QUOTE: Don't know.... just just an honesty about Trump that's refreshing.... not clouded by 'roadkill bullsheeet and beans' mainstream media elitist run - we'll tell u the news we want u to hear.... and the POLITICAL.... useless as titties on a bull mantras.... it's just refreshing..... in a sad, sad way..... wow even in the 60s the news was basically honest.... and now we watch The Donald and rather enjoy the freshness in politics as the world monsters and outlaws of United Nations panic..... refreshing... I ...say... bet John Wayne would be laughing his head off riding on his horse and guns blazing.... to save us all.... cause that's how many oldies remember the Good Ole USA- Andy Griffith, Barney and John Wayne.... hugs and love ...
“In all seriousness, Trump did help out Sgt. Tahmooressi.
Predicting the next president
Re: Predictions Are A Mug’s Game, But Here Goes, Michael Den Tandt, Jan. 4.Michael Den Tandt’s prediction that Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination will not come true. The first caucus in Iowa is a month away, followed by the two important primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Trump will self implode. Look for it to come down to either Marco Rubio, Chris Christie or Jeb Bush. As for Hillary Clinton, her nomination is rather a coronation on the Democrat side, but she will not be the next president and that will be good news, not only for America, but the world in general.
Stephen Flanagan, Ottawa
--------------Stephen Flanagan, Ottawa
Trump’s strength
Re: Donald The Proto-Fascist, Ross Douthat, Dec. 5; Why Trump Will Win, Jen Gerson, Dec. 7.The unfortunate aspect of Donald Trump as a Republican candidate, is that he says what a great many of the American public think.
Murray Rubin, Toronto.
Murray Rubin, Toronto.
QUOTE: The behind the scenes
machinations of big money and politics are so well hidden from most of the
population, that if people actually knew how things were really run, we would
quite literally have a second revolution overnight. Henry Ford knew this well
when he said, "It is well enough that people of the nation do not
understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there
would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
Media Deception: You Are Not Getting The Truth
The Corporate Media And Network News Is Controlled And Works Against Us
Truth Must Spread By Word of Mouth, By We The People, Or Else It's Never Told
NewsFocus Op/Ed, by Tim Watts - 080611
The behind the scenes machinations of big money and politics are so well hidden from most of the population, that if people actually knew how things were really run, we would quite literally have a second revolution overnight. Henry Ford knew this well when he said, "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
Most people who read this might have a hard time fathoming how an entire nation could be so well deceived, but it's really not that hard when you understand the inner workings and hierarchy of an overly revered media in which we place our blind trust.
The truth is not as you know it. Our faith in the media myth has been our Achilles heel.
Many have realized long ago that our politicians will lie to us at the drop of a hat, but most have no clue that our news media lies and deceives us just as much, if not more so.
We have been deceived by our media to such an extent, mostly because people are too trusting of our news system. They very naively believe that broadcasters and journalists would never lie to us. This trust has worked against us with devastating consequences which are unknown to most.
To understand how badly you have been misled, you first need to learn about how our news organizations have been infiltrated. Once you learn this undeniable historical fact, it is far easier to understand that life is not as you know it.
The First Attack On The Media, Through Money
If you've never seen the 1976 movie "Network" you've missed one of the best Oscar nominated films on the power of the media over people. The media is supposed to be the watchdog over the American republic and our democracy, but few know or realize that it was usurped nearly 100 years ago and has been completely stolen from us in the last thirty years since the advent of Reagan deregulation.
Don't believe it? Put down the TV remote and do some research on your own for once, instead of being spoon-fed your news, or disinformation, as it truly is.
Consider this quote from John Swinton, former Chief of Staff for the New York Times in an address to the New York Press club.
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." John Swinton, former Chief of Staff, The New York Times.
In 1917, Congressman Oscar Callaway documented in the official Congressional record that multi-millionaire JP Morgan had infiltrated the U.S. media for the sole purpose of exploiting and controlling it. Morgan hired twelve of the top news managers to help him determine the most influential newspapers in America. The idea was to find the primary key news institutions that other news outlets looked to and were thus influenced by. (This is documented in the official U.S. Record, volume 54, dated February 9, 1917.)
Once the editors arrived at a consensus, Morgan then bought or infiltrated the top 25 news organizations reported to him by his task force of news managers. An editor was assigned to run each paper, making sure that all news stories were controlled and that the watchdog for freedom was officially neutered.
