Hollywood's Conservative Underground Throws it's Support to Romney

With the every increasing pressure to pick a candidate for the Republican nomination, the web site Hollywoodsconservativeunderground.com has made a choice. “It will be Mitt” says Christopher Cochran, President of the Online Media Group for the popular website. “It’s a clear choice at this point because we believe Mitt has the best chance to beat President Obama in the fall” The readers of Hollywood’s Conservative Underground (HCU) will be pleased to note that the HCU correctly predicted the overwhelming sweep in the Congressional elections last year.

GINGRICH REPEATEDLY INSULTED REAGAN

In the increasingly rough Republican campaign, no candidate has wrapped himself in the mantle of Ronald Reagan more often than Newt Gingrich. “I worked with President Reagan to change things in Washington,” “we helped defeat the Soviet empire,” and “I helped lead the effort to defeat Communism in the Congress” are typical claims by the former speaker of the House.

The claims are misleading at best. As a new member of Congress in the Reagan years — and I was an assistant secretary of state — Mr. Gingrich voted with the president regularly, but equally often spewed insulting rhetoric at Reagan, his top aides, and his policies to defeat Communism. Gingrich was voluble and certain in predicting that Reagan’s policies would fail, and in all of this he was dead wrong.

AdvertisementThe fights over Reagan’s efforts to stop Soviet expansionism in the Third World were exceptionally bitter. The battlegrounds ranged from Angola and Grenada to Afghanistan and Central America. Reagan’s top team — William Casey at CIA, Cap Weinberger at DOD, and George Shultz at State — understood as he did that if Soviet expansionism could be dealt some tough blows, not only the Soviet empire but the USSR itself would face a political, technological, and financial challenge it could not meet. Few officials besides Ronald Reagan predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union entirely, but every one of us in positions of authority understood the importance of this struggle.

But the most bitter battleground was often in Congress. Here at home, we faced vicious criticism from leading Democrats — Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, Jim Wright, Tip O’Neill, and many more — who used every trick in the book to stop Reagan by denying authorities and funds to these efforts. On whom did we rely up on Capitol Hill? There were many stalwarts: Henry Hyde, elected in 1974; Dick Cheney, elected in 1978, the same year as Gingrich; Dan Burton and Connie Mack, elected in 1982; and Tom DeLay, elected in 1984, were among the leaders.
But not Newt Gingrich. He voted with the caucus, but his words should be remembered, for at the height of the bitter struggle with the Democratic leadership Gingrich chose to attack . . . Reagan.
The best examples come from a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986. This was right in the middle of the fight over funding for the Nicaraguan contras; the money had been cut off by Congress in 1985, though Reagan got $100 million for this cause in 1986. Here is Gingrich: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail. . . . President Reagan is clearly failing.” Why? This was due partly to “his administration’s weak policies, which are inadequate and will ultimately fail”; partly to CIA, State, and Defense, which “have no strategies to defeat the empire.” But of course “the burden of this failure frankly must be placed first on President Reagan.” Our efforts against the Communists in the Third World were “pathetically incompetent,” so those anti-Communist members of Congress who questioned the $100 million Reagan sought for the Nicaraguan “contra” rebels “are fundamentally right.” Such was Gingrich’s faith in President Reagan that in 1985, he called Reagan’s meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.”

Oliver Stone would vote for Ron Paul over President Obama

Filmmaker Oliver Stone, known for his liberal political views, said he would vote for GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul over President Obama should Paul win the Republican nomination.
In an interview with Rock Cellar magazine, Stone was asked if an economic collapse would lead to the fall of the American “empire.”
“I think it’s a given,” Stone said. “There’s no way that we can continue this spending spree. In fact, I think in many ways the most interesting candidate — I’d even vote for him if he was running against Obama — is Ron Paul. Because he’s the only one of anybody who’s saying anything intelligent about the future of the world.”

Stone was a vocal supporter of the president in 2008, and wrote an editorial in the Guardian saying that Obama could be the “heir to John F. Kennedy.”

