CPAC 2010 Speech Highlights: Gingrich & Beck

Following is the complete (1 hour) video of Glenn Beck's address.









Historian, author, and former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker, Newt Gingrich, spoke earlier in the day; his speech (35 minutes) titled "Principled Bipartisanship Starts at 2 + 2 = 4" can be viewed here.

Newt's, professorial demeanor lent credence to the seriousness of our Nation's political and economic dilemma and was a stark contrast to the antics of Glenn Beck, who with his ever present chalkboard, outlined the dangers of Progressivism with his, by now, well known delivery of comic gesture, grimace, and patter. Both speakers were quite effective despite their very different approaches to the plight of the U.S.A. in 2010.

Here is an audio snippet from the Gingrich speech. (MP3 2:57) and

an audio snippet from the Beck presentation. (MP3 2:26)

Here is a selection of comments about the Glenn Beck presentation from Newsy.com:

Tags: newt gingrich,glenn beck,cpac 2010,american conservative union,conservative politics,george orwell,albert camus,god given rights,

Gingrich: Dizzy Path to Non-Candidacy

Is Newt Gingrich running for President or is he not! Apparently, finally, he is not. Only yesterday his organization was poised to begin a pledge campaign designed to raise some $30 million to establish the feasibility of a Gingrich candidacy. Today the announcement came that he is not running, period. The Republican field now appears to be set with no other newcomers on the horizon. The decision was first reported by CNN this afternoon and reported by Politico as follows in part:

"The decision will bolster the contention of several key Republicans that Gingrich's repeated flirtation with a presidential run was a publicity stunt designed to keep him in the news and sell his books. These Republicans said Gingrich has a loyal following and lots of good ideas, but contended that what one called his "on-again, off-again" approach had undermined the seriousness of a potential candidacy. Rick Tyler, Gingrich's spokesman, said lawyers told Gingrich that dabbling in a presidential campaign could endanger the non-profit status of his nonprofit group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, which is holding a workshop in Cobb County, Ga., on Saturday. 'He had to make a choice between being a citizen-activist, raising the challenges America faces and finding solution to America’s problems, or exploring a potential candidacy,' Tyler said. 'It’s legally impermissible to do both. It was the necessary choice. It was the only choice.'”

Newt Gingrich at National Press Club 8/8/07

I am really deeply worried. We have two grandchildren who are 6 and 8, and I believe they are in greater danger of dying from enemy activities than we were in the Cold War. There are thousands of people across this planet who get up every morning actively seeking to destroy the United States. They are spreading their poison by sermons, by the Internet, by a variety of recruiting devices......I believe we are on the edge of a precipice. The Iranians are desperately trying to build nuclear weapons, and they will use them. This is a state — look — read what Ahmadinejad says. He writes poems about the joy of being a martyr nation. He gets to wipe out Tel Aviv; maybe the Israelis use nuclear weapons and wipe out Tehran. He would accept that in a minute because he believes everybody in Tehran goes to heaven and everybody in Tel Aviv doesn’t.....We are in trouble, and somebody had better start talking about it in a blunt way.....We are simply not prepared today to be a serious country. I’ve been at this a long time. I am genuinely afraid that this political system will not react until we lose a city, and nobody in this country’s thought about the threat to our civil liberties the morning after we decide it’s that dangerous and how rapidly we will impose ruthlessness on ourselves in that kind of a world. I think those of you who care about civil liberties had better be thinking through how we win this war before the casualties get so great that the American people voluntarily give up a lot of those liberties.

Above are a few excerpts from the Gingrich speech relating to national security and the war on terror. He also had a great deal to say about our national political discourse which I hope to cover in a later posting. Meanwhile, the entire speech transcript is here and the complete video is here. The video is a 155 MB MPEG download.

Immigration Bill Portends Disaster for America!

Newt Gingrich tears into the proposed immigration reform act with passion and facts. In his latest newsletter he calls the present shenanigans in D.C. "An Immigration Shipwreck in Sight". Some excerpts:

The announcement last week that the White House and a group of senators have reached an agreement on "comprehensive immigration reform" should have the same effect that the word "iceberg" had on the passengers and crew of the Titanic.

This proposed agreement is a disaster of the first order, and it will severely cripple America for the foreseeable future.

You can tell how bad this bill is by the Senate Democratic leadership's announced goal of trying to pass it before the Memorial Day weekend....

When the FBI arrested six terrorists in New Jersey two weeks ago it turned out that three of them had been in the U.S. illegally for at least TWENTY years.

These three had crossed our unprotected border and had been living in New Jersey.

But here's the even more outrageous part: The police had filed 75 (SEVENTY-FIVE!) charges against them, including drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In 75 interactions, the police never once learned that these three people were here illegally.

The government failed twice: First, by failing to secure the border, and second, by failing to determine that these people were here illegally. The result was that more than five years after 9/11 we were saved from a mass killing at Fort Dix only because of the patriotism and courage of a clerk at an electronics store.

Compare the 75 charges made against the would-be Fort Dix terrorists with how we rounded up German spies in World War II. In June 1942, it took a total of 15 days to track down and arrest eight German spies who landed in Florida and New York from submarines. We executed six of them and gave one life in prison and the other thirty years. We were serious about winning that war). Go here for a more detailed comparison and a list of the 75 charges against the Fort Dix terrorists.

Faced with this level of failure of bureaucracy, how could anyone believe for a minute that this new immigration bill will work? The fact is it can't and it won't. It will rely on the same failed bureaucracy and produce more years of failure.