Obama is no Reagan. (he is no Clinton, either)

In During Barack Obama’s first term, we had heard comparisons between him and Ronald Reagan or him and Abraham Lincoln. Now I will not touch the Abraham Lincoln comparison, but will say that there is no comparison between Obama and Reagan. Hell, there is not even any comparison between him and Bill Clinton.

 

What so I mean by that? Well, the past two major times that the economy was on the verge of a shutdown was during the Reagan years and then in 1995 when Clinton was president. Now both Reagan AND Clinton had the decency to reach across the aisle to the House Speaker (Reagan with Tip O’Neill and Clinton with Newt Gingrich) and try to avert or (in Clinton’s case) end a shutdown. In Reagan’s case, he was one who maintained a cordial relationship with O’Neill and would go out for a beer even though they were bitter enemies and possibly rip into each other over the bargaining table if we take what Chris Matthews wrote about in his book about Reagan and O’Neill. Also, I do not think we had read where Reagan or Clinton had deprived guests or veterans from going to the World War II memorial and paying homage to the greatest generation like Obama has done recently.

In fact, the picture (posted to the left) says it all. From Gerald Ford to Bill Clinton, there were 17 prior shutdowns among the five presidents and they were ALL negotiated. There were no shutdowns under George W. Bush probably because of what happened on September 11, 2001 to bring both Republicans and Democrats together. Now under Obama this is the largest shutdown and this is because both Obama and Harry Reid (Senate Democrat, aka Majority, Leader from Nevada, have shut down the Federal Government because they REFUSE to give the common people the same waivers that Obama has ALREADY given to Big Corporations, Unions, Congress, and other Democrat donors. The reason the Republicans took over the House in 2010 is because they had seen Obama ram ObamaDoesn’tCare (f/t to Herman Cain) down out throats, and when Princess Pelosi said that they “need to pass the bill to find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy,” they are looking at it now and are wanting to pull a Snagglepuss and “exit, stage left even” from being subject to ObamaDoesn’tCare.

It seems that Reid had not read ObamaDoesn’tCare nor does he care to find out what is in it, leading the charge in the Congress and in the media by calling the Tea Party anarchists, arsonists, jihadists, and suicide bombers. Well let me tell you something Mr. Reid. If supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States, as well as wanting to get back to the founding principles that made America exceptional, is what makes one a suicide bomber, well then I do not speak for my listeners or my co-host but count me in that number if ANYTHING to deprive you of that cushy Majority Leader office and position you so enjoy in the Senate. Just like Katy Abram told Arlen Specter at a town hall meeting in 2009, “you, dear sir, have awakened a sleeping giant.” Oh sure you might have maintained the majority in the Senate and your golden boy Obama has maintained the White House, but his downfall is coming. I know Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. I have lived under the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Barack Obama, dear sir, is NO Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. And the People have seen it and are rising up to try to do whatever they can to make sure Obama’s reign of errors comes to an end in a legal fashion.

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American Exceptionalism (Part 3)

Last week we had explored what Alexis de Tocqueville and Henry Adams had said about American Exceptionalism. This week I will just ask a simple question: Compared to what is America so bad?

On the other hand, there have always been defenders of American exceptionalism as a vital force for good. Thus, several decades before switching sides, Henry Adams charged America’s foreign critics with blindness to the country’s amazing virtues. Whereas, Adams wrote, European philosophers and poets could see only rapacity and vulgarity here, the poorest European peasants could discern that “the hard, practical money-getting American democrat was in truth living in a world of dream” and was “already guiding Nature with a kinder and wiser hand than had ever yet been felt in human history.” It was this dream, Adams went on to say, that beckoned to the poor of the old world, calling upon them to come and share in the limitless opportunities it offered—opportunities unimaginable anywhere else.

For a long time now, to speak personally, I have taken my stand with the young Adams, to whom America was exceptionally good, against his embittered older self, to whom it had become exceptionally bad. In my own younger days, I was on the Left, and from the utopian vantage point to which leftism invariably transports its adherents, it was the flaws in American society—the radical 1960s trinity of war, racism, and poverty—that stood out most vividly. It rarely occurred to me or my fellow leftists to ask a simple question: Compared to what is America so bad?

From our modern perspective, much more was wrong with Periclean Athens, or the Italy of the Medicis, or England under the first Queen Elizabeth, or 19th-century Russia under the Romanovs. But this has not disqualified them from being universally ranked among the highest points of human civilization and achievement. After more than 40 years of pondering the question “Compared to what?” I have come to believe with all my heart that the United States belongs on that exalted list. It is true that we have not earned a place on it, as the others mainly did, by our contribution to the arts. Yet it is worth pointing out that even in the sphere of the arts, we have not done too badly. To speak only of literature, names like Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Robert Frost, and many others attest that we have, in fact, done far better than might generally have been expected of a nation conceived primarily to achieve other ends. These ends were social, political, and economic, and it is in them that we have indeed excelled the most.

We have excelled by following our Founding Fathers in directing our energies, as our Constitution exhorts us to do, to the preservation of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, as well as to the pursuit of happiness tacitly understood by the Declaration of Independence to require prosperity as a precondition. (In his original draft of the Declaration, of course, Jefferson used the word “property” instead of “pursuit of happiness.”) By remaining faithful in principle—and to a considerable extent in practice—to the ideas by which the Founders hoped to accomplish these ends, we and our forebears have fashioned a country in which more liberty and more prosperity are more widely shared than among any other people in human history. Yes, even today that holds true, despite policies unfaithful both to the letter and to the spirit of the traditional American system that have resulted in a series of political and economic setbacks.