This was a key step towards total information and news control in the United States, giving birth to censorship, disinformation and propaganda. The guardian of our forefather's dream of Constitutional freedom had been deeply wounded.
The Second Attack On The Media, Through Covert Intel
As if that wasn't bad enough, the CIA made its own foray into news control in the 1940s with a program to infiltrate the media, with the idea to have select journalists parrot the official government line under the guise of national patriotism. Some news members were simply duped, naively thinking that they were helping America by disseminating important news. Others were simply unscrupulous and morally deficient in their professional trade and were easily enough bought out, spewing whatever disinformation and propaganda that they could cash in on.
This project was known as "Operation Mockingbird," the name alone was suggestive of the mission's objective, total control of the U.S. media system. Many might naively scoff at such an idea, until perhaps they hear it straight from the horse's mouth.
According to former CIA Director William Colby, "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
If that quote alone isn’t enough to raise a “Spock eyebrow” for some, then please consider this gem from another former CIA Director, William Casey, “We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
One thing the CIA understands well is that information is as good as gold, and he who controls information can use that data for political gain, power and wealth.
Through the years Operation Mockingbird lured such venerable broadcast icons as Walter Lippmann, Edward R. Murrow, and Walter Cronkite, to name but just a few elite out of hundreds of broadcasters and noted journalists involved in the program.
According to released Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) documents, a great many of our hallowed media
outlets were alleged to be involved with the Mockingbird project, including over
400 journalists who were used for numerous assignments, not to mention many publishing institutions
which were also rumored to be involved
Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein was
reportedly once told, "One journalist is worth twenty
agents."
The CIA policy
is to use and manipulate these “assets” in order to plant disinformation in the
U.S., the same way they have done for years overseas through their Office of
Strategic Influence. The problem is, it is apparently sanctioned by Congress
for them to do so abroad, but expressly illegal to do so
domestically.
Over the years, it became increasingly apparent to many
observers of the CIA's effort to control the media through Operation
Mockingbird. The biggest blow to the project came in 1974 when two ex-CIA
agents, John D. Marks and Victor Marchetti published a book entitled "The CIA
and the Cult of Intelligence" (ISBN 0440203368). The book opened the door for many
questions following the tell-all expose on Project Mockingbird. Public scrutiny
of the CIA hit a new high and drew a concerned response from many in the U.S.,
including quite a few people on Capitol Hill.
As word leaked out concerning the Mockingbird
program and concern began to spread over the possible infiltration of the CIA
into the U.S. media, the Senate began an investigation under the Church
Committee, the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.
The Church Committee in 1975 revealed Operation
Mockingbird. Senator Frank Church (D-ID) testified
that the overall expense of disinformation had cost American taxpayers an
estimated $265 million a year. That number has grown exponentially since
the 70s.
The Church Report found that “over a thousand books were produced, subsidized or sponsored by the CIA before the end of 1967”.
The Church Report found that “over a thousand books were produced, subsidized or sponsored by the CIA before the end of 1967”.
For all that was uncovered, the commission was
stopped in its tracks by none other than CIA Directors William Colby (73-76) and
George HW Bush (76-77). The report from Frank Church's committee was said to
have been deliberately buried.
Despite its exposure, Mockingbird apparently did
not die. FOIA documents
were eventually uncovered that showed CIA agents openly bragging through
interoffice memos that the agency still had in place "important assets"
within every major news organization in the U.S. In 1982, the CIA admitted to
having reporters on their payroll.
The American
media facilitates the agenda of Operation Mockingbird by simply avoiding stories
altogether that are meant to be kept from the public, or else by mixing
some truth with blatant misinformation, to purposefully muddy the water
and obfuscate the real facts behind the story.
Make no mistake
about it, Operation Mockingbird, or a derivation of it, is still alive and
operating as our media continues to mislead the public on everything and
anything that those pulling the strings wish their paid media puppets to sell to
us. Whether it be the numerous unreported incongruities of 9/11, the illegal
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the orchestrated economic collapse, or the
diversion of the gulf oil spill, the media has not told us anything close to
the truth. As the X-Files was famous for pointing out, “The truth is out there.” All we need to do is look.
The Third Attack On The Media, Once Again
Through Money
The new form of media
control became simply enough, buy into it, or just buy it out.
