Ben Weingarten

Reader. Writer. Thinker. Commentator. Truth Seeker.

Category: Books (Page 9 of 10)

A scathing interview with a 5th grade teacher who was in the room when Common Core was being created

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On May 22, 2014

In Books, Government, Politics

The below represents the second in a series of interviews with everyday Americans who are fighting back against Common Core, released in connection with Glenn Beck’s new book, “Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education.”

We spoke with Brad McQueen, a 5th grade teacher from Arizona who after working on the development/review of rubrics and questions on the PARCC/Common Core test grew disgusted with what he was seeing and decided to speak out about it, ultimately self-publishing a book titled “The Cult of Common Core.”

Our interview was conducted via email, with slight alterations for grammar and brevity.

For more content like this, be sure to give Blaze Books a follow on Facebook and Twitter.

Speak to your background and why you took an interest in Common Core specifically and public education more broadly?

McQueen: I’ve been a 5th grade teacher in public schools for the last ten years. I’ve always worked in schools that give teachers a great deal of autonomy in the classroom to use whatever teaching methods they feel are useful to teach their students over and above the minimum state standards. I have also experienced schools where they prescribe how and what teachers teach in the classroom and it was pure agony to witness.

I first heard of the Common Core standards, when they were adopted here in AZ back in 2010, when I was at our State Department of Education working our state’s standardized test, the AIMS test. I’ve worked on every facet of the AIMS test for the last 5 years. The attitude amongst my fellow teachers and the state employees that summer was that they were the same-old-thing-with-another-name programs that we would have to implement at some point…we were still too busy teaching the old state standards, and creating tests based on them, that we just put off dealing with them until we had to. The scuttlebutt (I’ve always wanted to use that word and now I have) at the AZ Dept of Ed was that the standards were an Obama administration program, and with the elections coming up in 2012 there was a chance that the Common Core standards would go away should Obama lose the election.

A year ago (3/2013), the AZ Dept of Ed asked me to go to Chicago for a week to work on evaluating the writing/reading rubrics for the Common Core/PARCC test. I didn’t have an opinion on Common Core either way. I was curious and I wanted to see what the standards would look like in test form and how that might inform my classroom teaching, so I went. Most teachers were waiting for the Common Core test to come out for the same reason.

Teachers in AZ have a great deal of input into the state test. Teachers create the test and we had the ability to change or tweak test questions if we detected a bias or if we thought the questions or reading passages weren’t truly assessing our students’ learning.

Working on the CCore test was a very different experience and had 50 more shades of bureaucracy. My Common Core handlers weren’t interested in my questions about where the standards came from, who wrote them, who wrote the test questions, etc. If they did attempt an answer they usually parroted the phrase “Teachers were involved.” Something didn’t feel right.

My turning point came when in answer to questions I had about a student writing sample, my Common Core handler blurted out, “We don’t ever care what the kids’ opinions are. If they write what they think or put forth their opinion then they will fail the test.”

I have always taught my students to think for themselves. They are to study multiple views on a given topic, then take their own position and support it with evidence. “That is the old way of writing,” my Common Core handler sighed. “We want students to repeat the opinions of the ‘experts’ that we expose them to on the test. This is the ‘new’ way of writing with the Common Core.”

I discovered later that this was not just some irritated, rogue Common Core handler, rather this was a philosophy I heard repeated again and again. I pointed out that this was not the way that teachers teach in the classroom. She retorted that, “We expect that when the test comes out the teachers in the classroom will imitate the skills emphasized on the test (teach to the test) and employ this new way of writing and thinking.” This was a complete kick in the stomach moment for me.

After that I started to do research on the Common Core and read everything I could get my hands on for the year or so. The more I read the more disgusted I became about the Common Core and the governors who brought it into our lives.

I went back to Chicago again in November 2013 to review reading/writing questions for the Common Core/PARCC test. Again, I wanted to see the test questions and I also wanted to experience the Common Core with all the new knowledge I’d gained. After a week of work I was convinced of the correctness of my feelings and my research about the Common Core. During this visit I worked with Pearson and ETS on the questions they created for the test. Again we were just window dressing so that they could check the box that “teachers were involved.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but I shook the hand of Common Core royalty on this visit. I met Doug Sovde, one of the original writers of the Common Core standards, when I was having problems with an expense report.

I also began seeing moms on the news going up against boards of education and governors with the same concerns that I had about the Common Core. They were dismissed as “ill-informed” and maligned as “white suburban housewives” who discovered their kids aren’t as brilliant as they thought they were, by US Sec of Ed Arne Duncan.

Oddly enough at the same time I was reading “Miracles and Massacres” by Glenn Beck. One powerful message I got from that book was that everyone has a time where they must stand up for what is right and leave the consequences to God. I wrote an op-ed in the paper the next day. Then I spent 3 weeks writing my book. I’ve been leaving the consequences up to God ever since.

What is the one thing that all Americans need to know about Common Core? What is the one aspect of Common Core that Americans should most fear?