The question Podhoretz asked (Compared to what is America so bad?) is one we should be asking all of our liberal friends. See if this will get them to think and find out just WHY they think America is so bad. This will force them to do what Andrew Breitbart had said in Righteous Indignation when he brought up his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries. If you remember, Rule 9 of the Primer dealt with not letting them pretend to know more than they do. In fact, let me read just a small excerpt from it when I did my editorial on that particular rule.

“Your opponents will pretend to be experts if you don't, but that's okay, because you can always puncture their balloon with one word: why. Asking them to provide evidence for their assertions is always fun, and it's even more fun asking them to provide the sources for that evidence. Attacking the fundamental basis of their arguments if fun, too - if they tell you health care is a right, ask why. Liberals don't have a why, other than their own utopianism and their dyspeptic view of the status quo and America. Reason is not their strong suit - emotion is. Force them to play on the football field of reason.”

As Andrew said, there is one word which we can use to puncture the false narrative propagated by the left, and even a few kooks on our own side. That word is why, a simple three-letter word with a lot of power and oomph behind it. If we ask why they think that, then they will have to come up with a reason. As we all know, reason is not their strong suit because they always rely on emotion.

As I had said at the end of that particular editorial, “We have the tools to force our opponents to play on the football field of reason. The thing of it is do we have the WILLPOWER to confront them and force them to play on that football field of reason, or are we afraid to do it?”

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American Exceptionalism

A couple of weeks ago I had said that someone had said that a friend and I just destroyed 60 years of “American Exceptionalism” for him. That got me to thinking, and in the Hillsdale College publication called Imprimis, there was an interesting article by Norman Podhoretz, former Editor-in-Chief of Commentary Magazine, entitled “Is America Exceptional?” Over the next few weeks I will be reading from it during this editorial. Here is the first part:

ONCE UPON A TIME, hardly anyone dissented from the idea that, for better or worse, the United States of America was different from all other nations. This is not surprising, since the attributes that made it different were vividly evident from the day of its birth. Let me say a few words about three of them in particular.

First of all, unlike all other nations past or present, this one accepted as a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. What this meant was that its Founders aimed to create a society in which, for the first time in the history of the world, the individual’s fate would be determined not by who his father was, but by his own freely chosen pursuit of his own ambitions. In other words, America was to be something new under the sun: a society in which hereditary status and class distinctions would be erased, leaving individuals free to act and to be judged on their merits alone. There remained, of course, the two atavistic contradictions of slavery and the position of women; but so intolerable did these contradictions ultimately prove that they had to be resolved—even if, as in the case of the former, it took the bloodiest war the nation has ever fought.

Secondly, in all other countries membership or citizenship was a matter of birth, of blood, of lineage, of rootedness in the soil. Thus, foreigners who were admitted for one reason or another could never become full-fledged members of the society. But America was the incarnation of an idea, and therefore no such factors came into play. To become a full-fledged American, it was only necessary to pledge allegiance to the new Republic and to the principles for which it stood.

Thirdly, in all other nations, the rights, if any, enjoyed by their citizens were conferred by human agencies: kings and princes and occasionally parliaments. As such, these rights amounted to privileges that could be revoked at will by the same human agencies. In America, by contrast, the citizen’s rights were declared from the beginning to have come from God and to be “inalienable”—that is, immune to legitimate revocation.

As time went on, other characteristics that were unique to America gradually manifested themselves. For instance, in the 20th century, social scientists began speculating as to why America was the only country in the developed world where socialism had failed to take root. As it happens, I myself first came upon the term “American exceptionalism” not in Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, where it has mistakenly been thought to have originated, but in a book by the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, who used it in connection with the absence in America of a strong socialist party. More recently I have discovered that the term may actually have originated with Joseph Stalin, of all people, who coined the term in the same connection but only in order to dismiss it. Thus, when an American Communist leader informed him that American workers had no intention of playing the role Marx had assigned to the worldwide proletariat as the vanguard of the coming socialist revolution, Stalin reputedly shouted something like, “Away with this heresy of American exceptionalism!” And yet Stalin and his followers were themselves exceptional in denying that America was exceptional in the plainly observable ways I have mentioned. If, however, almost everyone agreed that America was different, there was a great deal of disagreement over whether its exceptionalism made it into a force for good or a force for evil. This too went back to the beginning, when the denigrators outnumbered the enthusiasts.

Notice the three things that Podhoretz said which made America exceptional:

1. A self-evident truth that all men are created equal.
2. To become a full-fledged American, it was only necessary to pledge allegiance to the new Republic and to the principles for which it stood.
3. In America, the citizen’s rights were declared from the beginning to have come from God and to be “inalienable”—that is, immune to legitimate revocation.

Other characteristics had come about in the 20th century that also made America exceptional, but for the purposes of today’s editorial I will focus on these three just briefly because these three have caused a lot of controversy today. Numbers 1 and 3 go together because we see them in the Declaration of Independence with the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL MEN  (i.e. humankind) are created equal, that they are endowed BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This proves that America was founded on a JUDEO-CHRISTIAN heritage. However, not many believe we were founded on a Judeo-Christian heritage, and I will be devoting an entire show to it. I will say to start of with that if Jefferson were to see what people had done to the phrase “Separation of Church and State” today as opposed to when he wrote it in 1802, he would be livid.

