_The following talk by Dick Morris was delivered at David Horowitz’s _Restoration Weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida (Nov. 17-20, 2011). Introductory remarks were given by the Freedom Center’s Michael Finch, comedian Tom Dreesen and political analyst Monica Crowley. Mr. Morris’s lecture is followed by the Center’s Annie Taylor awards.
Michael Finch: Thank you so much, everybody, for coming. As you take your seats, I’m going to be introducing our – which is a real honor – introducing our Master of Ceremonies tonight, Tom Dreesen, who’s here at his first weekend, Restoration Weekend. It’s a real honor to have a fellow Chicagoan here, Tom. Although I’m glad I just found out today that you’re a Cub fan – a South Side Cub fan, too, but we won’t get into that.
But ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to show a very short clip. If we could cue that, and then Tom Dreesen will come up. Thank you.
(Video played)
Tom Dreesen: Thank you very much. How about a nice round of applause for Michael Finch for all the hard work that he’s been doing here?
(Applause)
I can’t tell you how good – oh, by the way, there’s one toast you left out, Dr. Bob. Italians say (spoken in Italian), which means a hundred years. Polish people say (spoken in Polish), which means good luck. And of course, we say (spoken in foreign language), which means life. I’ve got a buddy doing (spoken in foreign language) in Joliet Prison back in Illinois.
(Laughter)
It wasn’t funny, but it was something that I thought I had to tell you. The mic is – oh, you can’t hear. No wonder it wasn’t funny.
(Laughter)
Okay, well, that concludes my show. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for coming.
(Applause)
We’re right on time here, in this magnificent hotel, this multibillion-dollar hotel, with a sound system from Kmart.
(Laughter)
I am honored to be here.
I actually performed here many years ago. And the first time I came here was probably – I had done two “Tonight Shows.“ And I was booked here at a celebrity golf tournament in West Palm Beach. And it was one of those where they had a pro, a celebrity and three amateurs.
And this is the truth. I went to the first tee, and I was really excited. And the guy who runs this hotel now, David Burke, was in the group, and I didn’t know who he was. And Arnold Palmer was in our group that day. And we got up on the first tee. And he said – hi, I’m David Burke. I said – hi, David, I’m Tom Dreesen. He said – nice to meet you, Tom. Sure hope we get a good celebrity. Last year, we got some guy I never heard of.
(Laughter)
That was 30 years ago. If you’ve been in show business, like I have 40 years, and you still need a nametag, chances are you haven’t made it, you know what I’m saying?
(Laughter)
But to be here for David Horowitz – David asked me to do this, and I’m happy to do it. I’m going to tell you a story about David that would embarrass him. I know he doesn’t want me to tell this story. But we were up on Sunset Boulevard awhile back at some function in Los Angeles. And David and I were out on the street, and a raggedy old bum walked by with holes in his shoes. In fact, one of his shoes – the sole was flapping. And David said – excuse me, Tom. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a wad of $100 bills this thick, with a big rubber band around it. And he took the rubber band off, and he gave it to the guy and said – put this on your shoe, it’ll stop it from flapping.
(Laughter)
Is this a good man?
Did you enjoy Ann Counter this afternoon?
(Applause)
She was interesting, saying that she got searched at the airport by this good-looking, sleek young man, so she got in line twice. I thought that was a good line. Because in Los Angeles, I got – this happens to me all the time. I think they should change TSA to touching sensitive areas. Do you agree with me on that?
(Laughter)
Because, you know, I have a choice. You know. When they’re going to pat you down, either I risk radiation, or find out at this stage of my life that I get aroused when a man touches me there also, you know.
(Laughter)
I think if they’re going to pat you down, you should be able to pick your patter.
(Laughter)
Really. Line them up, you know. The big one on the end, yeah, with the –
(Laughter)
— with the hard look in your eyes and the soft hands. Yeah, that’s the one, I’ll take him. You know – you want to make them stop searching you? Don’t get mad, get into it.
(Laughter)
Start moaning.
(Laughter)
Oh, oh. Yeah, right there, right there, yeah, yeah.
(Laughter)
But this is a very interesting day. In California, by the way, on this date in 1850, California became a state. At that time, the state had no money. Almost everyone in the state spoke Spanish, and there were gunfights in the streets. So you see, nothing has changed in California.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Fact, Jerry Brown was governor at that time, also.
(Laughter)
I’m from the great state of Illinois, where we limit our governors to two terms – one in office, and one in prison. That’s just the way we do it in Illinois. Those are facts you have to recognize. That’s a problem with the world today – there’s lack of recognition. Muslims do not recognize the Jews as the chosen people, Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world, Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.