Government deregulation in the 1980s made it possible for the conversion of our
media into the complicit, homogenized, neutered, spineless industry that it is
today. Once deregulation was enacted, the
watchdog of democracy, our hallowed and formerly esteemed press, became easy
pickings in a hostile takeover for control. The current media of the United States is controlled by a mere half dozen owners and CEOs. Those six individuals have total control over what you see and how your news and information in the world is shaped and presented to you. See for yourself in the following table.
| U.S. MEDIA OWNERSHIP | ||
| GE / Comcast – NBC Jeffrey Immelt / Brian Roberts |
CBS
Corporation -
CBS Les Moonves |
NewsCorp – FOX Rupert Murdoch |
| Disney – ABC Robert Iger |
Time Warner-CNN Jeffrey Bewkes | Viacom – UPN Philippe Dauman |
 Each of these corporate giants have other vast numerous media holdings, through cable, radio, internet, magazines and newspapers. These six corporations alone account for the major bulk of our entire media. | ||
"The
gathering of more and more outlets under one owner clearly can be an impediment
to a free and independent press." Former
CBS News anchorman Walter
Cronkite
With six
people in charge of our current media, it is now all too easy to propagandize
and manipulate the people through the press. Until people give up their
longstanding, naive faith in our controlled corporate news media,
they will never find their way out of disillusionment, nor ever know the real
truth.
THE EIGHT YEAR TAKEOVER OF THE US
MEDIA
All it took to seize total US media control was money and 8 years time.
From 50 large media companies, we shrunk to just 6 in eight years.
All it took to seize total US media control was money and 8 years time.
From 50 large media companies, we shrunk to just 6 in eight years.
(The Viacom and CBS split gives us six
corporations since this printing.)Graph courtesy of the Corporate Accountability Project www.corporations.org/media
With
the media unified now under a consolidated corporate ownership, literally in
lock-step with each other, it’s much easier to propagandize with disinformation,
such as the infamous 9/11 link to Iraq, or non-existent weapons of mass
destruction to encourage our entry into an oil war.
To quote the fictitious character Howard Beal from the 1976
movie Network… “We’ll tell you any shit you want to
hear.”
In the movie, fictitious newscaster Howard Beale described television in the following manner...
“The only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now,
there is a whole... an entire generation, that never knew anything that didn't
come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation. This
tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most
awesome goddam force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls
into the hands of the wrong people."
"And when the 12th largest
company in the
world
controls the most awesome goddam propaganda force in the whole godless world who
knows what shit we'll be pedaling for truth on this network. So you listen to
me, listen to me...television is not the truth. Television is a goddamned
amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of
acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion
tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom killing business. So if you
want the truth, go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves. But man, you're
never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear.
We'll lie like hell."
"We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions man.
None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night,
all ages, colors, creeds, we're all you know. You're beginning to believe the
illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to believe your own lives are
unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat
like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the
tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real
thing, we are the illusion. So turn off your television set. Turn them off now.
Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right
in the middle of the sentence that I'm speaking to you now. Turn them
off!”
Wise words indeed.
The Proof Is Available, But You Have To
Look
If you don't believe you've been lied to
by our politicians and the media, do a search for the following... Jekyll Island
and the Federal Reserve System... Smedley D. Butler and the attempted fascist coup on FDR and the U.S. by ultra-wealthy
Americans... look at any of our wars, including the false Gulf of Tonkin
incident that led us into Viet Nam... the ridiculous "magic bullet" theory and
the assassination of JFK... or more recently, the false Iraq tie to the 9/11
attacks, or the blatantly false weapons of mass destruction.
While you're at it, look into the 9/11
event and read about WTC building 7, or the military grade thermate that was
found in the residual dust from the buildings. Look into the 9/11 Commission
sworn testimony of Norman Mineta who was in the White House bunker with Dick
Cheney on 9/11 and testified that Cheney tracked the incoming Pentagon attack
from over 80 miles out, yet did not have the attacking craft shot down. Research
the U.S. anthrax attacks and learn how fast that story went away once they
discovered the anthrax was military grade and was tracked to Ft. Detrick.
Take a look into the 7/7 attacks in Britain.
These are but just a few of the many
things provable that you have been lied to about by our elected politicians and
our complicit and corrupt media system.
