" sources by 2035. That's ambitious. The first large-scale "clean coal" plant has yet to begin operation. And Obama counts nuclear energy as a "clean" source, despite the unresolved waste issue.

* He set a goal of giving 80 percent of the U.S. population access to high-speed rail in the next 25 years. But the U.S. only has one high-speed rail line in operation now.

* He said his new health care law will slow rising health care costs. But the office of Medicare's chief actuary estimates the law won't have much impact on costs, and there will be a slight rise in total spending as more people gain coverage under the law.

* He said "exports are up" since he set a goal of doubling them in five years, which is true. But the rise so far falls short of the pace required to meet his goal.

Teach Your Children Well

There is a new tool available to teach others -- especially kids -- conservative principles.

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table.  So, tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins.  And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let them know and nail them on it.  That would be a very American thing to do." -- Ronald Reagan

Whether you need a refresher course in the principles of conservatism or you are teaching them to others, especially your children, "What Am I Conservative?" by Melanie Angell Elliott is an alluring choice.

The book contains a series of 24 principled and well-reasoned sections, each based on a particular tenet of conservatism.

You'll identify with the principles and use them to craft a conservative ideology.  It's certainly no tome -- quick quotes from famous conservatives and the Founding Fathers induce a brisk yet enlightening reading pace. 

If you have a family, this book is perfect -- you can ready a chapter per day with your children or use it as a refernce to counter liberal teachings at school.

To order "Why Am I Conservative?", click here.

President Obama Delivers a "Mr. Compromise Goes to Washington" SOTU

Following last November's tidal wave that destroyed the Liberal monopoly in Washington, President Obama delivered his most centrist speech of his presidency last night at the State of the Union address.  He appealed to the public that he has the right answers for our country, beyond those proposed by the far right and far left in office.  He delivered himself as "Mr. Compromise".

He proposed discretionary cuts to the operations of the federal government, consolidation and elimination of similar federal programs, health care tort reform, and holding teachers accountable -- all traditional Republican ideals.  Sadly, these were all issues that he either spoke against or ignored during his first two years in office.  In the next few months, President Obama will submit his FY 2012 budget and government reform packages to Congress.  We'll watch closely to see if his words last night match the words on the draft legislation.

Based on his centrist promises made last night, the re-election campaign (Obama '12) is now underway.  He knows that he needs to run a different campaign than the one that got him elected into office.  The American people have voted against his radical reform measures taken during his first two years.  It will be interesting to see how attractive it is to the far left, whom he has now abandoned, the African American community, who voted in record numbers for him in 2008, and the broad independent voting base.