Consummate Broadcaster Paul Harvey, dead at 90 years old:

He was a broadcast legend; the early and great pioneer in the Conservative broadcast movement.

Although Mr. Paul Harvey has been working for ABC for 50 years, I became aware of him first as a teenager listening to him during the early 1970s on WGN-AM radio in Chicago. I grew up in the neighborhood of Roosevelt and Harlem in Berwyn, Illinois, just a number of blocks away from his home in Oak Park. His dulcitone voice, his trademark inflection and pregnant pauses immediately drew in the listener and made them a part of his world for 15 minutes a day, 6 days a week. Mr. Harvey was a “broadcaster’s broadcaster.” Oh, there were broadcasters, who would “announce” the news; and then there was Paul, who didn’t merely announce the news; he drew you in to his living room, discussed it with you; not as a reporter, but as a confidant. Harvey commanded attention, respect, and instant credibility. His inimitable style became a personal inspiration to me as a 21-year entering the field of broadcasting in my early years as a commercial writer, producer, and voice-over talent.

Part of my duties as the lowest on the totem pole of a staff of four writers for WAXX/WAYY was to sit at the board of WAYY, tape Paul Harvey at 10:30am on the trusty Magnacord reel-to-reel; and at noon, sharp, pause the radio’s automation system, and air the show. As the Paul Harvey “News and Comments” program would play, it would be my duty to listen for his declaration of “Page Three!” This was the cue to stop the tape and to run the only available local spot commercial, cue the tape past the PSA (public service announcement) and have the remainder of the show ready to run at the end of the 60 second spot. At the end of the program, it was my time to shine on real-live radio, as I would make the following announcment, “You have been listening to Paul Harvey News & Comments on Am-1150, WAYY; brought to you by Arrowhead Lodge; the time is 12:15pm, temperature is 54 degrees!” (My parents, who lived 70 miles away in Auburndale, Wisconsin, would listen every day. It was their way of knowing that their kid was still alright).

At any rate, Paul Harvey was a guiding force in my delivery as a commercial voiceover talent; in not simply “announcing” a product, but rather in bringing a listener in and capturing his or her attention and imaginaton via expression and voice dynamics.

Though Paul Harvey was not a far-right conservative, he was the closest thing to being conservative that could be found at the time on any medium. In the days when the “Fairness” Doctrine was in its heyday, and the espousing of conservative values was nearly unheard of, Harvey’s voice was an early guidepost that would eventually guide my thinking toward conservative values. His unshakeable optimism made you feel great about being an American, even during the malaise of the Ford and Carter years. And to this day I can remember the minute and could almost hear him speak word for word of the great things that would come about at the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, as I was making my way on Highway 124 from Chicago to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, for my first radio gig.

I have a collection of old radios; every night I am lulled to sleep by bluetooth headphones as my smart phone is streaming Antioch Radio. No doubt that TV programs and movies are grand; but nothing can beat the theatre of the mind and personalization of experience proffered by the radio medium.

For this reason, and to this day I remain a rabid fan of radio; and I can attribute my devotion to it directly to Mr. Paul Harvey.

Closed-circuit to Mr. Paul Harvey– Well done, sir! Well done!

At 90 – he now really knows all the rest of the story.

God rest your soul, Mr. Harvey.

Listening to Limbaugh while cooking some dinner for the folks – he’s hammering on the perfect themes for conservatism and just how bad Obamunism really is.

Have at it folks.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Back from CPAC… it was awesome… so much to tell… but for now, here’s a link to the full video and transcipt of Rush’s remarks.

Anchoress has the details of Obama’s rollback of the rule which allowed health care professionals to opt out of morally objectionable acts, such as counseling a person to seek an abortion and/or use birth control.

Does Obama really know what he’s doing? I hope note – I’d hate to think that any American President could do something so hateful as force people to go against their own beliefs.

Draws 1,500 in St Louis – and more and more around the world. Gateway Pundit has the links.

This one does explain why all the other tax problems slipped through the vetting process:

White House general counsel Gregory Craig has seized control of Obama’s vetting process after a series of nominees with unpaid taxes. But his wife’s business may also have avoided taxes. Who vets the vetter?

Derry Noyes, Craig’s wife, runs Noyes Graphics, a design business, out of the couple’s home in northwest Washington. Between Craig’s work and hers, they’ve been on Washington’s A-list for a decade.

PBS’s American Stamps aired a profile of her two days ago. She designs specialty postage for the U.S. Postal Service, including a number of notable stamps. One recent series celebrating the work of famous architect Charles Eames was featured in Metropolis. Noyes herself is the daughter of architect Eliot Noyes, a friend of Eames.

Operating a business out of one’s home in D.C. requires a home occupation permit and registration with the city’s division of corporations. Additionally, the government has instituted a new requirement for business license permits.

A spokesman at the Washington D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs told Gawker that no one has ever sought any kind of permit or registration for a business under the name of Noyes Graphics or at the Craigs’ home address. By not registering Craig may have avoided local business taxes.