McQueen: The Common Core is much bigger than just a set of standards, a test, or a data gathering machine. Like a virus, the Common Core tricks its victims into lowering their guard by pretending to be something it is not. But the Common Core isn’t just a mindless infection of our society; rather it is an intentional takeover of our education delivery system and therefore a takeover of our children’s minds. It is a one-size-fits-all, homogenized, centrally controlled education delivery system steeped in Progressive ideology. It is antithetical to everything that makes our country exceptional. This cult is relentlessly pulling our children under its control, with a seemingly endless supply of money, and uses intimidation to silence its opponents.

By taking over how our kids think the Common Core will be used to shape future generations of citizens and their relationship with their own true history and their government. Sovereignty over education was always too decentralized into the states to do this in the past.

Many people are focusing on the incompetent implementation of the Common Core tests or the need to rework the standards. The reality is that the entire Common Core beast, including the never-before-tested-standards that were created in secret, the tests which were based on those standards, and the data suctioning systems which were put in place to track our children’s personal information and monitor teacher compliance with Common Core Central, should be slayed and buried in total. States’ Governors and Superintendents of Education were elected to protect the interests of our children, yet they let this Common Core beast through the gates. There should be a call for them to resign and/or not seek re-election in light of their educational malpractice.

Having said all this, the one concrete thing that Americans should fear most is the NSA-like data suctioning systems set in place by the Common Core groups to gather all manner of data about our children and their families starting in preschool and going up through college and career. (More on that in the later question on SLDS).

Read more at TheBlaze…

Mark Steyn speaks with TheBlaze on his new book, and everything from global warming to Common Core to the First Amendment

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On April 23, 2014

In Books, Culture, Government, National Security

We spoke with best-selling author and columnist Mark Steyn in connection with the release of a newly updated version of his entertaining and insightful book of obituaries and appreciations, “Mark Steyn’s Passing Parade.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Steyn spoke with TheBlaze Books on his newly updated book, the fate of America, and issues ranging from gay marriage to global warming to free speech to education and Common Core. The interview, which we conducted in-person, is transcribed below with edits for clarity and links.

If you appreciate this interview, be sure to follow Blaze Books on Facebook and Twitter.

Give us a brief synopsis of your newly updated book, “Passing Parade: Obituaries & Appreciations.“

Steyn: Well my big books in recent years have been on the big geopolitical, socio-economic picture. A lot of statistics, lot of numbers, lot of big picture stuff. “America Alone” is essentially a book about demography – I mean I got a best-selling book about demography which doesn’t happen very often, but it’s about fertility rates, really. “After America” in some ways is about debt – it’s about multi-trillion dollar numbers. And they’re all big picture things, but for me the real pleasure is writing about people, and reminding yourself…that it’s not all fertility rates and debt/GDP ratios, but that at the right moment of history, one individual can make a difference. And the people in this book are people who made a difference. That can be in the sense of winning the Cold War like Ronald Reagan did, or it can be in the sense of William Mitchell, who’s the guy who invented Cool Whip…I like writing obituaries. The only thing I would say is that it’s hard to write about people you…you can’t be entirely negative or hateful about people. There’s gotta be something in there [within the person] that you respond to.

And it’s interesting – even someone like Romano Mussolini, who is the Mussolini’s son – Il Duche – the big-time fascist dictator of Italy…Romano Mussolini was a jazz pianist of all things, and I met him once when he came to play in London. His group was called the “Romano Mussolini All Stars.” And after the war in Italy, his dad had been hung from a lamppost, the bottom had dropped out of the dictating business, but Romano got to be the jazz pianist that he’d always wanted to be. But he thought the Mussolini name wouldn’t go well, so he changed his name to the equivalent of “Romano Smith and His Trio.” And nobody came to see him. And then he discovered that actually, the Romano Mussolini All Stars, that that was actually quite a draw with the jazz crowd. But there’s even in that – as I said, Mussolini wound up hanging from a lamppost when they caught up with him with his mistress, but even…the final anecdote about that is that the last time Romano saw his dad, when his time had almost run out, and everybody was catching up with him, and his dad came in effectively to say “Goodbye…” he didn’t know it would be the last time he saw him and he asked him to play some music from Franz Lehár, from The Merry Widow. And just that, even in the…just that little vignette is like a very poignant, human moment, in the life of someone who a couple weeks later was hanging from that lamppost.

I think you always have to if you’re writing – even if you’re writing about – whoever it is, there’s gotta be some little way into the story that makes them human.

And you know as bad as things are – when I think back to that time for example, and I think when Neville Chamberlain was forced out of the prime ministership in the spring of 1940, if the Tory party had picked Lord Halifax instead of Winston Churchill, the entire history of the 20th century would have been different. And so the lesson you draw…we’re in New York City…Winston Churchill was almost hit by a car crossing 5th Avenue in 1932 or whatever it was – if that taxicab had actually left the tread marks over Winston Churchill — again the entire history of the second half of the 20th century would have been different. And so the lesson you draw from that is that yes the debt numbers are bad, yes the demographic numbers are bad, yes all the big picture stuff, the trends, the macroeconomic stuff is all bad, but even so, one man, the right man at the right moment can make all the difference…extraordinary people can make all the difference.