The second cause of what made America exceptional deals with citizenship. Not only were we the first nation to say that if you pledge allegiance to the Republic and the principles for which it stood, then you are a citizen but I will go ONE STEP FURTHER and say that if you recite this when you are a child AND you are born here, irregardless of your parents’ citizenship status, then you ARE A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN. Many people say that the ONLY time children are national born is if their citizens are parents, and that is so far from the truth it is unreal. I can spend an entire show on this in the future, and I will, but today is not the day to do it.

Look for me to bring these three issues out in a later editorial and possibly show. America IS and ALWAYS HAS BEEN exceptional, and I aim to bring that out more on this show.

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Time to give up or time to fight on? (Part 2)

In my editorial on January 5, I read from the December 2012 issue of Imprimis where Hugh Hewitt had an interview with the president of Hillsdale College Larry P. Arnn. Here is just a short sampling of that editorial:

. There was a very interesting dialogue at the beginning of the newsletter in which Hewitt had mentioned that “there are a lot of people who are close to saying “game over,” who are tempted now to retreat from politics—to go do missionary
work, for instance—and give up on the republic. But you have made your life’s work the studying of leaders who have refused to do that.” Dr. Arnn’s answer is one in which many people should read many times and commit it to memory.

That’s right. And the reason you can’t do that, by the way—the reason you can’t retreat into private life and give up on politics—is that the cost of doing it is overwhelming. If you don’t live under good laws, life becomes truncated and less happy, injustice becomes customary, civilization is compromised. And one
cannot acquiesce in that. One has to be involved. And since politics is natural to us—man is essentially political, as Aristotle says—and since we do live in the greatest modern country—founded that way at least—we owe it a lot. And many of the people who have seen the republic
through to where we are today have gone through things that are worse than this. So first of all, it’s a duty not to give up. But second, there are good reasons to
know that the game isn’t over.

When pressed by Hugh what he meant, Dr. Arnn went on to say,

One of them is that the election is shot through with contradictions. The obvious contradiction is that we have a divided government. The presidency and the Senate are in the hands of one party, and the House of Representatives and most governorships are in the hands of the other. A second contradiction is that a large majority of people continued to say in the exit polls that they were against raising taxes in order to cut the deficit.
One might be cynical and put that down to an irresponsible refusal to pay for existing benefits—to get more and more “free stuff.” But for a long time now, opinion polls have pointed towards the existence of a broad majority of Americans who favor smaller government. This obviously contradicts the re-election of the president and the Democratic gains in the Senate. The
country is still a house divided against itself, and that’s dangerous. But it doesn’t mean that there’s been a resolution. It means in fact the opposite: there is not a
resolution. That resolution still has to be made, and the making of it lies ahead of us, and not behind us.

Later on in the same interview, Hewitt said someone will go and the transcription and say that Arnn is comparing Obama and our government now to Hitler and the Third Reich. Arnn then replied by saying that the principles of Progressivism that animate our government today, which are antithetical to the principles of the American Founding, lead to policies that cannot work, will not work, and result into obvious injustices. you can read the entire issue here and also subscribe to Imprimis for free here.

We definitely see that with Facebook and how it bans conservatives for speaking out against Obama but allow sites such as “It sickens me to wake up and see Sarah Palin is still alive” to remain. In fact, that is what this show today is about. Many conservatives have been banned from Facebook for certain things, whether it is sending too many friend requests or posting things that they knew FOR SURE they did not post or even speaking out in many ways against the Obama regime. That is why this Thursday there is an event put on by my guests Diane Sori of The Patriot Factor and Joe Newby of The Examiner called Freedom from Facebook Day. Diane and Joe are two people who had not given up the fight against Obama and are continuing to fight on even when Facebook shows its liberal bias. They are TRUE PATRIOTS and two people I am glad are on our side. I asked the question at the end of the editorial on January 5, and I will ask it again.  “Will you give up, or will you fight on?”

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Rundown for June 29, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter as they bring you the week in news. Today they will be speaking with Diane Sori of The Patriot Factor and Joe Newby of The Examiner on the problems Conservatives have been having with Facebook. Many had been blocked from using Facebook in one form or another for various reasons. Some had been blocked from sending out friend requests (which had happened to me a couple of times) for a week or two. Others (like Diane) had been blocked from posting to Facebook due to posting the same thing incessantly. And even others had ben blocked from posting for things which they had not posted. This had gotten to the point of frustration for Diane and Joe that they are forming a Facebook event on July 4 urging all to boycott Facebook for a day, and that will also be discussed on the show. Your calls and stories about Facebook are welcome as well.

Come join me for the fun and frivolity that is Red, Right, and Blue at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom (which is accessed at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live) 30 minutes early for some last minute show prep and also a meet and greet with those who show up early. If you want to engage the conversation during the show, there are three ways to do it.

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Hell, tell a liberal. The shit just got real with Facebook banning conservatives, and this is one show you do NOT want to miss, especially with more information for the Facebook event on July 4 if interested in attending

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Rundown for June 22, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter as they give the week in news. Barack Obama had gone to Germany prior to the G8 Summit and gave a speech, and the crowd was very sparse. Has Obama worn out his welcome? Also, the Federal government has decided to charge Edward Snowden with espionage after he blew the whistle on the NSA. Why did they do that? Who is really behind the charge? All that and more including the ever popular Schmuck of the Week.

Join us for the fun and frivolity that is Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom, which can be accessed at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live, 30 minutes early for some last minute show prep and also a meet and greet with those who decide to enter early. If you want to engage the conversation during the show, there are three ways to do it:

• call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. Today’s show is expected to light off a few fireworks, and you do not want to miss a single second of it.

