KRLA Townhall 2009 Part I
I had the pleasure of attending the 2009 KRLA Townhall discussion with my friend Larry Greenfield. Larry and I watched Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, and Dennis Miller field questions from moderator Michael Medved. Kevin James was the emcee.
This event was so good that hype is unnecessary. Let’s get down to brass conservative tacks.
(For blind liberals enjoying my column in audio form, the word I used was “tacks,” not tax. Also, I never authorized audio columns so you blind liberals are also criminals.)
With that, below are some snippets from the 2009 KRLA Townhall discussion.
(MM = Medved, DP = Prager, DM = Miller, LE = Elder)
MM: “I am going to be ruthless about timing. This is not going to run on Jewish Standard Time. I am operating this on German Standard Time. The lightning rounds will require 2-3 word answers.”
MM: “Halloween is approaching. In politics today, with liberals running everything, what frightens you most?”
DM: “I’m not that frightened. Sometimes Republicans sound like the whiny old guy in ‘Footloose.’ Put liberals in power, they screw it up. At least this way everything is out in the open.”
LE: “I’m not as optimistic as Miller. I’ve never been more frightened. Obama is well intentioned and naive. We are closer to a military confrontation with Iran. The bailouts are dangerous. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”
DM: “Nobody is more acquainted with the 2 minute rule than Larry.”
DP: “People spend more money on Halloween than Christmas. More adults are celebrating a vapid holiday than a serious one. Christmas has been replaced with voodoo. I worry about civilization. When the left gains something it is not retracted.”
DM: “I’m scared that at the 2009 Townhall, we are 8 feet away from each other and can’t hear each other. In the 21st century we need better microphones.”
MM: “What are oyur 2012 projections?”
DP: “Mitt Romney.” DM: “Romney. I also like Mike Pence.” LE: “Romney, although it’s too early to tell.”
MM: “Love is fleeting, but entitlements are forever. How do we tackle the recession?”
LE: “We cut taxes, restrain government growth, and do what Reagan did.”
DP: “I agree. Like that Hollywood actress said, I don’t want to be Sweden, neutral between Hitler and Churchill. Sweden, Switzerland…this shows the power of college.”
DM: “We need our face to slip off the curb and into the gutter. Just like drunks bottoming out.”
MM: “What do you all think of NAFTA?”
LE: “It’s been a net positive. Obama wants to unilaterally renegotiate the treaty. We hear about lost jobs, but people gaining jobs are not credited to NAFTA because it is not traceable.”
DM: “On the 134 Freeway, they now have an illegal alien lane. Does an assault on liberty mean an assault on happiness? What do we do? There are no easy answers.”
DP: “You can’t be happy if conditions determined that. This is the human lot. If you are unhappy in the USA in 2009, then you will never be happy. There is no Nazism. There are no gulags.”
MM: “What do you think about Jimmy Carter?”
DM: “I don’t know about you guys, but I had a pretty good summer of ‘78. Larry, when are you going to run for office?”
LE: “I went to DC and met with the Senators. I told my story. They had decided before I even left for DC. 30-40 million dollars is just too much money to have to raise. Barbara Boxer is beatable. go to http://www.wevegotacountrytosave.com for more information.”
DM: “I have not beena sked to run against Barbara Boxer. How did we get here from illegals and amnesty?”
MM: “After 2010, the Democratic Party wants to lock up the Latino vote forever.”
LE: “There has been no comprehensive immigration reform.”
MM: “If Obama fails, he still wins.”
DM: “7 of 9 Yankees starters are illegals. I’m glad we haven’t surrendered to Mexico.”
DP: “The GOP should speak to minorities as often as possible. We don’t know how to communicate our values. Americans don’t know what American values are. We can’t make the arguments. Democrats see Hispanics as election pawns. Why come to the USA just to make it like the country you left? At least Cash for Clunkers took most of the Obama stickers off of the road. That might hurt Hillary Clinton.”
MM: “The GOP is not the party of the rich. The Democrats are. The GOP is the party of the middle class. Democrats run the 10 richest districts and the 10 poorest ones. 100% of them. The GOP is the party of those wanting to get rich. They didn’t have a pile of investments left over from Joe Kennedy. As for Cash for Clunkers, of all 10 brands, Ford is the only American brand.”
MM: “Why does the left believe in climate change?”