According to Federal Election Commission records, in 2008 Stone donated $2,300 directly to the Obama campaign and another $2,300 to the Obama Victory Fund, which raises money for Obama’s re-election as well as for the Democratic National Committee.

Stone also has a long and controversial history of political filmmaking and political stances.

He’s directed movies about Presidents George W. Bush, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, as well as films about 9/11 and Vietnam War veteran and activist Ron Kovic.

Stone is also known for embracing some of far-left’s most notorious figures, such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Juliette Lewis latest celeb to support Ron Paul

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s celebrity fan club — which already includes Vince Vaughn and Kelly Clarkson — has a new member: actress Juliette Lewis.

Lewis, best known for her roles in “Cape Fear” and “Natural Born Killers,” tweeted on Tuesday, “Let me be clear I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN or a Democrat even.But I like RonPaul as PresidentPaul. He is anti DefenseAct and 4ConstitutionRights.”

The actress also praised Paul on her Facebook page earlier this month, writing, " ...[I] believe in preserving the constitution and basic human rights which are slowly being dismantled with last couple presidents and then some... Ron Paul is the only one I've seen, for the ending war, less government and preserving OUR rights. I like that. ALOT.”

Harry Belafonte Turns his Back on Obama

How do you get a liberal talk radio host to do your bidding? Easy. Just threaten his future invitations to White House events if you are a Democrat president. Such was apparently the case with Tavis Smiley of the Smiley & West radio show which he co-hosts with Cornell West. According to Politico, Smiley was recently ousted as the speaker of the upcoming Martin Luther King luncheon.

Tavis Smiley, the PBS talk show host who has criticized President Barack Obama for not doing enough for the African-American community, says he was ousted as the speaker at a Martin Luther King luncheon because he was trying to hold the president accountable.

Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer believes that Smiley has finally gotten his "mind right" about criticizing Obama. His evidence is the fact that the Smiley & West show edited out critical remarks about Obama made by actor/singer Harry Belafonte on the satellite re-feed of the show.

Yesterday's edition of the syndicated Smiley & (Cornel) West show featured Harry Belafonte detailing his ongoing unhappiness with the Obama Administration.

Though Belafonte did this previously in July 2011, something about yesterday's grievances caused an odd case of audio editing for the evening's satellite re-feed to public radio affiliates across the country. But we've managed to isolate the apparently offending passage and offer it to you here:

Here is the transcript of the censored portion of the Harry Belafonte interview which was discovered by Maloney:

HARRY BELAFONTE: When I think of Barack Obama and I think about all that is at stake here I’ve really long since left talking about how many terms he will be as a president. My question is what legacy will he leave having had the opportunity to serve under such hugely dramatic circumstances and boggled the mind and boggled people’s thinking and had such a huge impact on the universal state of things.

And how could he have had such a splendid opportunity to do more than most presidents would have ever been able to do and he let that opportunity slip away from him. And I am very cautious of the fact of those who thinks that he has some hidden agenda and that if only he could be given a second term for us to see the new light new things will be revealed. A new efforts will be made to take us to a place other than where we have been and where we languish.
I just don’t trust that. I don’t think that a safe way an accurate way to look at the scenario. I think if there was the kind of moral compass serving Barack Obama in the way we had all hoped, the moral force would have helped him make choices. The absence of that force in his equations the absence of that barometer to guide him when he has to make these decision which are hugely complicated, especially from the political perspective. He should have come to the table with things that I think would have helped us in this moment of crisis.
Maloney speculates about the reasons for censoring out this controversial portion of the interview:
So what's the problem, is it simply too close to the election? Is Smiley attempting to tone things down after the MLK disinvite? Or was it something in particular Belafonte said? If we find out you'll be the first to know.
And if Tavis Smiley can come up with a plausible explanation for this blatant censorship we sure would like to know. Oh, and if Smiley is worried about future White House invites, your humble correspondent would recommend that he show up in disguise for events like the Alice in Wonderland party next Halloween. Humpty Dumpty or the Mad Hatter? Your choice Mr. Smiley.