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Impeaching Obama? Not a wise idea

It really frosts me when I hear people say how we should impeach Barack Obama because of Benghazi and Fast and Furious. While I do feel that Obama should be held culpable for Benghazi and Fast and Furious, impeachment is not the way to go, and here is why. There have only been two sitting Presidents who have been impeached in the history of the United States. The first one was Andrew Johnson in 1868 and the second one was Bill Clinton in 1999. Both Johnson and Clinton were acquitted, as the votes in the Senate to impeach failed with 2/3 of the Senate not voting guilty, as seen below:

Year	President	House charge (vote to impeach)	Senate vote to impeach (number required to impeach)
1868	Andrew Johnson	Vote to impeach the president of high crimes and misdemeanors (126 yea, 47 nay)	Vote to impeach the president of high crimes and misdemeanors - 35 guilty, 19 not guilty (36 required out of 54)
1999	Bill Clinton	2 charges that stuck 1.) Perjury to a grand jury (228 yea, 206 nay) 2.) Obstruction of Justice (221 yea, 212 nay) 2 charges that failed 1.) Second count of perjury (205 yea, 229 nay) 2.) accusing Clinton of abuse of power (148 yea, 285 nay)	1.) Perjury to a Grand Jury – 45 guilty, 55 not guilty 2.) Obstruction of Justice – 50 guilty, 50 not guilty (67 required out of 100)

Diane Sori of The Patriot Factor had written a very interesting Op-ed on this very subject.

In order to impeach a sitting president the House of Representatives needs a simple majority vote, but to obtain a conviction in the Senate a two-thirds majority (67 votes) is needed. Unfortunately, with the current Democratic controlled Senate this is NOT likely to happen, so the Republicans are looking forward to the 2014 elections to try to take back the Senate.
But another year is too long to wait to avenge the MURDERS of Ambassador Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and ex-Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. Too long and with NO guarantee that the Republicans will even take back control of the Senate for we all know that Obama will ‘fix’ the mid-terms with voter fraud and machine ‘irregularities’ just like he did in November.

After all, this time his neck is on the line…literally.         
And even if he was by an outside chance impeached, impeachment gives credibility to his presidency and all his misguided policies and laws would still stay in place…something we surely do NOT want. Also, remember that once charges are brought for impeachment and they fail in the Senate, it’s over and cannot be brought back again.

“If we cannot impeach Obama, then what CAN we do?” Well, Diane gives us the answer later on in her blog entry:

The simple fact is that Barack HUSSEIN Obama can and should be arrested for treason under Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution which states, “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort…”
Meaning in NO uncertain terms that the betrayal of the United States of America by consciously and purposely acting to aid her enemies is indeed grounds for treason.
And treason fits Obama to a tee for this man NOT only sends monies to our enemies (like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas), but I believe that Barack HUSSEIN Obama was sending, without Congressional approval, guns and weapons to Syrian rebels, rebels with direct ties to al-Qaeda, got caught by Ambassador Stevens, who then had to be silenced at all costs.

She then finishes it up by saying:

So my friends, impeachment is but a slap on the wrist and won’t do for Barack HUSSEIN Obama or for Hillary Clinton for that matter. Arrest, try, convict, and sentence carried out for treason, aiding and abetting the enemy, murder, and crimes against America is the way to go.
And along with Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution there is a possibly that the military could arrest Obama and bring him before a military tribunal. A military tribunal is a military court designed to try members of enemy forces during times of war. A definitive case can be made that Barack HUSSEIN Obama, by his actions or should I say deliberate lack of actions in regards to Benghazi, is a member of our enemy’s forces.
And it’s also appropriate to subject a private citizen to a military tribunal if that person is being tried for treason, which would be the case with Hillary Clinton…a now private citizen who knew of the gun-running…who covered it up…and who lied about it all thus aiding and abetting the enemy.

Read the whole thing on The Patriot Factor, and support a TRUE PATRIOT, a REAL AMERICAN in Diane Sori!

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I am an Andrew Breitbart Conservative!

A while back on Facebook I had read somewhere that a couple of people call themselves Frederick Douglass Republicans. Well I would like to toss another term into the mix: Andrew Breitbart Conservative.

Over the past 13 weeks I had been going through the Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries during these editorials, and in my research on the topics, I realize that I am an Andrew Breitbart Conservative. When I began introducing the Pragmatic Primer, I mentioned that this battle is not Left v. Right, Liberal v. Conservative, or even Democrat v. Republican. This battle is one step DEEPER than that: Alinsky v. Breitbart. The seeds for the major part of this battle were laid when Andrew gave his wonderful speech at the 2012 CPAC just a few weeks before his death.

During that speech he said that many are on to the “Saul Alinsky Bullshit ways” of the Progressive Left and that the 2012 election would be forever known as the “dogwhistle” election. We were right on the cusp of victory with Mitt Romney only to have it grabbed away from us at the last minute. It also showed down the ticket as we barely kept the House and failed to grab the Senate.

In order for us to win the Senate and increase our lead in the House in the 2014 midterms, we have to learn where we went wrong in the 2012 House and Senate elections. Then when we find out where we went wrong we have to learn to not repeat the same things if AND ONLY IF we are serious about winning in 2014 and carry that momentum into 2016. One of the main things that Andrew said, and I use it as my own motto ever since, is “Anyone that’s willing to stand next to me and fight the progressive left, I will be in that bunker, and if you’re not in that bunker, more than shame on you. You’re on the other side!” In fact, let me just play that entire clip for you right now:

 

After hearing that speech, I knew I was an Andrew Breitbart Conservative, but did not fully embrace it until after I got his book Righteous Indignation for Christmas and then went through the Pragmatic Primer. Now, after reading it many times and going over the Pragmatic Primer on my radio show, I fully embrace it because just like Andrew said at the end of the book on page 232 in the hardback edition:

“These are the years that we will look back on and question whether we did enough for our country and for out children. That’s why I’m so determined, so pissed, so righteously indignant. Excuse me while I save the world.”