One of the obituaries that I thought interesting was Strom Thurmond’s. Give some readers insight into the story in which you were stuck in an elevator between Barbara Boxer and Strom Thurmond.

Steyn: I was covering the impeachment trial of President Clinton, which was the first time I’d been exposed close up to the United States Senate, which is not a lovely site. And one of the few interesting things as that trial wore on was actually Strom Thurmond because he – Clinton had the sort of two sexpot lady lawyers – and Strom Thurmond used to bring candy for them each day, and then press them with his 112-year old lizard-like hands into their fingers. And you could see the women were like, fatally taken aback by this, but at a certain level they understood that this was what it was gonna take to prevent their guy from being removed from office. And in the end, Strom did not vote to remove Clinton from office, in part I do believe because he had the hots for those lawyers.

But yea, there was one moment at the end of the day where we were sort of pressed in a crush – me, Barbara Boxer, Strom Thurmond, and a ton of other people. And I suddenly noticed what I thought was this like incredible-sized lizard on the sleeve of my coat. And I was listening to – I think Barbara Boxer was talking – so you look down in horror as this thing is moving down your arm, and then I realize that as it then reached down and began to stroke my hand that it was the incredibly wizened fingers of Strom Thurmond who I think had been meaning to reach over and stroke Barbara Boxer’s hand, but had fallen a little short, and ended up stroking mine.

What can you do? It’s not often…people are always saying your editors always want you to get up close and personal with these political figures, and I felt, if nothing else, I’d done some serious heavy petting with Strom Thurmond.

But, you know, we live in hyper-partisan times, and that’s fair enough. My view basically of the American situation — Mark Levin and I were actually talking about this one time, and Mark put it very well: it’s a 50/50 nation and one side has to win, and the other side has to lose. And I tend to agree with that. All that said though, when you’re being groped by Strom Thurmond, it’s important to be able to recognize the comedy in your own side too. I like to think I could always do that.

Read more at TheBlaze…

George Will: ‘I’m quite confident that we’re going to rebel against this abusive government’

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On April 11, 2014

In Books, Economy, Government, Politics

In an interview with TheBlaze Books [Twitter, Facebook] in connection with the release of his new book, “A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred,” we spoke with prodigious columnist and author George Will on all things baseball and his unified theory of beer, and then moved on to the arguably more important topic of the state of the union, touching on everything from the American founding, Will’s affinity for the Tea Party, to 2016, to immigration.

Among other explosive comments, Will told us that he is “quite confident that we’re going to rebel against this abusive government…sooner or later arithmetic is going to force realism on us.”

Our interview, which we conducted via phone, is below, slightly modified to include links and italics for emphasis.

There’s the old cliché that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Is there a time in world history that you think is most analogous to today, and what country do you think in that era represented America? In other words, are we in World War I, and America is the British Empire, or is this World War II, or are we Rome? I’m curious as to your thoughts. 

Will: Well ever since at about the time of the American founding, Edward Gibbon wrote “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” people have been fascinated by the threat that democracies would decay; that history would be cyclical not linear; that decay and decline was inevitable; that the seeds of destruction were in particular regimes and particularly in democracies. And clearly the American founders worried about this. And Lincoln worried about it at Gettysburg, that the question was “Whether we shall long endure this form of government.”

So I think that we’re in a period today comparable to the American founding period in two senses: one, we’re worried about decay — we’re worried about whether we’re squandering our legacy and whether we’re calling into question whether people can really govern themselves — but also because, and this is the heartening part of this, today as never before in my lifetime, Americans have rekindled their interest in the founding era and the founding principles. Look at the wonderful sales of biographies of the founders: Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison. Look at the Tea Party, which I think frankly is one of the great events of my lifetime.

The American people go through life with a little crick of their necks from looking back at the past, and that’s healthy. We always relate to the Declaration and to the Constitution and here, along comes the Tea Party movement named after something that happened in 1773: the Boston Tea Party. And it’s called us back to reverence for, and understanding of, and insistence upon, the founding principles of limited government. So, in a good sense and a bad sense, I think we’re in the founding period. We’re in a period like our founding when we considered first principles and worried about the possibility of decay.

What do you view as the greatest threat to America today?

Will: The greatest threat to America today – there are two of them and they’re related: one is family disintegration, the fact that Americans’ babies are born to unmarried women. We know the importance of a father in the home. We know that the family is the primary transmitter of what’s called social capital, that is the habits, mores, customs, values, dispositions that make for success in a free society. So that’s one threat to America.

The other is the simple fact that we will not live within our means. We are piling up debts for other people to pay. We used to borrow money for the future. We won wars for the future. We built roads, highways, bridges, dams, airports for the future. Now, we’re borrowing from the future, from the rising generations in order to finance our own current consumption of government services, and that just seems to me as fundamentally and self-evidently wrong as can be.

