The Speech: Ronald Reagan's Famous Speech Turns 50 Today

John Fund at the National Review looks back at President Ronald Reagan's great 1964 speech that launched his political career. The speech is applicable today. 

Today marks the 50th anniversary of what has become known as simply “The Speech.”

The actual title Ronald Reagan gave to the address with which he electrified a nation during a 30-minute broadcast for the failing Goldwater campaign was “A Time for Choosing.” Goldwater lost a week later to Lyndon Johnson, but conservative presidential politics had a North Star in Reagan after that. “It defined conservatism for 50 years,” Reagan biographer Craig Shirley concluded.

Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote that the night of Reagan’s address represented “the most successful political debut since William Jennings Bryan” and his “Cross of Gold” speech in 1896. “I didn’t know it then,” Reagan wrote in his 1991 autobiography, “but that speech was one of the most important milestones of my life.”

... In the middle of the Cold War Reagan forthrightly said liberals refused to acknowledge that “There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender.”

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a video of the great speech via the below link:

 http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/391208/reagans-famous-speech-turns-50-today-what-time-choosing-meant-john-fund

Re-Branding Guevara: Che The Butcher

 

John Fund at National Review Online offers an interesting piece on the violent history (and myth) and continuing influence of the communist guerrilla Che Guevara.

The stern photo of revolutionary Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda in 1960 is one of the most reproduced images on the planet, appearing on posters, flags, postcards, T-shirts, and even bikinis. Sadly, the ubiquitous appearances of Che — hailed today usually by his first name only — demonstrate the near-total failure to educate people about the blood-soaked cruelty he really represented. 

... After Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Che was instrumental in setting up forced-labor camps for dissidents, gays, and devout Catholics. He was put in charge of La Cabaña Fortress prison for five months. There are varying accounts of how many people were executed under his command during that time, and how many deaths are attributed directly to Che as opposed to the regime overall, but some sources say that more than 100 journalists, businessmen, and followers of the previous regime faced death by firing squad at La Cabaña, under Che’s jurisdiction.

... Nor was Che’s violence directed only against Cubans. Author Humberto Fontova points to evidence that Guevara, the chief instigator of Castro’s revolutionary efforts overseas, was involved in a November 1962 terrorist plot to use 1,200 pounds of TNT to blow up Macy’s, Gimbels, Bloomingdale’s, and Grand Central Station on the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year. Such an act could have rivaled 9/11 in its destruction. This is hardly a man who deserves to be honored as a hero on T-shirts.

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/321089/re-branding-guevara-che-butcher-john-fund#

You can also read my interview with Humberto Fontova about Che Guevara via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache3.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/Fontovache4.jpg 

'Fast And Furious' Whistleblower Says He's Disappointed One Year Later

 

More than a year after ATF Special Agent John Dodson first blew the whistle on the scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, Dodson tells FoxNews that he's disheartened and disappointed by the congressional investigation and Attorney General Eric Holder's gunrunning probe.

You can read the story via the below link:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/18/fast-and-furious-whistleblower-says-disappointed-one-year-later/

You can also read John Fund's piece on Eric Holder at National Review Online via the below link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/303069/will-holder-s-politicking-finally-end-john-fund