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Rundown for June 8, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter as they review the week in news. With school out for the summer, there had been a few incidents where so-called “zero tolerance” in schools has gone over the edge. What had happened to put it over the edge? Also, the big story this week is the Tea Party coming before the House Committees and speaking on the harsh treatment to them by the IRS. What was said during the hearings? The hearing also included a classic meltdown by a Democrat and a royal beatdown on the Democrat by a Republican. What happened? Those questions and more, including the ever popular Schmuck of the Week, on today’s show.

Come join us for the fun and frivolity that is Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 Central. I will be in the chatroom, which is at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live, 30 minutes early for a little last-minute show prep and also to meet the audience. If you want to engage the conversation during the show there are three ways you can do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. Every week we try to condense 7 days worth of news into 2 hours, and have a good time doing it.

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Breitbart Rule 13: Believe in the Audacity of Hope

Andrew Breitbart has given us all the tools to help defeat the Complex, but he gives us one more thing to believe in. Hence his 13th and final rule in the Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

13.) Believe in the audacity of hope: It's too bad President Obama is such a joyless, politically correct automaton, because he's terrifically agile with his prepared words. To paraphrase his victory speech after the 2008 election, the rise of the New Media alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

It can't happen without hope for America and faith in its people - two things Obama and his leftist ilk don't have, which is why they try to shut it down in others. We have the power to unravel the Complex and destroy the Institutional Left. It won't be easy. It will take time and effort, and there will be false starts and roadblocks, but we'll do it, because we have to do it. Apathy in the face of determined Frankfurt School/Alinsky/critical-theory-trained activists is national suicide.

As one who loves to shine a light on the progressive left and become a rod for the truth and for conservatism, Breitbart wrapped it all up in a short, simple paragraph. We indeed have the power to unravel the Complex and destroy the Institutional Left. However, we also know that there will be times in which for every step we take forward, we take 4 steps back. Right now is NOT the time to give up and give in to the Left and even to those on our own side. We need to get out there and take the fight to them and push them back. If we do not, then it is just national suicide because the Frankfurt School/Alinsky/critical-theory-trained activists like the Occupy movement, like the Organizing for America group, like the Move On crowd, have had the upper hand for close to 3 or 4 decades now. Yes ladies and gentlemen, this change had not been done overnight but over time. Remember what Kurt Dillon said in the book Escape to Freedom by AJ Reissig:

A long time ago, one of the Soviet Leaders...and I can't remember which...said that Americans will never jump from capitalism to communism. However, if American leaders dished out small doses of socialism, then the American people would one day awaken to find they have communism. We didn't get here overnight, and if all of the socialist changes had taken place at once, the people would have had none of it. But a gradual change...most people didn't realize it was happening.

We are at that path as we speak, and even Alexander Tytler spoke of it about 250 years ago:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.
"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.  These nations have progressed through this sequence:
"From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage."

Breitbart must have known and realized that we are on our way back to bondage, which is why he came up with the Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries as a way for us to destroy and dismantle the Media Complex and the Progressive Left, as well as the kooks on our own side. All we have to do is not be afraid and to go out there, putting our knowledge of the Primer to good use.

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Rundown for June 1, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter as they bring you the week in news. The #ObamaScandals just keep adding up. When will they become a breaking point for the Administration? Is it fair to compare Obama to Nixon? Also, Bret Baier of Special Report had gotten a very sweet treat from a candy company. What was the treat and why did he get it? And Tony Katz, a good friend of Own The Narrative and also of Red, Right, and Blue, is launching a venture into the late-night talk circuit. What is that venture, how can we help? All that and more including your calls and the Schmuck of the Week coming up today!

Tune in for the fun and frivolity that can only be had during the day on Red, Right, and Blue at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 Central. I will be in the chatroom (which you can access via http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live) 30 minutes prior to the show for a little last minute show prep and also a meet and greet. If you want to engage the conversation during the show, there are three ways to do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• Use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN if you are on Twitter

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. The show is very unpredictable and you never know what we are going to say next.

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Breitbart Rule 11: Don’t let them get away with ignoring their own rules

Not only did Andrew Breitbart say Alinsky was right about ridicule being man’s most potent weapon, he also agreed with Alinsky on another rule. Hence, Rule 11 in the Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

11.) Don't let them get away with ignoring their own rules: Alinsky is right again. They set up this PC Complex, and they have to be held accountable to it, if only for honesty's sake, and we're the only ones who will do it. Joe Biden is still vice president of the United States even though he called the first black president "clean" and "articulate." Harry Reid is still Senate majority leader even though he said Obama was "light-skinned" and could drop his "Negro dialect" on cue. Until his death in 2010, Robert Byrd was "a lion of the Senate" even though he was a former Kleagle of the KKK. If these had been Republicans, they would have been hounded from office. They're Democrats, so they're not.

But that doesn't mean we can't hold them responsible for breaching their own standards. Every time they say things like this, we need to force them to back down and apologize, and we can't allow their allies to let them off the hook with excuses about how they stood for the right policies. Frankfurt School tactics can't work here - standing for liberalism doesn't mean you're allowed to violate the conventions of PC. At the very least, we need to force these hypocrites to stand up against their own PC regime in order to defend themselves.