Private investigator Joseph Culligan looked into business records for Noyes Graphics, which is run out of the Craigs’ home, and found Dun & Bradstreet records showing substantial annual sales, a Yellow Pages listing, and an online listing inviting customers to visit the business at her home address (now posted on Webofdeception.com).

You Democrats do realize that all those taxes you’ve piled up on the economy have to be paid by you, too, don’t you? Or is it only the little people who pay taxes? It is disgusting to note that those who advocate for higher taxes are people who seem to have a problem paying their own taxes. This is like an anti-smoking campaigner taking a cigarette break.

Geesh:

When it comes to important national issues, 73% of adults nationwide trust the judgment of the American people more than that of America’s political leaders.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 13% place more trust in the judgment of the politician.

Now we know how large the real, rock solid and irreducible base of the Democratic party is.

Michael Ledeen points out that Obama’s quest for peace risks a war:

…We are making nice, we are unilaterally and preemptively granting them all manner of concessions, from lifting arms embargoes to Syria and Iran, to sending high-level envoys to talk to the Syrian dictator and (in the case of the unfortunate Kerry, who appears to be competing with Hillary, Mitchell and Holbrooke for the Neville Chamberlain award of 2009) hand carrying love notes from Hamas to President Obama. Who are our allies? Israel, Afghanistan and Iraq. What are we doing for them? Talking tough about Israel, threatening a yet-to-be-formed government with God-knows-what if it doesn’t make nice to its enemies, speeding up our withdrawal from Iraq, and openly dithering about the definition of our mission in Afghanistan.

If this continues, it is only a matter of time before the attacks against us and our friends and allies increase…

…It would not surprise me, in such circumstances, whether in response to an Iranian nuclear test, or a big terrorist attack on Washington, or London, or Rome, or Paris, to see an administration like this one respond massively. Just to demonstrate that we’re not wimps, that we won’t take it. And that this president is worthy of reelection.

Here, now, is something I wrote back in 2002 entitled “20th Century Victims of Peace”:

1920 – Winston Churchill urges Anglo-French to unite to destroy the Bolshevik regime; Churchill is derided as a “war monger”, trumping up phony fears of the Reds in order to improve his political situation at home. Wiser heads prevail, and the Bolsheviks gain full control of Russia – by 1940, this bit of wisdom in preserving the peace and refusing to be stampeded into pre-emptive action works its blessing; at least 20 million and maybe as many as 30 million Russians, Poles, Tatars, Uzbeks, Georgians, Chechens, Ukrainians, etc are murdered by the Bolshevik regime (this death toll is at least as much, and perhaps 50% larger, than the death toll in the First World War).

1932 – Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, watching as Japan attacks China and annexes a large portion of Manchuria, opined to President Hoover that we should run a “calculated risk of war” with Japan by cutting off their oil and scrap iron purchases in the United States. Stimson felt that Japan’s aggression, unchecked, would lead to a larger war, more deadly for America, in the future. As usual, wiser heads prevailed – no move was made, Japan got a hold of Manchuria and its resources and proceeded, year by year, to take ever more of China under its control – just in China alone, the death toll is estimated at 20 million from 1932 to 1945; when you add in the number of deaths experienced in other parts of Asia and around the Pacific when Stimson’s foreseen war did erupt in 1941, you can once again thank God that people preferred peace to war in 1932.

1934 – Winston Churchill, being one of the few western politicians who actually read Mein Kampf, raises the alarm about Hitler’s recently installed regime in Germany – he points out that Hitler is unstable, ruthless and has promised to bring all Germans under the rule of his new Reich. Churchill is insulted in the worst possible terms – actually accused of wanting a World War just so he can rise politically. Wiser heads point out that the “root cause” of German bellicosity is an inferiority complex added to the humiliations the Germans felt about losing the First World War. This bit of wisdom allows Hitler time to build his power to the point where he can unleash both World War Two and the Holocaust – death toll, in the range of 40 million in the European area.

1948 – Stalin’s USSR in direct contravention of agreements entered into with the United States and Great Britain, blockades the city of Berlin. This challenge to post-war agreements is responded to. Some advocated going to war over Berlin, figuring that the aggressive nature of the USSR was manifest and that defeating them in 1948, when they were still exhausted from World War Two, would be easier than waiting to fight them some other day in the future, when they’d only be stronger. Others figured it would be better if we could preserve peace by just trying to get Stalin to play nice about Berlin. Wiser heads, you guessed it, prevailed – although US action ended the Berlin blockade, failure to take decisive, final action against the USSR allowed it to continue – in time to get nuclear weapons, in time to spread war and misery around the world in the service of its communist ideals.

1950 – In response to the unprovoked aggression by North Korea’s communist regime against South Korea, we engage in war to expel them from the South; Douglas MacArthur, perceiving that the war was actually hatched in Peking and Moscow advocates a vigorous response, not limiting ourselves to the narrow goal of re-establishing the status quo ante in Korea. The wisdom of the world is brought to bear (after all, MacArthur is just a war-mongering alarmist who does not understand the complexities of the situation) – and stalemate is accepted. The US accepts 35,000 dead, the Koreans suffer at least a million – Mao’s regime is preserved by our inaction, and goes on over the following 20 years to murder 20 to 40 million of its own people.