8.5% Unemployment! Expected to go Up!

Employers have been more willing to add workers, but the trend is unlikely to improve much more in coming months and, in fact, the employment picture may deteriorate.
December’s jobs report, however, is expected to reinforce what appears to be a clear improvement in hiring, while still at a sluggish level. Economists are expecting nonfarm payroll growth for last month of about 155,000, when accounting for layoffs of roughly 25,000 public sector workers.

That compares to 120,000 in November, when the unemployment rate was reported at 8.6 percent. Economists expect unemployment to creep back up to 8.7 percent as more workers look for jobs.

“Tomorrow’s number should be pretty good,” said Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton, who notes that job advertising and other indicators show an improved hiring picture. Weekly jobless claims, reported at 372,000 Thursday, continue to decline.

“In general, economic growth looks like it’s been a bit better in the last two to three months, so that’s generally correlated with hiring. Weather was very mild so that would tend to help things like construction hiring,” said Tilton. Goldman Sachs economists’ forecast of 175,000 nonfarm payrolls is among the highest for the December report, which will be released at 8:30am ET Friday.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to get a pretty strong report in January” also, he said. “We’ve had low layoffs relative to where we were for the last few years. I would think the January report would be reasonably good and the economic data have been pretty good.”

But that trend could be overtaken by a weakening economy. “We’re reasonably cautious about first -half economic growth,” he said. “On average, for the year, we expect employment growth to be somewhat lower than we expect in this (December) report.”

Mesirow Financial chief economist Diane Swonk expects to see 155,000 jobs added to December nonfarm payrolls and an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent. “It’s a particular wild card this month because they are doing annual revisions of seasonal factors,” said Swonk, who notes the adjustment could add an unexpected boost for the numbers.
She too expects the December report to be better than those in some of the coming months, as Europe’s debt crisis continues and Washington budget and tax talks come back into focus.
“I’m looking at a slowdown in growth as we move into 2012 from the fourth quarter… we’ve gotten an uneven recovery that’s accelerating. That’s kind of like ‘a glass half full,’” she said. “I think we’re going to have some rocky months ahead. I think we’re going to have a slowdown in growth in the first half of the year with Europe still volatile, wreaking havoc on the stock market. Keeping volatility high just keeps people gun shy from hiring more.”
“If we can get between 100,000 and 200,000 (monthly nonfarm payrolls) for the whole year, that would make me extremely happy,” she said.
Economists are mostly dismissing the ADP report for December, which showed that 325,000 private-sector jobs were added. The report is impacted by seasonal factors and has been overinflated in December before. But Swonk said an important element of that report showed that more than 80 percent of the new jobs were from small business, a trend that was also apparent last month.
“That’s good news and that story continues to grow,” she said. “I think that’s very important, and it’s one we want to keep momentum on, and that’s small business formation … That’s seen a real turn.”
On the negative side, the layoffs of public workers continues and now it’s shifting back to the federal payroll as opposed to state and local government workers.
“We’ve got postal workers. We’ve got veterans. We’ve got defense coming,” she said. She estimates 25,000 public-sector layoffs will be included in the December employment report.
Credit Suisse economist Jonathan Basile said an area that may show improvement is transportation, reflecting holiday hiring by parcel-delivery services. “They hire massively in December and then they cut that workforce in January,” he said.
He expects to see a total of 150,000 nonfarm payrolls. Basile does see a positive in the unemployment claims, and he notes the weekly number is more closely tied to the employment report than it has been in the past. The number has been below 400,000 for the past month.
“When you dip below 360,000, it’s really in solid positive territory for jobs. It really diminishes the chances that jobs cuts are on the table,” he said.
Improvements in the jobs report has already come as the unemployment claims dipped. “It wasn’t the hiring side that was doing the work. It was the firing side,” he said.