And to follow up on that, I would imagine that you probably agree that politics is a reflection of the culture – policies can ultimately have an effect on the culture, but politics stems from the culture. So to that end, can you see a time at which our society will so rebel against the Leviathan state that it will actually vote to slash it’s own benefits, and the largesse that it’s receiving?

Will: I’m quite confident that we’re going to rebel against this abusive government. I think that, you know Winston Churchill said, “The American people invariably do the right thing after they have exhausted all the alternatives.” And I think we’re beginning to get to the bottom of the list of alternatives, and to realize that arithmetic is inexorable. You can’t make 2+2 equal 7, and sooner or later arithmetic is going to force realism upon us.

Read more at TheBlaze…

Famed libertarian author Charles Murray tells TheBlaze why he has given up on political solutions

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On April 9, 2014

In Books, Culture

We spoke with Charles Murray, author of the new book, “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don’ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life,” and most famously the still–controversial “The Bell Curve,” on a variety of topics from why Professor Murray has increasingly given up on policy solutions to America’s problems altogether, to grammar, the importance of Harold Ramis’ “Groundhog Day,” and religion.

We conducted our interview via e-mail, reproduced below with minimal edits and modified to include links.

And in case you missed it, be sure to check out our full review of Murray’s book as well.

Make the pitch to readers young and old for why they should pick up a self-identified curmudgeon’s guide to self-improvement? Did you intend for your book to appeal to an audience beyond ambitious young adults and their parents?

Murray: You have to understand that this book wasn’t planned. It just happened. I started writing tips to [American Enterprise Institute’s] AEI’s young staff, getting some pet peeves off my chest (for example, tip #2, “Don’t use first names with people considerably older than you until asked, and sometimes not even then”) and it grew from there. A lot of the readers told me this was useful stuff and that they were emailing my tips to their friends. So why not make a book out of it? In answer to your question, the book is pretty specific in its target audience: Smart, ambitious 20-somethings, usually with a college degree.

Having read (and thoroughly enjoyed) “Coming Apart,” towards the end you note that those living in super-bubbles should and in a sense have a duty to reassert their values in order to fix the cultural divide. Given the advice in “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead,” is there meant to be any continuity between the two works?

Murray: I didn’t plan it that way, but many of the tips draw directly from my earlier work, and not just “Coming Apart.” The discussion of judgmentalism, using the example of Titian’s “Venus of Urbino,” draws directly from a similar discussion in “Human Accomplishment.” The tip that talks about the cardinal virtues draws directly from a passage in “Real Education.” The discussion of the sources of human happiness draws from “In Pursuit.” Many of the things that in earlier books I discussed in the abstract have found concrete applications in “Curmudgeon’s Guide.”

Read more at TheBlaze…

Why does Allen West wish that more top generals would resign from the military?

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On April 3, 2014

In Books, Defense, Foreign Policy, Government

Former Congressman and retired Lieutenant Army Colonel Allen West has a new book out titled “Guardian of the Republic: An American Ronin’s Journey to Faith, Family and Freedom.”

Yesterday Blaze Books spoke with Rep. West about his new book, and a wide variety of issues ranging from the military, a message he hopes the military sends to civilian leaders and Russia, to education and Common Core, to how the congressman believes Republicans can go about garnering support in the black community, the potential for a third major political party and much more.

Below is the transcript of our interview, edited for clarity and length. For more, be sure to check out the 12 most provocative quotes from Rep. West’s new book, and if you’d like to keep abreast of similar content, give us a follow on Facebook and Twitter.

Give your elevator pitch for why Blaze readers should pick up “Guardian of the Republic.”

West: Well I think it defines me and it also defines why I fight so passionately for this country. Which I think all Blaze readers really believe passionately in this country. So I think it’s so important right now when you see the American people really not fundamentally understanding what America is about and its established principles and values, that’s what I try to do in this book and it really is not an autobiography, it’s a philosophical biography. 

If there were one or two takeaways from your book that you would like to emphasize, what would they be?

West: Number one to understand that I’m living the American dream. To have been brought up out of the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, to be where I am today sitting here with you looking out over New York City. That’s incredible, and that’s what is part of American exceptionalism. Number two is to understand that fundamentals of America is principles and values, and we’ve got to be able to get that message out there. Because right now we’re on the wrong path and we need to take the exit ramp. Number three, being a black conservative is not something new, it’s not trendy, it’s been around. As a matter of fact, some of the most conservative people in America are black, but we’re viciously attacked and demonized because the other side cannot stand for us to exist. And then the last thing is about – you always have to talk about the future, solutions, and I believe that the future of this nation can be brighter once we once again re-connect with our principles.

One of the things you speak to in this book is the lack of principled leaders in Washington.

West: Just think about what recently happened when the president comes out yesterday [Tuesday] on the Rose Garden and says you know we never went out and tried to sell Obamacare to everyone. We just kind of let people make their own choice. Well that’s a gross exaggeration of the truth. I mean think about the billions of dollars [the Obama administration spent on its healthcare efforts]. So I think that we need to get honor and and integrity and character restored back to Capitol Hill. This guy testifying right now Mike Morell who lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee; you know Susan Rice going out and saying what she said [on Benghazi]…there’s a perpetual lying – and this is bipartisan of course – that we have got to get people that are concerned about the American interests, not their own self-interest, not special interests. And that’s what I want to try to bring out. We have to get back to servant leadership.