1964 – Faced with a growing crisis in Vietnam, the United States determines that intervention by US forces is necessary; this is done with great wisdom – we aver from the start that we are not there to secure victory, but only to prevent South Vietnamese defeat. This wonderful program – designed to preserve the peace and prevent a widening of the war – ends up with a couple million Vietnamese dead, the South Vietnamese regime dissolved and 55,000 Americans gone to their deaths fruitlessly.

So – remember people, whenever there is a bad situation out there, advocate peace. What is always needed is a willingness to talk to the enemy and try to understand his point of view. Remember, it is Judeo-Christian civilization in general and the United States in particular which is the actual problem. If we’d only break out of our narrow-minded bigotry and understand the Islamists and the tyrants, they’d come to forgive us and thus be willing to make peace. Whatever else happens, make sure that no action is taken to get at the source of the evil, because if you do so not enough people will die at a later date – the blood-lust of the peace movement must be filled, yearly and forever

One wonders just what rock Obama had to lift to find this guy:

…It now appears Mr. Obama has appointed a highly controversial figure to head the National Intelligence Council, which is responsible for producing National Intelligence Estimates. The news Web site Politico.com yesterday reported that it could confirm rumors that a former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles “Chas” Freeman Jr., has been appointed chairman. (My calls to the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence produced neither confirmation nor denial.)…

…In 1997, Mr. Freeman succeeded George McGovern to become the president of the Middle East Policy Council. The MEPC purports to be a nonpartisan, public-affairs group that “strives to ensure that a full range of U.S. interests and views are considered by policy makers” dealing with the Middle East. In fact, its original name until 1991 was the American-Arab Affairs Council, and it is an influential Washington mouthpiece for Saudi Arabia.

While President Obama speaks of helping the people of Israel “search for credible partners with whom they can make peace,” Mr. Freeman believes, as he said in a 2007 address to the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, that “Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them.” The primary reason America confronts a terrorism problem today, he continued, is “the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by an Israeli occupation that is about to mark its fortieth anniversary and shows no sign of ending.”

Although initial reaction to Mr. Freeman’s selection has focused on his views of the Middle East, that region is by no means Mr. Freeman’s only area of interest. He has pronounced on a wide variety of other subjects, including China, where he has attempted to explain away the scale and scope of the starkly intensive buildup of the People’s Liberation Army. The specter of a Chinese threat, he remarked during a China forum at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in October 2006, is nothing more than “a great fund-raiser for the hyper-expensive advanced weaponry our military-industrial complex prefers to make and our armed forces love to employ.”

On the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Mr. Freeman unabashedly sides with the Chinese government, a remarkable position for an appointee of an administration that has pledged to advance the cause of human rights.

That a man so out of touch with reality could be even considered for head of intelligence shows how entirely clueless Democrats are about the world we live in. If this goes through, we are going to pay a price in blood for it – if this is the man to write our intelligence estimates, then we can rest assured that threats from Islamists and Chinese imperialism will be ignored, and likely ignored until it is too late.

This is another badge of shame for those on the conservative side who voted for Obama – we have littered throughout the Executive branch people who will work diligently to thwart the best interests of the United States and its allies. People who view America as the problem and our enemies as the aggrieved party. Don’t blame kooks like Freeman – he’s doing what he thinks is best, or at least what he’s paid to do by the Saudis and the Chinese. Blame ourselves, for allowing this purblind Administration to obtain power – and then remember, now and forevermore, that elections aren’t just exercises in political gamesmanship, but events which may determine who lives and who dies.

NRO’s Editors have it right about the absurd attempt to provide a House member for DC:

Congress is on the verge of granting the District of Columbia statehood on the cheap: This week, lawmakers in both chambers are debating a scheme to give the District a permanent seat in the House of Representatives. The bill in question violates the plain meaning of the Constitution and should go no further…

…Because efforts to make D.C. a full-fledged state have failed, the city’s political backers have resorted to incremental steps. Much like Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam, the District currently sends a delegate to Congress. The rules governing these posts have changed over the years, but in general delegates have been allowed to vote in committee but not on the floor of the House.

That’s because the Constitution forbids non-states from enjoying this privilege. The senators and congressmen who think otherwise should take a refresher course on Article I, Section 2 and the Fourteenth Amendment: “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not … be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.” Moreover: “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States.”

Democrats are attempting to secure GOP backing for this unconstitutional power-grab by dangling an extra – presumptively GOP – seat in Utah for our side. We must not be party to this – if the Democrats wish to ram this thing through, then let them do so – the inevitable court challenge will swiftly end in the Supreme Court striking down the measure.

Our constitution is under grave threat while Democrats hold the White House and Congress – having no understanding of what law is, Democrats are unreliable (to put it mildly) guardians of our laws. To Democrats, what is right is whatever is fashionable at the moment – if the hip, rich people are in favor of a thing, then it should be done, goes Democrat “thinking” on such matters. Children need to be kept from harming themselves, and Democrats in charge of laws are like children in charge of machine guns.