Over the past 10 years or so, there had been a vast difference in the way Republicans and Democrats are handled. Among the ones I can think of:

• Trent Lott (Republican from Mississippi) was forced out of the Senate Republican Leadership because of his words at the celebration of Strom Thurmond’s (Republican from South Carolina) 100^th birthdate.
• Mark Foley (Republican from Florida’s 16^th District) resigned from the House because he was caught in bed with a minor.
• John Ensign (Republican from Nevada) resigned from the Senate because of ethics violations.

These were forced out of office while the Democrats only get a slap on the wrist. What makes these three different from the Democrats Andrew mentioned in his rule? The fact that the Democrats can do anything, even get away with murder (a la Hillary Clinton with Vince Foster and Whitewater, or Obama with the Ambassador and company in Benghazi as well as Navy SEAL Team 6 which killed Osama Bin Laden) at every turn.

We need to turn the tables on the Democrats and make them live by the EXACT SAME set of rules that they expect us to live by. If we do not, then they will run roughshod. In sports, both teams play by the same set of rules. It is time those in politics do the same thing.

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Breitbart Rule 10: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon

It is rare to see someone on the right agree with Alinsky, but in studying him and also Rule For Radicals, it is clear that Andrew Breitbart had found a way to use Alinsky’s rules to OUR advantage. Hence Rule 10 in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries:

10.) Ridicule is man's most potent weapon: Here, Alinsky and I agree. It's the truest of Alinsky's statements, and it's the most effective. Tina Fey, not the MSM, sullied Sarah Palin's image. Chevy Chase brought down Gerald Ford. Jon Stewart brought down Bush.

And we'll bring down Obama, but not unless we're willing to get unserious. Stuffy old white guys wearing bow ties and talking about the danger of national deficits don't get much done - talented people who can translate political chaos into merry pranksterism do.

We have seen the Left roll out a few people to impersonate our presidents or even political heroes. Case in point is Tina Fey with the legendary Saturday Night Live skit where she impersonated Sarah Palin with the ever popular saying “I can see Russia from my House” which many low-information voters think that those words actually came from Sarah Palin’s mouth.

 

That video goes to show that the Left has the keys to pull out the merry pranksterism on America and get away with it. That is one of the ways they won in 2008 and again in 2012. We have to turn the tables and take the merry pranksterism away from them. I had seen a couple of ways that we could do it. One main person who can do such is Reggie Brown who does a WONDERFUL impersonation of Barack Obama.

Another way is what the WWE had done to promote Capitol Punishment, their Pay Per View which was held in Washington DC in June 2011. They had spliced some clips of Obama’s press conferences with questions pertaining to their Pay Per View.

We can do the same in our own way, but the key is to not just talk about it but actually DO it. Instead of being a stuffed shirt spouting off numbers and pretending like we know what we are talking about, we need to let our hair down and just have some fun doing what we do best.

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Rundown for May 11, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter as they bring the week in news. The House Oversight Committee had hearings on the Benghazi attack of September 11, 2012, and they will review the hearings. Also, the White House talking points on Benghazi were scrubbed 12 times. Why did the White House do that? What are they hiding? All that and more including your calls and Schmuck of the Week..

Come and join us for Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom (which can be accessed at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live) 30 minutes before the show for show prep and also for a meet and greet. If you want to engage the conversation during the show there are three ways to do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype into OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. So much had happened this week, and you do not want to miss a single second as we attempt to condense seven days of news into two hours.

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Breitbart Rule 9: Don’t let them pretend to know more than they do

Just as we should not pretend to know more than we do, as I had discussed last week, we should not let the Left pretend to know more than they do. Hence Rule 9 in Andrew Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries:

9.) Don't let them pretend to know more than they do: This is really the converse of the last rule. Your opponents will pretend to be experts if you don't, but that's okay, because you can always puncture their balloon with one word: why. Asking them to provide evidence for their assertions is always fun, and it's even more fun asking them to provide the sources for that evidence. Attacking the fundamental basis of their arguments if fun, too - if they tell you health care is a right, ask why. Liberals don't have a why, other than their own utopianism and their dyspeptic view of the status quo and America. Reason is not their strong suit - emotion is. Force them to play on the football field of reason.

As Andrew said, there is one word which we can use to puncture the false narrative propagated by the left, and even a few kooks on our own side. That word is why, a simple three-letter word with a lot of power and oomph behind it. If we ask why they think that, then they will have to come up with a reason. As we all know, reason is not their strong suit because they always rely on emotion. Granted, the kooks on our own side say their strong suit is reason, but in the conversations I have had with them, it seems like they do not have a reason except “Read the Constitution!” and “We need to get back to the Constitution!”

THIS is where doing research and knowing what we are talking about comes into play. The more research we do and the more we know, the better we can be at puncturing the false narrative that is out there. I know that in my own conversations at first I had not had a lot of good research on my side to puncture their balloon, but over the past year I had read and listed all of the sites and articles I had read. This way, if people say something that I know is false, I go right to a certain article and show them where they are in error.

This is also handy in the classic “He said, She said” cases as well. One thing I had been doing since 2006 is saving every conversation I have with people, whether in a chatroom or even on instant messenger. This way if they say something which they had been corrected on in the past I can go right to the file and say that this had been talked about before and that they were wrong then and are still wrong.

We have the tools to force our opponents to play on the football field of reason. The thing of it is do we have the WILLPOWER to confront them and force them to play on that football field of reason, or are we afraid to do it?