As a media member for a quarter century, first as a
broadcaster, then as a Program Director, and finally a consultant, I learned
firsthand how easy it is to manipulate our media, for it runs like most
organizations, in a hierarchy that ends with the wealthy ownership. Those who
would errantly claim our media is not controlled are tragically mistaken or
ignorant fools. This isn't to say that we do not have good journalists and
broadcasters, but if you want to keep your cushy media job, you do as you are
told.
In print, your stories are scrutinized by an editor
before publishing. If you are a radio broadcaster you are subject to direction
from the Program Director, consultant or station manager. If you are a talking
head in TV news, your stories are scripted and fed via teleprompter, all of
which is once again subject to editing to meet company policy. Don't be fooled
about the obvious. Our media is very much controlled and deceives you on a daily
basis. Like it or not, that is a fact.
In broadcast school and journalism we were taught two
basic fundamentals:
1) Seek out and follow the truth, because it is the
story.
2) Do not become involved in entangling alliances
that prevent you from adhering to rule number one.
That's pretty simple.
Today, many of our major network news anchors
willfully break this code.
NBC's Brian Williams is a member of the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations. So is CBS's Katie Couric, ABC's Diane Sawyer, and MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski. Former anchors Dan Rather (CBS) and Tom Brokaw (NBC) are also members. Other media members include
Bob Schieffer (CBS), Barbara Walters (ABC), Judy Woodruff (CNN), Paula Zahn (CNN), Lesley Stahl (CBS 60-Minutes), George R. Stephanopoulos (ABC), Jim Lehrer (PBS), David R. Gergen, (CNN), Fareed Zakaria (CNN), Terry Moran (ABC), Charlie Rose (PBS), Erin Burnett (CNN), Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp/FOX), Bernard Kalb (CNN), Morton Kondracke (The McLaughlin Group/Roll
Call), Garrick Utley (NBC/CNN), and Monica Crowley (Talk-Radio).
Print journalists and columnists include Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation), Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal), David Schlesinger (Reuters), Judith Miller (NY Times), Gene Lyons (Salon), Charles Krauthammer (columnist), Marc A. Thiessen (columnist), David E.
Sanger (NY Times), David Remnick (The New Yorker), Jack Rosenthal (NY Times), P.J. O'Rourke (columnist), James L. McGregor (journalist), Jon Meacham (Newsweek/PBS), Daniel P. Henninger (Wall Street Journal/FOX), Jim Hoagland (Washington Post), David B. Ensor (journalist), Sidney S. Blumenthal (Salon), and Mark Helprin (Time), to name but a few.
This is just a cursory glance at the CFR roster.
There are indeed more media members, not to mention other noted dignitaries, including politicians,
district judges, and even a Supreme Court judge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
And here's blatant proof positive that even the local
media reads from the same "script."
By now, I certainly hope you get the point about the
CFR fraternity of influence, most especially in our controlled corporate
media.
The CFR is, in the very least, a
foreign policy think tank, and at the worst, a catalyst for foreign intervention by the U.S. for the New World
Order. The CFR is part of a three tier system of international control that
begins with the super secretive Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and then the CFR. They pick our leaders and politicians, and apparently
have everything to do with our news media as well. Needless to say, this is an
egregious breach of journalistic ethics for our media.
Truth in broadcasting and journalism is indeed an
elusive thing in today's much over-heralded technological media empire. Don't
trust the media messenger.
Not all stories are fabricated or hidden, but when it
comes to matters that affect the "powers that be" you can bet the message is
hidden, manufactured, or steered in such a way as to benefit them, while keeping
you in the dark. They clearly have the media ownership on their side, as well as
the personnel connections to accomplish this.
Hopefully by now you have a much clearer idea of how
our media works against us in not telling us the whole truth, or by spinning
disinformation, deferring instead to the corporate culture, a corrupt government
and the mega-wealthy billionaires who bankroll an abhorrent political
system.
Your Part--Speaking Up
Now that you are aware of the mechanism that is in
place to deceive you, what are you going to do about it? The gist of this
piece is not just to inform you, but to pose this question to you.
The one thing that I hear the most is, "Well if
things are this bad, what can I possibly do about it?"
In a nutshell, TALK! Speak up! Don't be silent. Have
the courage to spread the truth.