Why are fewer military folks seeking public office at least at the national level?

West: We don’t want to deal with the BS. I mean we’re very straightforward, we’re mission-oriented, we’re task-oriented, and we just don’t have time for charlatans, usurpers and jokers or pranksters. But what you are finding is that there is a clarion call out there to get more to take off their uniform, put on a suit and tie and run, because as someone told me “the oath of office that you took does not have a statute of limitations.”

Read more at TheBlaze…

‘Non-religious’ Fox anchor makes an interesting admission about the church

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On March 21, 2014

In Books, Culture, Politics

Greg Gutfeld has a new book out titled “Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You,” which we have been covering extensively at Blaze Books.

Yesterday we spoke with Gutfeld about his new book, along with a wide range of topics ranging from Greg’s reverence for religion and the church despite his non-religiosity, to bullying to the NSA. Below is the transcript from our phone interview which has been edited for length and clarity. All links are ours.

Be sure to check out our review and top quotes from Greg’s book as well, and if you’d like to keep up with similar content, give us a follow on Facebook and Twitter.

Make your pitch to Blaze readers for why they should pick up a book that’s called “Not Cool?”

Gutfeld: Because I think it’s about them. It’s about me. It’s about anyone who wonders why people do dumb things, because the one reigning principle in acting stupid is a desire to be liked, or a desire to be seen as cool. That’s why people do things that aren’t good. How do you convince somebody to do something that’s bad for them? You tell them that it’s cool. And it sounds like it’s not a new idea, but actually I don’t think anyone’s really traced it through all different areas from academia to media to government to pop culture, politics, so I try to show how the cool mindset once it permeates society becomes kind of deadly and destructive.

If there were one or two key takeaways from the book, what would they be?

Gutfeld: To resist the idea of subversion, and instead subvert the subverter. The path to cool is always about undermining the normal, undoing tradition, because to the hip and cool whatever comes before is old and stupid. And so you have to resist that urge to be accepted, to be liked, you have to instead subvert the subverter. Be happy in embracing the common sense or the tradition. Be proud that you’re in the military or that you got a good job and that you actually build things. Don’t be embarrassed that you happen to be religious. These are things that are always undermined by the cool.

By the way this isn’t about fashion. I think a lot of people mistake – because when you use the word “hipster” – they think of the goatees and the nose rings. But it’s not about that. It’s about a mindset. I’d say the Brooklyn hipster is probably a sub-segment of this kind of destructive academia-media-government complex. But it’s more about an idea than it is a person. And it’s a destructive one. And it’s always about undermining tradition in all parts of life.

I mean you see it right now I think in foreign policy. You know what happens when a person, an educated person, has spent most of his life being educated that your country, the United States, is the villain. Their exceptionalism is what’s wrong with the world, and if we only retreated and fixed what was inside of us, the world would appreciate it. The world would be a better place. And the world would be a better place primarily because we’re not there.

And so, what is the consequence of that? There’s not much of a consequence if that person stays on campus. But when that person leaves campus and enters the White House, does that have an effect? The idea that somehow America is equally to blame, if not more to blame for the world’s problems, that that somehow must infect the way you think about how to deal with things like Russia, or Venezuela, or Iran…it makes you “lead from behind.” Which in some ways means you don’t lead at all.

One of the parts of your book that I thought was really compelling and interesting was your discussion of the virtues of religion in general and Mormonism specifically. Expand a little bit on that.

Gutfeld: Well you know the thing is I am non-religious. I wouldn’t say that I am an atheist. I would say that I just don’t know. I haven’t been to church in years. But there is one thing I know, and that is that the church is a positive influence in communities, in terms of encouraging charity, and neighborly concern. It’s an important thing. I mean it’s what I had when I was growing up – you saw your neighbors, it got you out of the house. If you worked at the Church as an altar boy like I did you got to know everybody. You knew who died and who was sick because you were always at funerals and…it was a community thing.

We are moving away from that and there have been studies that are out now that are talking about how people are becoming as they get more involved with technology they are moving away from these community-based groups. And I think that this is dangerous and we have nothing to replace what worked before. And religion does work for a lot of people and has helped a lot of people in society, and when we subvert it, what kind of traditions are you going to replace it with?

That’s why I really like Alain de Botton, a great philosopher-writer who’s an atheist, and he talks about this a lot. He argues, “Religion is a good thing even if you’re an atheist, so what are you gonna do about it? How are you gonna replace it?” You know, you can’t just trash something and then think that life goes on because it doesn’t. It’s a valuable thing. You need religion for atheists I guess is what he’s getting at.