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Rundown for May 4, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Billie Cotter as they bring the week in news. This week they will discuss the White House Correspondence Dinner last Saturday as well as Ben Shapiro v. Piers Morgan Round Two. They will also go over the contrasts of George W. Bush and Barack Obama and speak on the latest battle over ObamaCare.The show’s editorial will feature the latest rule in Andrew Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries. All that and more including your calls and the ever popular Schmuck of the Week.

Come join us for Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom (which can be accessed at http://www.ownthenarrative.com/live) 30 minutes early for some final show prep and also for a meet and greet with whoever enters. If you want to engage the conversation on the air, there are three ways to do it.

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter but do not want to enter the chat., use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN. You can also join the Red, Right, and Blue Twub (Twitter Hub) at http://twubs.com/RedRightBlue

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Hell, tell a Liberal. This is one show you do not want to miss if you are a REAL AMERICAN!

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Breitbart Rule 8: Don't pretend to know more than you do

After giving us a few tips on owning the narrative, Andrew Breitbart also gave us a few tips on how to keep the narrative. Here is Rule 8 in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

8.) Don't pretend to know more than you do: This one trips up conservatives all the time. We want to argue policy because when we know policy, there's no way they can beat us, because all they have is their lexicon of name-calling and societal expulsion. We have reason on our side.

But just because we have reason on our side doesn't mean that everyone is quipped to be Charles Krauthammer or Michael Barone, policy wonks who can pull facts from the Office of Management and Budget out of every orifice. Most of us aren't experts on the latest budget package or stem-cell line regulation, but that doesn't mean we're powerless - it means we get to play Socrates, asking pointed questions rather than citing facts we may not be sure of.

One of the low points of my media life was getting a call after the nomination of John Roberts for the United States Supreme Court. A producer from CNN's now-cancelled Aaron Brown Show asked me to go on TV and discuss the wisdom of President Bush's choice. I remember taking a Civil Liberties course at Tulane in summer school. As I recall there was a case called Mapp v. Ohio. That was the extent of my then-qualifications to pontificate on such legal matters. I am not sure what demoralized me more: that I was asked to do so by a leading cable news network, or that I readily accepted. Had Wikipedia not been invented, I would have had nothing to say. But I did, and I survived. My takeaway from the revealing moment about the low standards for TV punditry was that if I valued my career, I would only accept media invites where I could dictate the terms of engagement (i.e., bring my own stories, my own perspectives, etc.) or where I could change the subject to war footing.

By avoiding talking about that which I do not know, perhaps I limit my ability to appear on more shows. But I definitely limit my ability to screw up.

Put another way: don't be the guy with a knife at a gunfight. It rarely ends well.

Now this is VERY important in the arena of social media as we look at Facebook, Twitter, and the various message boards and sites that we visit. There are many people out there who claim that they know it all and that their way is the best, but is it really? Now I will get more into that in next week’s editorial but one thing I will say about it is that we might not know everything, but we need to not pretend or give others the false impression that we do.

This is where research comes in. Many out there do not take the time to go into the research and actually back up what they talk about with facts or they do but get it all jumbled up. We need to do our research every time we find an idea or a narrative that people are putting out as false and then disprove it with what we had researched. Then and only then can we beat the progressives and the Alinskyites at their own game.

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Rundown for April 20, 2013

Join Rick Bulow and Daniel Richardson (filling in as producer for Justin Kendall) as they present a very special show. Today they will delve into how Social Media and how conservatives can use it to bolster victory in 2014 and then in 2016. This will be a show panel, and the panelists include John LaRosa of FourTier Strategies, LLC, Diane Sori of The Patriot Factor who has had problems with Facebook, Stephen Maloney who is a Social Media advocate as well as the Administrator of a few Marco Rubio groups on Facebook, and Miryam Shabak who is the Admin of Help GOP Master New Media 4 Victory group on Facebook.

Join us for Red, Right, and Blue today at 1:30 PM Eastern, 12:30 PM Central. I will be in the chatroom (which is located at http://www.ownthenarrrative.com/live) 30 minutes early for some last minute show prep as well as a meet and greet. If you want to engage the conversation during the show, there are three ways to do it:

• Call 832-699-0449
• Skype in to OTNNetwork
• If you are on Twitter but unable to be in the chatroom, use the hashtags #RedRightBlue and #OTNN

Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell an Independent The battle for 2014 and 2016 is crucial, and it starts with who controls Social Media

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Breitbart Rule 6: Ubiquity is key

It is one thing to own the narrative. It is another to KEEP the narrative going. And for that you might need a little help. Hence, Rule 6 in Andrew Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

6.) Ubiquity is key: As a capitalist and as a web publisher, pageviews are a desired commodity. But when playing for political or cultural keeps, impact matters most. And, when ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBC and the dailies are working against you and ignoring you, ubiquity is a key weapon That means developing relationships with like-minded allies or even enemies and news junkies and allowing them to share in the good fortune of a good scoop.

While the crux of a story can be weaponized and launched on one of my websites, there are often peripheral angles that can be developed elsewhere with a separate but related media life of their own. For instance, the acorn story was unbelievably complex. A key component of exposing the scandal was a detailed analysis of ACORN's structure and its past scandals. I knew legal minds were needed to weigh in on these aspects. Patrick Frey, who runs the indispensable Patterico website, created a parallel line of attack, not just against ACORN, but against its myriad defenders, who lied and misdirected to try to kill the story. The ACORN story couldn't have been the success it was without others - talk radio and alternative news outlets that were invested in the story and could deliver scoops of their own. So I planted scoops with what business school types would call my "competitors," and I watched the story explode, my pageviews would go through the roof, and my brand flourish. Sometimes the best ideas are counterintuitive.

