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Photo of the Day: Reagan Statue at National Airport
From left: Frederick Ryan Jr., chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole; Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Charles Snelling, chairman of the Board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, unveil the statue of President Reagan, on Nov. 1, 2011, at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Nice.The statue at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — renamed from Washington National Airport in 1998 — stands 9 feet tall and portrays the suited president mid-step as he welcomes travelers to the original airport terminal.
The $900,000 statue is the last of four privately funded centennial statues endorsed by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
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President 2012: In Key Battleground States Unemployment Has Increased Since October 2008
Electoral College vote map of Larry Sabato
Chris illizza over at the Washington Post looks at key battleground states for the Presidential race of 2012 and gives the data. You know the question in one of the Presidential debates to President Obama will be (like GOP challenger Ronald Reagan asked President Jimmy Carter in 1980): “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”Well, with the regards to unemployment the news is not good for President Obama.
And that raw political reality could put President Obama in a difficult spot as he prepares to seek another four years in the White House amid conflicting signs about the relative health of the economy.
The state-by-state unemployment numbers released late last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics tell the story.
In every one of the 14 swing states heading into 2012 — Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — the unemployment rate has risen since October 2008.
The increases range from the tiny — just a 0.7-point jump in Minnesota and New Hampshire — to the titanic in places like Nevada (up 4.4 points) and Florida (up 3.6).
And, Obama’s only response will be: “You should have seen how bad it would have been.”
I don’t know if this is going to wash in Nevada and Florida.
But, on the other hand of these 14 swing states that Cillizza mentions only 4 have May unemployment above the national average. But, you know that is spin and unemployment generally is worse since President Obama has been in office.
President Reagan beat Jimmy Carter on the answer to the “better off” question. He won re-election because while unemployment was high, it was improving.
That “trend line” vote is why the late President Ronald Reagan won a second term overwhelmingly in 1984 despite the fact that the unemployment rate was at 7.3 percent in October of the election year. (It had been at 10.3 percent as recently as March 1983.)
The best way for Obama to counteract the “are you better off” question is to have evidence to point to that things are turning around — that whether or not you believe the country was on the brink of an economic catastrophe you see signs that your financial situation is improving and have reason to hope the future will be brighter.
The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests he’s not there yet.
No, President Obama is not there yet and unless the economy improves very quickly, he will go the way of Jimmy Carter.
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Poll Watch: 48 Per Cent Back Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Vs. 38% With Unions
So says the latest Rasmussen Poll.
A sizable number of voters are following new Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s showdown with unionized public employees in his state, and nearly half side with the governor.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters agree more with the Republican governor in his dispute with union workers. Thirty-eight percent (38%) agree more with the unionized public employees, while 14% are undecided.
This is not really surprising since these are public employee unions and government employees – not private industry employees.
Remember what President Ronald Reagan said when faced with the same type of crisis with the Air Traffic Controllers? Watch the video for Reagan’s statement around 1:40)
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Updated: Ron The NON Reagan Calls Sarah Palin a “Soap Opera” on Eve of Reagan’s 100 Birthday Celebration Speech
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and President Ronald ReaganRon Reagan is the NON-Reagan who keeps on giving. Remember when he said his father President Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer’s Disease when he was President?
Remember when his half-brother Michael called him an embarrassment?Now, Left-wing NON Reagan is going after Sarah Palin.
The son of the former US president Ronald Reagan has branded Sarah Palin a ‘soap opera’ ahead of a speech she will give honouring his late father.
Ron Reagan said that he doesn’t see anything in common between his dad and the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate.
Palin is scheduled to speak in Santa Barbara, California, on Friday at a tribute to Ronald Reagan. The event is one of the celebrations marking the 40th US president’s 100th birthday on Feb. 6.
The speech will be covered live on C-SPAN at 8 PM PST.
‘Sarah Palin is a soap opera, basically. She’s doing mostly what she does to make money and keep her name in the news,’ Reagan said.
‘She is not a serious candidate for president and never has been,’ added Reagan, a political independent whose politics lean left.
But former Reagan speechwriter Kenneth Khachigian praised the choice of Palin to speak at the event which is sponsored by the conservative Young America’s Foundation.