I talk about Mitt Romney in the book and this is a guy who gives a lot of money to charity (and I kind of wrote about how I knew almost nothing about Mormonism) and I talked to my friend Walter Kirn about it. He’s a great writer, and we went back and forth on e-mail about when he became a Mormon. It’s just stuff I didn’t know. And you don’t know about it because they don’t brag about it. They don’t talk about it. And I think that’s you know – Mitt Romney never really came out and said yes I do this, I do this and I do this. He didn’t and so maybe that harmed him, I don’t know. But they’re fairly humble about that sort of stuff.

Read more at TheBlaze…

An interview with Jim Lacy, author of ‘Taxifornia’

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On March 17, 2014

In Books, Economy

Blaze Books sat down for an in-depth interview in TheBlaze’s New York newsroom this past Tuesday with former Reagan appointee and California-based lawyer and political communications company executive Jim Lacy, author of “Taxifornia,” to discuss the major challenges facing California that threaten to turn the state into one big version of Detroit.

Below is our interview, transcribed from our interview with slight edits for clarity. All links are ours.

Make your elevator pitch for why Blaze readers should pick up this book?

Lacy: Well public employee unions are really transforming government throughout the United States and the negative effects of that are being played out in California right now. So what my book does is very closely examines the political control that the public employee unions—specifically the California Teachers Association (CTA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have accomplished in the state, and it discloses their swamped political spending: spending that is three, four, five-fold more than traditional special interests like Chevron which is just completely dwarfed by their political spending. AT&T, the California Chamber of Commerce, none of them can match the political spending, and as a result of this political spending, the public employee unions really do have a lock on the outcome of political decisions in the state that effect the economy. And this involves a connection between the problems that we’re having with public employee pension obligations, bankruptcies of local government, and taxes being raised to the very highest levels in all categories.

For two years in a row California has had the highest rate of poverty in the nation according to Obama’s census bureau. The unemployment is still completely out of whack. California has depending upon what survey you read either the first highest, third highest or fifth highest unemployment in the nation. So my theory is that people need to have that information because the information that they are getting right now from the mass media is that California has a surplus and Jerry Brown and the liberal Democrats are doing a great job and the reality is they aren’t – the state’s getting ready to explode economically in a negative way. And so that’s what my book, “Taxifornia,” is about.

Why should non-Californians care about California’s problems?

Lacy: Well we know that the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country was in Detroit right? Well before Detroit what was the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country? It was the city of Stockton, California. Yes again, California leads the nation – it leads the nation in municipal bankruptcies. USA Today says that there are probably ten more cities in California that are ready to go bankrupt. So we have to ask ourselves the question, “Well why?”

A big part of the reason that the municipalities are having these problems is because of public employee pension obligations. And as a result of those, they’re raising taxes. I’ll give you an example. San Jose is the third-largest city in California. It’s also the 10th largest city

in the nation. So your question was “Why should the rest of the nation care?” And what I’m gonna tell you is that because of the way that the liberals and the public employees have controlled California politics, this is what’s coming in municipalities all across the nation. It’s just playing out in California first because the liberals have been in control for so long. The city of San Jose just put together its latest city budget, and they have a reform mayor. The budget’s a $1 billion budget. 30% of the budget is dedicated to paying for pension obligations for public employees that have already provided services. If 30% of the budget today is to service debt on past services by public employee union members, what’s it gonna be tomorrow, two years from now, or three years from now? Because people are living longer, and because of the salary obligations of two generous salaries that the politicians have given.

And I’ll give you an example. In the county that I live in, the average pay for a firefighter is $234,000 a year. That firefighter can opt to retire at age 50 or age 55 and depending upon the calculation from anywhere from 50% to 75% or 90% of that salary over time. In the last 10 years San Jose’s obligations to pay for public employee pensions, which by the way are all underfunded (they aren’t paying enough) have quadrupled to $300 million. So if they’re going to go up exponentially, I would say that probably in the next 10 years it’s quite conceivable that San Jose’s public employee pension obligations will constitute the majority focus of government spending.

So what’s happening in California is that the purpose of government is shifting – government is no longer primarily organized to provide police, fire and public safety services. What it’s primarily organized for right now – the direction that it’s going in — is to provide pensions to past employees. And that’s a real problem. And it finds itself in too-high salaries, and too-generous pensions under defined benefit plans. And there’s a whole reason that we have that in the state, and part of what “Taxifornia” does is reveal that.

Read more at TheBlaze…

An in-depth interview with Jerusalem Post editor and former Netanyahu staffer Caroline Glick on her controversial one-state plan for peace in the Middle East

By

On March 11, 2014

In Books

Caroline Glick is out with a new book we have been covering of late entitled The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East” [reviewed here].

The central premise of Glick’s — the Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post’s — book is that the two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians is unfeasible, legally, historically and morally unjustifiable, and based on a discredited world view. Glick argues instead for a one-state solution whereby Israel would apply Israeli law, and through it Israeli sovereignty to the entirety of Judea and Samaria (commonly referred to as the West Bank).

Below is our interview, conducted with Glick from TheBlaze’s newsroom in Manhattan. The conversation has been transcribed and slightly modified for clarity. All emphasis is ours.