I love living in Los Angeles and not DC, because in DC there are too many fighting over too little ground for their own fifteen minutes. The scarcity mentality is strangling the growth of the conservative movement. From outside DC, I can see that ubiquity is about growing the pie for everyone, spreading the stories, the channels of distribution, the resources around so that the entire movement can benefit, because our chunk of the public square gets bigger and bigger each time we break something huge.

While we all have different viewpoints or perspectives as to what conservatism is, one thing to remember is that we are all in the same fight. That is what the Left does, and they succeed by coming together for a common purpose. The problem is that conservatives are so divided that it gives the Left a chance to gain the edge on the narrative. Note what Andrew had said: “developing relationships with like-minded allies or even enemies and news junkies and allowing them to share in the good fortune of a good scoop.” That means spread it around. If you find something newsworthy, it does not help to keep it to yourself. Rather, post it on your social media tools and get the word out there. In next week’s editorial I will go more into how to engage in social media as Andrew has it as his Rule 7, but developing relationships with like-minded people who are also news junkies can allow them to share in the fortune of a good scoop is key.

One of my good friends who likes to share in the fortune of a good story is Patricia Baber, who used to be my co-host on this very show. She is one who hunts down stories on relatively unknown sites and put them out on Twitter, then it gets picked up by her followers and spreads to others. I even do the same thing when I do my news aggregates on my rant blog. But on that I do not take all the credit for it but rather give credit to Robert Stacy McCain of The Other McCain who has a blog entry entitled "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog.” In fact, Stacy has Rule 2 which he calls the “Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around" where he says:

Reciprocal linkage is the essential lubricant that makes the blogosphere purr with contentment. If somebody's throwing you traffic, you should either (a) give them a link-back update, or at a minimum (b) keep them in mind for future linkage. Because you don't want to end up on the wrong end of a kharmic unbalance in the 'sphere, where you're always taking and never giving.

The Other McCain has a whole plethora of articles and the like to link to on your own blogs and also on Social Media outlets. I know I usually do it, but the past couple weeks I had slacked off because of certain things away from the computer. However, I am making a concerted effort to go back to doing it. The key is, will you be ubiquitous or will you be a loner in this war?

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Rule 5: Control your own story – don’t let the Complex do it

Just as Andrew Breitbart did not let the Complex use its PC Lexicon to control him and shape the narrative, he then went one step further and did not let the Complex control whatever story he had. I present to you, Rule 5 in his Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries.

5.) Control your own story - don't let the Complex do it: A one-and-done story isn't worth anything. One fact can be posted on the Internet and flushed down the memory hole faster than anyone can imagine. How many incredible pieces of journalistic revelation have been lost because they weren't properly presented to the public?

Serialization is good. Van Jones was taken down by Glenn Beck because Beck had the goods - and because he revealed them piece by piece. He got Jones and his defenders to come out of the closet and attack him. Then he calmly laid his cards on the table, one by one.

It's the same strategy I saw Arianna pursue during the Larry Lawrence scandal. People came out of the woodwork to attack her as a scurrilous human being slandering a dead war hero. And she smiled and let them come at her. Then she put her evidence into the public eye bit by bit, keeping the story alive. Feeding the media is like training a dog - you can't throw an entire steak to a dog to train it to sit. You have to give it little bits of steak over and over and over again until it learns its lesson. That's what Arianna did.

It's the same thing Drudge did with Lewinsky. He broke the story in pieces rather than in a long essay laying out all the facts, and he didn't let the media's cries for him to reveal all his information control his decision-making process. Instead, he controlled the media.

The important thing to remember here is that the media are like a leech hanging on the back of the news makers, and the news makers have every right and ability to feed that leech little by little instead of letting it suck them dry all at once. Keep your story alive by planning its release down to the minutest level.

The main thing to remember is this: we need to OWN THE NARRATIVE at every single opportunity. I am of the belief that owning the narrative is not just a fancy saying or something that can be focused on for an hour or so a day or even a week. Rather, owning the narrative is a way of life, one that lives with us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Owning the narrative has been a part of my life ever since Andrew died, and it will remain in me until I take that eternal celestial dirt nap.

During the 2012 election I had dealt with the third party supporters, as I had mentioned last week, and every time they said something which mentioned Romney and Obama being the same I just calmly said they are not and showed them links a little at a time. In fact, one person even called me Rick “The Narrative” Bulow because when he would ask me what I am doing, I told him that I am calmly owning the narrative.

When Marco Rubio was mentioned on Romney’s VP short list and the birthers came out of the woodwork saying he is not eligible, I had calmly said that he is, and debunked their articles a little at a time with certain links of my own. And in fact just recently I had seen a thread on a site which mentioned a paper from the Congressional Research Service on natural born citizenship and presidential eligibility. Now what is funny about it is that I had brought up that paper in another thread on the same site and got bashed for it. So I had waded in and mentioned a couple of things about eligibility, and wound up getting banned from the entire site. Am I upset about it? Yes I am; however, one thing I did not do when I commented was let them own and control the narrative. The only way the Complex can own and control the narrative after being confronted with facts is to shut you up. And online, apparently that means banning someone from sites.

If we want to win in 2014 and then in 2016, we have to own the narrative, whatever it may be, at all costs. Remember that owning the narrative is not just a fancy saying but a way of life.

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