Rick Santorum at Abacoa, Friday 1/27
Because we are grassroots, we do not have credit card capability. Please be prepared to pay the $7 in cash or by check. This minimal fee will help us pay for the continental breakfast, the hall, and other expenses. Thank you!
Date: Friday, Jan 27th
Time: 9:30am
Place:
Abacoa Golf Club
105 Barbados Drive Drive, Jupiter, FL 33456
Click Here for map.
Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1990 at the age of 32, and from 1995 to 2007, served in the US Senate. In 2000, he was elected by his peers to the position of Senate Republican Conference Chairman.
Senator Santorum became one of the most successful government reformers in our history, taking on Washington’s powerful special interests from the moment he arrived in our nation’s Capitol. Along with John Boehner and Jim Nussle, Senator Santorum was a member of the famous “Gang of Seven” that exposed the Congressional Banking and Congressional Post Office scandals. It was this record of reform that prompted a Washington Post reporter to write in a recent article that “Santorum was a tea party kind of guy before there was a tea party.”
He was also an author and floor manager of the landmark Welfare Reform Act which passed in 1996 that has empowered millions of Americans to leave the welfare rolls and enter the workforce.
Senator Santorum wrote and championed legislation that outlawed the heinous procedure known as Partial Birth Abortion as well as the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act,” the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act,” and the “Combating Autism Act” because he believes each and every individual has value and the most vulnerable in our society need to be protected.
Senator Santorum fought to maintain fiscal sanity in Washington before it was in fashion, fighting for a balanced budget and a line item veto. He bravely proposed reforming entitlements, cutting spending and even developed a “spendometer” that added up the cost of Democrat amendments to spending bills. This record made him one of the most conservative senators in Pennsylvania’s history.
He served eight years on the Senate Armed Services Committee where he led the fight before the attacks of September 11th, 2001 to transform our military from a Cold War force to meet today’s threats. He was a leader on US-Israeli relations, authoring both the “Syria Accountability Act” and the “Iran Freedom and Support Act” which he successfully fought to pass in spite of initial opposition by President Bush.
Ready for Solyndra II?
Another failing solar company is being showered with our money by the Obama administration. This time, it’s a company called SunPower, and they’re getting over twice the money that Solyndra did – $1.2 Billion! Sure sounds like a safe investment to me – after all, the company is only $820M in debt.
And, like Solyndra, SunPower has the fingerprints of Democrat donors and politically connected people all over it. It also turns out that they’ve announced that they’ll be opening a new plant to make solar panels – in Mexico. The net benefit for the $1.2 Billion will be 15 new permanent jobs – a lofty sum of $80M per job (at least until they go bankrupt.
Watch for this one in the news… the bad dream continues.
Solyndra – a perfect example of “Crony Capitalism”
The events surrounding the bankruptcy of Solyndra, Barack Obama’s favorite solar energy company, should remind us again why the federal government should not play venture capitalist with our money. You’ll recall that Soylyndra was given a loan guarantee of $535 Billion dollars by the administration. It appears to me that this waste of our money was prompted by 2 goals – 1) payback for generous campaign donations, and 2) an obsession with destroying the existing energy industry.
This ‘investment’ would not have been made by anyone with a basic understanding of economics. As recently as early 2010, an audit by Price Waterhouse concluded that Solyndra, which lost over $500M in its first 5 years of operation, “has suffered recurring losses from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders’ deficit that, among other factors, raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” Despite this, Solyndra’s loan guarantees were fast-tracked, while an established solar company, Evergreen Solar in Massachusetts, was struggling, and in that same year moved to China (along with 800 jobs). Interestingly, Solyndra spent a half million dollars in 2010 lobbying Washington. And, curiously, as part of the deal the taxpayers interests were subordinated to those of George Kaiser, a wealthy billionaire and large contributer to Obama’s campaign. Guess he had his vision of “Hope and Change” fulfilled.
An FBI investigation has begun, but I don’t expect it to go anywhere with the current Justice Department. This is a prime example of the “crony capitalism” that Sarah Palin is always railing about.
Palm Beach County Gun Show
I spent my Saturday morning working our table at the gun show, and I am so stoked I just have to share it. It was fascinating to stand there and watch such a cross section of America. The ages went from toddlers to octogenarians; they were all races, all nationalities; from well-dressed couples to tattoo’d guys that look like they had just ridden their motorcycles 500 miles to get there. I saw kids with purple hair, and kids being carried by their Moms. Lots of men and women who were proud to have served their country in the military. Parents asked for a copy of the Constitution, so their kids could read it, and they could have a family dialogue about it.
The support for the Tea Party principles was almost universal; the only criticisms I heard was that we didn’t go far enough. There was universal disdain for the current ruling class in Washington, and a passionate desire to get our country back. Of course, I did get a lot of good natured kidding about being a terrorist, and personally causing the downgrade in our credit rating. I had people tell me that Bush must still be our president, because he’s the cause of any bad news.
All in all, an uplifting experience, convincing me we’re on the right track, and that the things we’re doing are important.
Book Review – The Naked Communist
The book was published over 40 years ago, yet it is so relevant today because it parallels the liberal-progressive strategies used in the destruction of our free-enterprise economy. Socialism is on the rise, liberty is in decline in America. It’s an interesting overview of the beginnings of communism in Russia up through the 60’s. Included in the book is a list of 45 goals to establish Communism. When you read reviews on the book, there are some who bash the author’s credentials, so make sure you understand what you’re reading.
The 45 goals were actually read into the Congressional Record in 1963. Here are a few that seem relevant today:
From “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression.
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.”
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents.
Any of this sound familiar?
W. Cleon Skousen, worked in the FBI for 16 years, taught at the university level, and served as a Chief of Police in Salt Lake City and a Field Director for the American Security Council in Chicago.