Give us your pitch for why Americans should be interested in this book.

Glick: The United States has been pushing this idea of a two-state solution for over a generation. It was first pushed by the Nixon Administration in 1970 and it’s based on this totally false understanding of the Middle East which places Israel at the center of everything. It says that the size of Israel is really responsible for all the bad things in the Arab world, and if we can make Israel smaller than the problems will be smaller. And the ultimate idea is partition and establishing a PLO state in areas that Israel controls.

The problem with this paradigm is that it’s totally false. Israel doesn’t dictate events in the Arab world. Those are dictated by internal issues in each Arab state as we’ve seen now with the revolutions going through all of them that have absolutely nothing to do with Israel. They all have to do with the internal dynamics and pathologies of Arab societies. But because the U.S. has been pushing this idea for so long, what has happened is that U.S. policymakers are fundamentally incapable of understanding the Middle East, because they’re basing everything on this false assumption of Israeli culpability. And once you start with that, you can’t think about anything else. So they didn’t understand Iraq when they went in, because they didn’t think about it. They didn’t understand Egypt when they decided to overthrow Mubarak because they didn’t think they had to think about it. They put everything into prisms, so “democracy,” “Israel,” “peace process” and they’re all very convenient but they’re all completely irrelevant.

So what this book does is it shows why this is false, how devastating it has been for American policymakers’ capacity to analyze situations as they unfold based upon reality, and so I think it’s absolutely critical for Americans who are concerned about U.S. national security and their interests abroad. Furthermore, this has had a debilitating impact on Israel because basically you have the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is to pressure Israel, which is the U.S.’ only stable ally in the Middle East, and so by necessity this policy has weakened Israel, and as threats rise in every area of the Middle East against Israel or simply rise because of the massive instability and empowerment of the most radical extremist actors in the Muslim world in places like Syria, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia…and of course in Iran, Lebanon, you need Israel to be as strong as possible and so Israel itself has to get out from under the tyranny of the two-state paradigm, which places again all of the blame for everything on the Jews.

And so it’s imperative for Israel to get past this; it’s imperative for the United States to get past this and to move on and base a policy on reality. The policy that I put forward here seems radical, but actually it’s not at all radical because it’s based entirely on reality and fact, statistics…and interests and values. And what it says is, the West Bank of the Jordan River, what we in Israel refer to as Judea and Samaria, is part of Israel: by law, by national rights. And Israel has to control it for those reasons as well as for military necessity because it can’t defend itself without them.

As I argue in my book, America is much better off having an Israel that is stable and capable of defending itself against all aggressors because the stronger Israel is the more secure U.S. interests are and so this book is both for people who are involved in policy and national security, it’s also for people who care about Israel, and understand that there’s something fundamentally wrong when the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is to push for the establishment of a terrorist state that is dedicated to destroying Israel but can’t figure out what to do about it because they’ve been told all of this time that Israel is the problem, or the absence of a Palestinian State is the problem; that if they care about Israel they should support America financing a Palestinian terrorist army and spending upwards of $500 million a year bankrolling Palestinian terrorists. It’s always been crazy, but that’s what people have been told and they’ve come to believe it over time. It was always a lie, and so that’s something else that I focus on in my book and I think is critical for people to understand.

Describe what the “Israeli solution” is.

Glick: The Israeli solution involves the application of Israeli law and through it Israeli sovereignty to the entirety of Judea and Samaria — the West Bank of the Jordan — and providing the Palestinians who live there with automatic permanent residency status and the right to apply for Israeli citizenship in accordance with Israel citizenship law, and through that, the dismantlement of the Palestinian Authority and the abandonment of the two-state paradigm for peace-making. This is an idea, this is a policy that is based on an understanding that at base the Palestinian national movement since its inception in 1920 has not been about the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state but rather the destruction of the Jewish state or earlier the prevention of the establishment of a Jewish state and so it remains to this day which is why the PLO has consistently refused statehood every time it has been offered them since 1993. And so it’s about abandoning a fake idea, an idea that’s based on lies, that is that the Palestinians aspire first and foremost to a state of their own, and embracing instead the truth that Israel is capable of absorbing the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria, and giving them what they’ve always lacked which is full civil rights, and through that their ability to determine their own fate as individuals and as members of a society of Israel.

Read more at TheBlaze…

An interview with Paul Kengor, Reagan biographer and author of 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative

By

On March 4, 2014

In Books, Economy, Foreign Policy, Government

In connection with the release of his new book, “11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative,” reviewed here, we interviewed Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College, Reagan biographer, and author of numerous books including the 2012 title ”The Communist” (published under our Mercury Ink imprint) and “God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life.”

Our correspondence with Professor Kengor comes in light of a renewed focus on Russia given the goings-on in the Ukraine, years of economic stagnation and hostile in-fighting between conservatives and Establishment Republicans, among other similarities with the era in which Reagan rose to the White House.

Below we cover these timely issues and more. The interview, conducted via email, has been slightly edited for formatting. And again, be sure to check out our review and cheat sheet if you missed them too.