America and the world need heroes in this
disinformation and propaganda war for your mind. Be someone who can make a
difference.
Start a website, create a blog, develop an email
distribution list, post flyers, get active in local community access TV, call in
to talk radio shows, write editorials to newspapers, call your local media and
call them out on stories they're missing, or those that they have entirely
wrong. Write your elected representatives, or better yet, run for office
yourself. Create a podcast, make YouTube videos, start a local discussion group
with scheduled public meetings.
There are things that you can do to affect
change. You just have to make the effort.
Never be afraid to fight for what is right, but be
afraid if you lose, or don't even try.
The point is, don't just take this bullshit sitting
down any longer. Do something!
We outnumber the "powers that be" a million to
one! They know it more than you do. If everyone had the courage to make a stand,
the rats would jump ship and start turning on each other faster than you know.
Self preservation is an inherent condition born to all of us, but you have to
enact yours first in order to curtail theirs.
For "we the people," our best weapons are
courage and the truth. Use them both wisely together and they are mightier than
the sword.
Information and knowledge are two of the biggest
assets you can have. Truth is one of the greatest powers in the universe, that
is why there is such a concerted effort to shape it and control it. If they
cannot do that, then they hide it.
In the marketing world there is an old adage that is
held as gospel... "Perception is reality." That is so true in the mental
sense, because if you truly believe something to be true, then that is your
reality. Those that fight to control the news and information flow know this
all too well and use this tactic to their advantage.
Again, if you know the real truth, be a true
patriot... be a hero and speak up. Make a difference each and every day.
Talk to anyone who will listen. Educate your fellow
man. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and more talk. Speak out!
Get rid of the corporate media in your life and start
seeking alternative news sources that are not tied to the mega-billionaires who
control this corrupt system of ours. A good site for finding alternative news
sites is The
American Truth Network. You will find many good links there to start your
journey with.
Talk to your friends, your neighbors, your
co-workers, anyone who will listen. Just don't be silent. It is up to
you, all of us, to educate those around us. If the media isn't going to tell us
the truth, then it's up to each and every one of us to do their job for
them.
Don't keep what you know to yourself. That is the
worst thing that you can do.
The one thing that the "powers that be" fear
the most is an informed and educated society. If people are wise to what is
truly going on, it is much harder for the corrupt leading this world to pull off
their secret deals and nefarious plots against humanity for their own selfish
interests.
Secondly, give up on the left-right political
trap that enslaves us in this finger-pointing cycle of lies and deception.
The easiest way to conquer any open society is to divide it. That is exactly
what has happened with our pathetic two-party system of Democrats and
Republicans. This is a political system of design that pulls our nation apart.
Truth is not left or right, Democrat or Republican. The truth only comes in one
flavor.
I once met a very nice guy from Yugoslavia named
Paulie, who told me the following,
"You Americans are so stupid, so very naive. You
believe what you hear on the radio and what you see on TV. You are just a baby
country of only two hundred-plus years. We have been around for centuries. We
have been lied to so many times that we no longer trust our politicians and our
media. We know better. When we hear things from our politicians, from our media,
that is when we go to our backyard fences and we discuss with our neighbors. We
put our heads together and we figure out the real story. You Americans are far
too trusting. It is your own fault."
Like it or not, the man is absolutely correct. Just
because we see it on "the TV" we believe it to be gospel. Nothing could be more
dangerous to an open society.
We as a people need to realize that we have been
deceived for many years. We need to learn to put the pieces of the puzzle
together to see the complete picture, without the TV pundits and crooked
politicians telling us what to believe or how to perceive the issues.
God gave you a brain of your own. Try using it for
once, without a left-right political bias.
The next time you think to yourself, "But what can
I do? I'm just one person," remember that the truth travels best by word of
mouth. Don't be silent, because then you ensure that nothing will ever
change.
If you are quiet about what you know, then you are
helping those who are working to deceive us all.
Speak out now, while you still can. Whatever you do,
don't be silent!
The real truth is what the "powers that
be" fear the most. Otherwise they wouldn't have invested so much effort in
keeping it from you.
It is up to all of us to be disciples for
disseminating the truth.
As the old saying goes, truth spreads like wildfire,
so start burning some ears and just maybe we will finally get the
"change" that we were falsely promised and so desperately need in this
world.
It may sound trite, but without the truth, all we
have left is a big lie.