DP: “Premise of the cataclysm is not true. There is no inherent reason. The left believes more in fears. The right worries about terror. The right is not walking around petrified. The left allows political correctness to trump science. Despite what doctors told us, the media got it wrong. There was no heterosexual AIDS pandemic. Those who said there was had nothing to do with science. Science was corrupted by the left to drop the stigma of a gay male disease. When a political agenda corrupts natural science, there is a doomsday scenario.”
MM: “There is a believer/non-believer divide. This has more power than the Council on Foreign Relations. Believers are less hysterical. We don’t focus on catastrophic sci-fi, such as the movie 2012. The Mayan Calendar is not what to base our current life on. Deniers of a creator and order are more likely to believe in the apocalypse.”
MM: “What caused the delay regarding sending more troops to Afghanistan?”
LE: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and NATO agree with General McChrystal, who Obama handpicked. The delay was political. He was stuck. Opinion turned, and he didn’t know what to do.”
DM: “You need to take radical Islamists and destroy them. If you’re not going to give the Generals what they need and go Roman, then get them all out. This is a violation of everything Barack Obama doesn’t stand for.”
MM: “Prager, you’re Jewish. Elder, you’re black. Miller, you’re a Hollywood comedian. Republicans are less popular than all of you. What do you do to fix this?”
LE: “Richard Riordan asked me this same question. I told him to say stuff you can’t say. I told him to stop kissing butt and talk about principles. Riordan looked at me and said, ‘You’re right you can’t say that.’ Martin Luther King Jr’s dad was a Republican. Everett Dirksen won an award from the NAACP.”
DM: “We have more credibility speaking for blacks than Hollywood. Hollywood is a self-parody. Sean Penn idolizes Castro. I don’t ibid that. In Cuba a category 5 hurricane causes $34,000 in damages and totally destroys the place. Republicans are marked like Hester Prynne. We’re popular with the troops at Walter Reed but not at cocktail parties. Prager understands this. He is at Hef’s parties every night. We live in a world where Aquavelvajad gets access while McChrystal gets stuck in the green room. I’m just sick of everybody hating people. If the GOP doesn’t take back the Congress in 2010, then I will be scared.”
DP: “As Jews become more religious, they become more conservative. The Torah is conservative. It unites Christians and Jews. The Torah is a divine document. Most Jews worship liberalism, feminism, and environmentalism. They think the New York Times is prophetic reading. They need to return to believing in Judaism.”
MM: “What is right figure for the top income tax bracket?”
LE: “0.” DP: “0, with a sales tax.”
DM: “I want to help the helpless. I could care less about the clueless. I don’t know, 30%. Hey, 90% is ok with me if like Harry Truman we use it to kill SOBs with a big bomb.”
DP: “The income tax is immoral and foolish.”
LE: “There is no income tax in the original draft of the U.S. Constitution.”
As the crowd enjoyed these men, Medved had more questions to ask. Prager had more enjoyable bluster in him. Elder had more history to offer. As for Miller, he had not even begun to wander far off the reservation. He eventually would.
To the benefit of the audience, these men we re just getting warmed up.
eric
February 10th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
for some reason i kept seeing this in black and white on a stage in Vegas with a mini bar in the background, like the “Rat pack”
Wish I was there, bet the audio was hillarious
February 10th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
We members of the Hebrew faith are only 1.5% of the US population
Most “Jews” are tradional ( secular with roots), while those religious
amount to about 10% ( same as in the Jewish spiritual homeland).
But our numbers of Nobel prize winners are highly disproportionate to
our actual population worldwide. We have lots of Einsteins and Bloombergs
and lots of idiots and criminals (white colar). So go figure.
We do not have a “Jewish’ caucus in the Congress, as far as I know.
There are other causes, namely the black one. They are liberal, as
are Jews and Hispanics. But some Hispanics are very conservative,
having left a dicatorship. Jewish liberalism goes back centuries
to the progroms…and WW2 (the NAZIs were liberals but of the violent
kind).
There is no reason for Jews today to hold on to this liberalism, none
whatsoever.
My own personal experience is simple, very few so-called Jews
I have met, from professionals to garage mechanics, from social
workers to civil servants, are conservative. One relative boasts
of being a “social democrat”. I think he really means aidig the poor
disenfranchised with the middle class and upper income classes taxes.
(As if they are not already taxed).