Certainly, Sarah Palin has MUCH MORE in common with President Reagan than the FAR LEFT son who never could quite measure up to the old man.
Update:
I just found this excellent cartoon from Michael Ramirez:
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Ron The NON Reagan Calls Sarah Palin a “Soap Opera” on Eve of Reagan’s 100 Birthday Celebration Speech
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and President Ronald ReaganRon Reagan is the NON-Reagan who keeps on giving. Remember when he said his father President Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer’s Disease when he was President?
Remember when his half-brother Michael called him an embarrassment?Now, Left-wing NON Reagan is going after Sarah Palin.
The son of the former US president Ronald Reagan has branded Sarah Palin a ‘soap opera’ ahead of a speech she will give honouring his late father.
Ron Reagan said that he doesn’t see anything in common between his dad and the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate.
Palin is scheduled to speak in Santa Barbara, California, on Friday at a tribute to Ronald Reagan. The event is one of the celebrations marking the 40th US president’s 100th birthday on Feb. 6.
The speech will be covered live on C-SPAN at 8 PM PST.
‘Sarah Palin is a soap opera, basically. She’s doing mostly what she does to make money and keep her name in the news,’ Reagan said.
‘She is not a serious candidate for president and never has been,’ added Reagan, a political independent whose politics lean left.
But former Reagan speechwriter Kenneth Khachigian praised the choice of Palin to speak at the event which is sponsored by the conservative Young America’s Foundation.
Certainly, Sarah Palin has MUCH MORE in common with President Reagan than the FAR LEFT son who never could quite measure up to the old man.
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The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Centennial Celebration Announces February Events
From the press release:To honor the life and legacy of President Ronald Reagan, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation is sponsoring a week of events and programming to celebrate a leader who inspired freedom and changed the world. The week includes the first in a four-part series of Academic Symposia with major Universities across the United States on the “Lessons and Legacy” of President Reagan, a Concert for America, the official birthday celebration for President Reagan, and the grand opening of the Reagan Museum renovation.
“It was important to all of us at the Reagan Foundation to create a monumental series of events befitting of a man who brought so much to America and the world,” said John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “The centennial celebration is about more than just one day and one man. It’s a year-long historic occasion for people to remember an extraordinary man who restored pride in America and spread freedom throughout the world.”
The week-long series of events begin February 1 and 2, 2011 with the first of four academic conferences –at the University of Southern California and Reagan Library which will focus on key aspects of the Reagan Presidency. Additional symposia will occur throughout 2011 with the University of Virginia (Feb 10-11), University of Notre Dame (March 3), and the US Naval Academy (October 19). Keynote speakers at these include Tom Brokaw, Peggy Noonan, Brian Mulroney, Ed Meese, Mitch Daniels, and more.
On February 5, the Reagan Foundation will sponsor A Concert for America – A Tribute to Ronald Reagan. The concert is comprised of live music and in-person and video tributes from world leaders and prominent individuals whose lives were impacted by the legacy of President Reagan. The evening’s lineup includes The Beach Boys, Lonestar, Lee Greenwood, Fred Thompson, Jerry West, and video tributes from George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
The president’s 61st anniversary of his 39th birthday on February 6, 2011 will be celebrated with an F-18 flyover from jets off the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, musical performances by Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, and the official wreath laying on behalf of the president of the United States with Mrs. Ronald Reagan.
The week will conclude with the official opening of the newly renovated Reagan Museum which integrates hundreds of artifacts with dozens of interactive displays. These new galleries capture the character and legacy of Ronald Reagan – his policy, his patriotic spirit, and his inspired leadership.
“As President Reagan would have wanted it, no taxpayer dollars are being spent on any centennial activities,” John Heubusch continued. “All events and initiatives will be funded by private donations collected through the Reagan Foundation.”
President Reagan’s centennial year is rounded out with statue unveilings and celebrations in his honor around the world, from Washington DC at the Reagan Airport, to Grovesnor Square in London, and across central and Eastern Europe from Prague to Budapest where President Reagan’s vision of freedom left an indelible mark on the world.
I will be over at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley which is a short drive for me as much time as I possibly can the weekend of the February 4th through the 7th. I will take my Bloggie and try to video and interview as many political folks as I can.