--------
When did mainstream media become so listless and pretend?
Quotes:
“I became a
journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.”
― Christopher Hitchens
― Christopher Hitchens
“(O)n a whole
range of issues, there has been a massive popular shift in public opinion toward
a progressive critique of the current political economic system. It is, of
course, largely subliminal, not carefully worked out, and lacks a coherent
vision for what needs to be done -- but there can be little doubt that this
shift has happened, and is deepening. People are increasingly disenchanted, and
they are hungry for alternatives.”- Ahmed
It’s becoming obvious
to most that mainstream media is nothing but a megaphone for the global elite
to present biased news that’s designed to align the masses with their agenda.”-Morcan
QUOTE: The behind the scenes
machinations of big money and politics are so well hidden from most of the
population, that if people actually knew how things were really run, we would
quite literally have a second revolution overnight. Henry Ford knew this well
when he said, "It is well enough that people of the nation do not
understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there
would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
“I decide to
scope out craigslist to see all the vibrant economic employment opportunities
available to me in this depression. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean “recession.” No matter
how many millions of jobs are lost, how much debt our country accrues, or how
many years the stagnation drags on, it’s not a depression until the dogmatic
media officially declares it to be a depression. It’s as if they believe by
repeatedly printing or saying economists are afraid the economy will slip back
into a recession, they’ll fool the masses of unemployed or underemployed into
believing that not only are we not in a depression, but we aren’t even in a
recession. I’m sure the millions of unemployed, freshly graduated college kids
who have thousands of dollars of unshakable debt to pay off feel comforted by
the empty repetition.”
― Jarod Kintz, Gosh, I probably shouldn't publish this.
----
USA NEXT PRESIDENT- Marco Rubio
A look at what happens when the Florida senator wields power.
― Jarod Kintz, Gosh, I probably shouldn't publish this.
----
USA NEXT PRESIDENT- Marco Rubio
What Kind of Leader Is Marco Rubio? An Investigation.
A look at what happens when the Florida senator wields power.
On September 13, 2005, Marco Rubio, then a 34-year-old state legislator from Miami, was officially designated the next speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. He was the first Cuban-American to win the job, and the Voice of America beamed his speech to countries around the globe, including Cuba. Nearly 200 people flew from Rubio’s hometown to Tallahassee to attend the ceremony, which took place in the state House chambers. They wore laminated floor passes inscribed with a quote from Ronald Reagan: “There’s no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”
During his speech, Rubio—dressed in a dark suit with a red rose on his left lapel—asked House members to examine their desks. Inside, lawmakers found, wrapped in gift paper, a hardcover book titled 100 Innovative Ideas For Florida’s Future. It was blank. Rubio then told his visibly perplexed colleagues that they would fill in the pages together during the run-up to his speakership. The ideas would come from ordinary Floridians, he said, and members would collect them at town hall-style meetings called “idearaisers.” The gambit quickly won rave reviews from national figures, including Newt Gingrich, who called the concept “a work of genius.”
Closing his speech with a passage his advisers had counseled him to drop, Rubio asked his colleagues to imagine a single mother, trapped in poverty and holding her firstborn child: “In her heart burns the hope that everything that has gone wrong in her life will go right for that child, that all the opportunities she never had, her child will.” Her success, Rubio continued, would depend on the choices legislators made. “If our purpose here is simply to win elections or to use this place as a springboard to other offices, then her cause will be of little interest to us and her dreams for her child will have little chance,” he said. “But if we aspire to be agents of change, if our goal is to make a lasting and meaningful impact on our world, then her cause will also be ours.” The lines brought the crowd to its feet.
Sitting in the front row, Gov. Jeb Bush was clearly moved. He took to the podium and declared, “I can’t think back on a time when I’ve ever been prouder to be a Republican.” After encouraging lawmakers to pursue “big ideas,” he presented Rubio with a golden sword “of a great conservative warrior.”
Ten years later, perhaps the biggest question facing Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign is whether he has enough executive experience to lead the country. Detractors often compare Rubio to Barack Obama circa 2008—a young politician who simply isn’t ready to occupy the most powerful office in the world. To deflect this comparison, Rubio has been talking a lot about his leadership experiences in Tallahassee. Obama, he told Fox News in March, “was a backbencher in the state Legislature in Illinois, and I was in leadership all nine years that I served there, including two as speaker of the House.”