Give us your elevator pitch for why TheBlaze audience should read another book on Reagan. 

Kengor: Because this is a book on Reagan that’s crucial and timely and well worth their time—and it’s short. They will sincerely find great benefit in this one. I mean that.

We constantly hear Republicans of all stripes make the claim “I’m a Reagan conservative,” or, when asked which Republican they most identify with, they point to Reagan. But in fact, many to most are not Reagan conservatives at all. Many of them are liberal/progressive Republicans. So, what is a “Reagan conservative?”

I’m someone who has studied Reagan enough (some say more than anyone) that I felt I could and should and must take up the task of answering that question, especially during this battle within the GOP between genuine conservatives like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Tom Coburn and what Reagan would have called the “Rockefeller Republican” types. There are far more Reagan conservatives coming out of the Tea Party than from the so-called Establishment.

Thus, with the 2014 mid-terms coming up, and the crucial 2016 presidential nomination coming as well, this project to define what a Reagan conservative is struck me as imperative. I should add, too, that Reagan was such a model conservative, really the prototype, that this book defines not just Reagan conservatism but conservatism generally.

When I spoke on this book at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara last week, the executive director of the group, Andrew Coffin, said that this book is a kind of manifesto on conservatism.

So, I ask readers of The Blaze: What could be more needed right now as we engage in this battle for 2016? I think a short book carefully explaining Reagan conservatism and conservatism generally is one they should read.

Besides, because it’s a short book, it’s also very inexpensive—only something like $13 on Amazon. You can’t beat that. It’s cheap and quick but an enlightening read. You’ll benefit from this and will want to buy it for your friends, including your liberal friends.

Read more at TheBlaze…

 

An interview with Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet bloc intel officer to ever defect

By

On February 10, 2014

In Books

In a gripping interview with Blaze Books in connection with his most-recent title, “Disinformation“, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence officer to ever defect, Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa provided his insights on a wide array of topics, from Putin’s Russia to the disinformation campaign to rebrand Pope Pius XII to “Hitler’s Pope” to the links between Leftism and anti-Semitism to the Boston bombing, and all things in-between.

Below is our interview, which was conducted via email. It has been abridged for readability. All citations are courtesy of Lt. Gen. Pacepa.

Playing devil’s advocate here, some might argue that since the Soviet Union was defeated, Americans shouldn’t care about a book on Soviet disinformation tactics. What would you say to these people?

Pacepa: The very idea that the Soviet Union was defeated is disinformation in itself. The Soviet Union changed its name and dropped its façade of Marxism, but it remained the same samoderzhaviye, the historical Russian form of autocracy in which a tsar is running the country with the help of his political police.

During the Soviet Union, the KGB was a state within the state. Now the KGB is the state. Over 6,000 former KGB officers are running Russia’s federal and local governments. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. In 2004, Russia had one FSB officer for every 297 citizens.

How would you describe today’s Russia?

Russia today is the first intelligence dictatorship in history. It is a brand new form of totalitarianism, which we are not yet familiar with. Now the KGB, rechristened FSB, is openly running Russia.

On Sept. 11, 2002, hordes of former KGB officers gathered in Moscow at the Lubyanka—the headquarters of the old and new KGB. They had not congregated to sympathize with America’s national tragedy of the previous year, but to celebrate the 125th birthday of Feliks Dzerzhinsky—the man who created the most criminal institution in contemporary history. One of my former bosses, KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, groused to a crowd: “I think a goal was set to destroy the KGB, to make it toothless.”[1] A few days later, Moscow’s mayor, Yury Lushkov, one of Russia’s most influential politicians, reversed himself by saying he now wanted to restore Dzerzhinsky’s statue to its place on Lubyanka Square.

It will not be easy to break Russia’s five-century-old tradition of being a police state. Nevertheless, man would not have learned to walk on the moon had he not first studied what the moon was really made of and where it lay in the universe. This is one reason we wrote “Disinformation.” Let’s hope a new generation of Russians will learn the truth, and will give that immense country a new national identity.

What would you hope is the primary takeaway for readers from your book?

Pacepa: That Marxism and its earthly Socialism are immense disinformation operations, and that all they have left behind is former Marxist countries that ended up looking like trailer camps hit by a hurricane, and leaders roasting in Dante’s Inferno. That all Marxists who have ever risen to lead a country have ended up in hell—all, from Trotsky to Stalin, Tito to Enver Hoxha to Mátyás Rakosi, Sékou Touré, Nyeree and Hugo Chavez. That all had their days of temporary glory, but that all ended in eternal disgrace. Some, like Khrushchev and Ceausescu, were even found unworthy of having their final resting place marked by any gravestone. A few remnants, like Fidel and Raul Castro, are still hanging on, but they certainly have a place in hell reserved and waiting for them.

Perhaps our book may also help President Obama abandon his craving for Marx’s utopian ideology, “to each according to his need,” which is transforming the United States into a decaying socialist country in all but name.

Read more at TheBlaze…

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