I, especially like Air Force One and will take video and photos of the new Reagan Library displays that will open for the public on Monday, the 7th. Newt Gingrich will be signing books that day and I will get some video of that event as well.
President Ronald Reagan’s Air Force One in 2007. Photo by Flap
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Reagan Vs. Reagan: Did President Ronald Reagan Have Alzheimer’s While President?
Now, even liberal Ron Reagan is backing away from what he has written in his book. Watch the video below from this morning.
It is time for both Reagan boys to STOP IT and get ready for the February 6th centennial birthday celebration.
And, of course, sell their books.
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Michael Reagan Calls Brother Ron an Embarassment over Alzheimer’s Flap
Michael Reagan, conservative talk-show host, author and Ron Reagan, liberal MSNBC commenter, former talk-show host, author
The Ronald Reagan centennial celebration coming up in a few weeks should bring some very interesting family dynamics – as the two Reagan brothers are already fighting.Ronald Reagan’s conservative son called his liberal half-brother “an embarrassment” Saturday for speculating in a new memoir that their father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease while president.
“Ron, my brother was an embarrassment to his father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother,” Michael Reagan posted on Twitter.
My brother seems to want [to] sell out his father to sell books,” he added in another tweet.
The sibling tension bubbles over just three weeks before Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, which will kick off a year of events to honor the 40th president.
In “My Father at 100,” Ron Reagan recalls early warning signs of his father losing his mental faculties. “The question,” he writes, “of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s while in office more or less answers itself.”
Michael Reagan, adopted during President Reagan’s first marriage, comes out with his own book on Tuesday. It’s a polemic called “The New Reagan Revolution: How Ronald Reagan’s Principles Can Restore America’s Greatness.” Newt Gingrich, a likely 2012 Republican candidate for president, wrote the foreword.
Well, there is little doubt that Ron Reagan wants to sell books and his new one looks like a winner. But, to drudge up this Alzheimer’s rumor which has largely been debunked is certainly over the top.
Here is a CNN video that discusses the issue with David Gergen, a former advisor to President Reagan.
I would recommend to the brothers to STOP IT and support Nancy to have the very best birthday party ever for their father.
By the way, the Reagan Foundation issued the following response on the Alzheimer’s issue:
“We believe Ron has written a wonderfully warm and engaging book about life with his father, Ronald Reagan,” the foundation said. “It offers a tribute that only a son could present. As for the topic of Alzheimer’s, this subject has been well documented over the years by both President Reagan’s personal physicians, physicians who treated him after the diagnosis, as well as those who worked closely with him daily. All are consistent in their view that signs of Alzheimer’s did not appear until well after President Reagan left the White House.”
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The Ronald Reagan Centennial: My Father at 100
The Ronald Reagan Centennial is only 32 days away – the weekend of February 6th – President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday. And, what better to celebrate than with a new book about President Reagan by his son, Ron.February 6, 2011, is the one hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. To mark the occasion, Ron Reagan has written My Father at 100, an intimate look at the life of his father-one of the most popular presidents in American history-told from the perspective of someone who knew Ronald Reagan better than any adviser, friend, or colleague. As he grew up under his father’s watchful gaze, he observed the very qualities that made the future president a powerful leader. Yet for all of their shared experiences of horseback rides and touch football games, there was much that Ron never knew about his father’s past, and in My Father at 100, he sets out to understand this beloved, if often enigmatic, figure who turned his early tribulations into a stunning political career.
Since his death in 2004, President Reagan has been a galvanizing force that personifies the values of an older America and represents an important era in national history. Ron Reagan traces the sources of these values in his father’s early years and offers a heartfelt portrait of a man and his country-and his personal memories of the president he knew as “Dad.”
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Day By Day January 4, 2011 – RINO Call
POLS, whether Republican or NOT, must learn that the message of last November’s elections was to stop and then cut federal government spending. The private business sector has been squeezed and needs to be revitalized with initiative and less government intrusion. Otherwise, employment will not improve.Haven’t the economic lessons of the Reagan Revolution of the 1980’s been learned?
Bill Clinton certainly knows since he was the main beneficiary of Reagan’s economic and national defense policies.
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