An acquaintence who votes for the “Liberal Party” back East
says California is insolvent. Thinks we have the resources to
get into the black and we voters should approve tax increases.
Funny, but I don’t think he files tax returns for his corporation.
Go figure.
Isn’t it something that most of Obama’s nominees for high position
were tax cheats, tax delinquents….who, typically, blamed their
CPAs. Oh come on, and I’ll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.
ALL tax cheats know they are cheating…all tax delinquents simply
don’t want to file and pay, or file, as required. (There are 5m
individuals who have not filed tax returns, according to IRS stats).
Talk about role models. The tax gab yearly is about 15% of the budget
(Federal). That’s over 400m/year, never collected, or enough to
pay for the 2 wars, and health care for all, w/o raising taxes. Get it.
But frankly, since “Hebrews” account for such a small percentage of
the voting public, why are they even mentioned or brought up.
A fact: Hispanics send 30b year to Mexico from their earnings in the USA.
The problem with the Republicans is they are still thought of as the party of the rich and well heeled, favoring corporations and big business.
What the liberals don’t get is that when a corporation fails, or goes
into bankruptcy, many employees, wholesalers, distributors, investors
are affected. In the past 2 years, over 15 trillion dollars in assets
have disappeared, much of them among the so-called rich (stocks, bond
holders, property owners, etc.). Are the liberals crying?
over 50% of medical payments are paid by the government. There are about 41m people uninsured….(many don’t believe they will get sick or are waiting for these govt plans to kick in). Herr Obama wanted to
change the system..to undue 200 years of progress in medicine.
(Hey guys hows about Greece’s problems? They have, according
to friends of mine, the best medical system on the planet.
Hmmmmmm, I wonder what they are saying now?
Iran just convicted someone who is an activist in a small, controversial
group. His attorney had no access to him, before sentencing.
Where are the liberals? Iran is now enriching uranium at 20%, more than enough for several atomic bombs/year.
Back in Washington, Obama is saying nothing and doing less to
stop No. Korea and Iran from their goals, changing the balance
of power in their areas.
A friend told me that Iran would never attack Israel, as many
Arabs would be killed. Duh, Iran is not Arab, it is Persian.
Iran lost 1m people fighting Iraq, which lost 300,000 Arabs.
I mean, any Arab killed will go to heaven, with 72 virgins, so
they gain either way, while Tel Aviv burns.
Folks, we have 3 battleship groups in the Gulf. We have recently
sent warships with anti-missile missiles to the Gulf and Patriots
to 4 Arab countries. But, these are defensive weapons?
The solution is easy Herr Obama, just start aiding the 50m Iranians
who want to be free. My guess, landing 2 marine divisions, and firing
500 missiles into the nuke sites (and Rev Guard formations) will
make Ahmad beg for mercy.
But, knowing you, you will make a speech only, while Iran
enriches it’s ore, and continues to manufacture long range, solid
fueled missiles. Like Hamas/Hez/Islamic Jihad surrounding Israel,
are No. Korea and Iran surrounding US, I wonder?
I see that a Republican is now campaigning actively for Boxers seat
in the Senate. Miracle of miracles, maybe she will win?
But the party will have to convince the minorities that they are the party
of progress, the future, and economic stability, as well as a strong
US. This is a difficult task.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I tried over and over to post yesterday… let’s see if this works now…
JMJ
February 11th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
“I see that a Republican is now campaigning actively for Boxers seat
in the Senate. Miracle of miracles, maybe she will win?
But the party will have to convince the minorities that they are the party
of progress, the future, and economic stability, as well as a strong
US. This is a difficult task.”
Difficult task? Of course! Because it’s NOT true! What “progress?” What kind of “future?” When have the GOP EVER brought “economic stability” in any way? Why is it we are ALWAYS weker rather than “strong” with GOP governance? Doesn’t “strong” mean more than just “bully?”
The GOP is the party of helping rich people get richer regardless of the means, period. They are not for ANYTHING else, no matter what they lie about.
JMJ
February 11th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
bla bla bla rich people GOP bla bla bla hate minorities bla bla bully….
This is partially the reason you guys are getting your rumps handed to you incrementely. Its not true, the peolpe know it.
Yeah shoving a healthcare bill down Americas throat and dictating private companies pay limits is not bullying ?
Have some real balls and go bully Iran