So how did Rubio fare during his years in the Florida House? Did he live up to the extraordinary expectations that were showered on him at his designation ceremony in September 2005? I recently talked to 30 people who worked with Rubio during his years in Tallahassee. My goal was simple: to figure out what it looks like when Marco Rubio wields power.
JUST SEVEN YEARS before his designation ceremony, Rubio was knocking on doors in West Miami, the middle-class city of Cuban immigrants where he grew up. Barely out of law school, the 26-year-old was seeking a seat on the city commission. He won easily. Then, less than two years later, a seat in Florida House District 111—a safe GOP district—came open when a state representative resigned early to run for the state Senate. Rubio jumped in.
At a ceremony in September 2005, Marco Rubio was officially designated as the next speaker of the Florida House. “I can’t think back on a time when I’ve ever been prouder to be a Republican,” Jeb Bush said at the event. (State Archives of Florida/Florida Memory/Mark Foley Collection)He campaigned as a moderate Republican, preaching tax cuts and early-childhood education while leaving social issues off the table. In the primary, he faced tough competition from Angel Zayon, a radio and television reporter popular among Cuban exiles. But Rubio won a runoff by 64 votes, and, with the GOP nomination in hand, coasted to victory in the general election.
Rubio arrived to a Tallahassee in transition. In 1992, Florida voters had passed a constitutional amendment limiting state legislators to eight years. The measure had several profound effects on state government. First, it meant that Rubio’s victory—eight years after the passage of the referendum—roughly coincided with a mass exodus of term-limited lawmakers. It also set up a very specific dynamic for the selection of House speakers (who, from 1997 onward, have all been Republicans). Now, lawmakers had only a finite amount of time to climb the ladder toward House speaker. It was akin to a class of high school freshmen who arrive at their new school knowing that, senior year, only one of them will be student-body president. In an additional twist, tradition called for an aspiring speaker to secure the necessary votes long before being named House speaker-designate—a ceremony that took place about a year before a new speaker actually took the reins. As Dan Gelber, a Democrat who represented Miami Beach and served as minority leader, puts it, “The Republicans choose their speakers based on an ultrasound.”
What it all added up to was a strong set of incentives for freshmen to move quickly upon arriving in the House. Which was exactly what Rubio did. Because he had won a special election—about 10 months before the regular elections—he was already in office when other future members of his freshman class were still running. In October 2000, Rubio, a newly minted state rep, showed up at the downtown Fort Myers law office of Republican House candidate Jeff Kottkamp. Accompanied by a lobbyist, Rubio was bearing campaign checks from the cruise-line industry and a gasoline distributor. “He had a little bit of a head start” in the speakership race, says Kottkamp. “I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what he was doing.” (Unlike a number of the Florida Republicans I interviewed for this story, Kottkamp has not chosen sides in the Bush-Rubio face-off of 2016.)
Rubio commuted back and forth to Miami; the official legislative session was only 60 days a year, and he had another job—he worked at a law firm specializing in land use and zoning—but by his own estimate he spent nearly half the year in Tallahassee. And he took his new post seriously. During the 2000 election crisis, the Legislature met in special session to decide whether lawmakers should exercise the “nuclear option” and award the state’s 25 electors to George W. Bush, but as the U.S. Supreme Court waded into the recount battle, most lawmakers went home for the weekend. Rubio stayed, “in case he was needed, in case something happened,” says Nelson Diaz, a former legislative aide. Likewise, when the state Capitol was evacuated on 9/11, Rubio refused to budge. Diaz recalls handing him a note telling him that the World Trade Center had been bombed; authorities were concerned that Tallahassee, home to the president’s brother, could be a target. As other lawmakers left the building, Diaz says, Rubio headed for the speaker’s office and asked, “What do we need to do?”
Nine months into Rubio’s legislative career, Mike Fasano, the House majority leader, asked the freshman to be one of his two majority whips, a position that typically requires sharp elbows and arm-twisting. But Rubio took a different approach. “Marco always used honey rather than vinegar,” Diaz says. “He was charming. He knew the policy. He could convince you on a policy basis. “… It wasn’t your typical you-have-to-fall-in-line kind of threat.”...REST OF THE STORY AT... http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/24397/what-kind-leader-is-marco-rubio-investigation
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