(Laughter)
And Colonel Khadafi is dead. I never thought – I never thought – I could never figure how anybody could be afraid of this man, Colonel Khadafi. Here’s a guy who owns his own country – he only made himself a colonel.
(Laughter)
Come on, we got guys in this country who kill chickens, we make them colonels.
(Laughter)
Several years ago, he came up with one of those brilliant statements. His nation was trying to build a hand grenade – develop a hand grenade that could blow up everything within a two-mile radius. He searched for two years for some guy who could throw it and run three miles in five seconds, you know.
(Laughter)
But he was a tyrant. He was a tyrant. And Michael, thank you, you’re right – I was raised in the South Side of Chicago.
And this thing about bullies – we’re very much aware of bullies on the South Side of Chicago. I know to some people it’s not a laughing matter, and it’s not. There were bullies in my neighborhood. There was a gang – they only traveled in threes and fours. And you looked at them cross-eyed, they’d beat the tar out of you. They wore black and white. We called them nuns. Anyhow –
(Laughter)
There really was a bully in my neighborhood. A good buddy of mine, Richard Brown, is in the audience. We went to school together. And he’ll tell you this. If you remember O’Hearn, you remember David O’Hearn? Remember O’Hearn, how mean he was, Richard? O’Hearn – in fact, he used to push me around all the time. I was a little skinny kid. And I told my dad one time – I said, you know, this guy O’Hearn just keeps pushing me around. And he said – he’s nothing but a bully. That’s all he is, you tell him that. So the next day, I told him, I said – my dad said you’re a bully. So he went over to my house and beat the hell out of my dad.
(Laughter)
I went to an all-white Catholic school that was in an all-black neighborhood, called Our Lady of the Courageous Caucasians.
(Laughter)
I played football in the Catholic Youth League. I didn’t get in a lot of games, because I was kind of small. What I did one time – I had 10 of my buddies come to the game and chant – we want Dreesen, we want Dreesen. Second quarter, the coach called me over. I said – yeah, coach, what do you want me to do? He said – I want you to go in the stands with your friends, because they want you more than I do.
(Laughter)
My mom wanted me to grow up and become a priest, which I think is a tough occupation. Can you imagine giving up your sex life, and then once a week people come in and tell you the highlights of theirs?
(Laughter)
I was working in the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles the other day, trying out some new material. Then the young comedians were talking about me, and I overheard them. One of them said – you know, he’s old school. And the other comedian said – what do you mean, he’s old school? He said – well, he doesn’t use the F-word. And the other comedian said – my God, what does he use for adjectives?
(Laughter)
And I said – adjectives.
Before I go, there’s a couple stories I want to tell you. One is, Manny Klausner is here, a fellow Chicagoan. Grew up on 59th and Stony. Where you at, Manny? I know you’re out here. Well, maybe you’re not, Manny. Oh, you’re over – okay. Anyhow, Manny Klausner is – I’m sorry, Manny, over here, okay – 59th and Stony – a lawyer. A lot of people do not realize what a brilliant lawyer he is.
And I know I would embarrass him with this story. But he once was handling a case in Chicago of a man who allegedly killed his wife. And they had no corpse, but they had a lot of circumstantial evidence. But no corpse. And Manny stood up in front of the jury in the summation and said – ladies and gentlemen of the jury, watch that door. In 60 seconds, the alleged deceased will come in that door. And the jury watched. And of course at 60 seconds, she didn’t. And he said – she didn’t walk through that door, but you all looked. And therefore, you need to find my client innocent because of reasonable doubt. And the jury deliberated and, three minutes later, came back and found his client guilty.
(Laughter)
And he said to the jury foreman later – wait a minute, you were all looking at the door. And the jury foreman said – yeah, but your client wasn’t.
(Laughter)
Brilliant man.
In Chicago, there’s this Chicago policeman that retired recently. Played the bagpipes at all the functions in Chicago. And he retired to Kentucky. And the local funeral director got a hold of him a couple weeks later and said – I understand you play the bagpipes. We have a homeless man, a poor guy who we found, and no one knows who he is. And we’re going to have services for him. Would you mind playing your bagpipes at the gravesite? And the guy said – no, of course, I’ll be there.
And the funeral director gave him the directions, and he got lost in the backwoods of Kentucky and showed up about an hour late. Now, the hearse is gone, and the funeral director’s gone. And the diggers and the crew were all sitting around having lunch. And he got his bagpipes out, and he went out, and he stood over, and he looked down, saw the vault was locked. And he started to play “Amazing Grace.“ And he played it with such passion and such fervor – thinking that no one was at this man’s gravesite upon his death – that he actually started to weep.
And the diggers, seeing this, they got up, and they looked down, and they started to weep. And finally, when he finished this incredible rendition of “Amazing Grace,” he turned to walk to his car. And one of the diggers said – sweet mother of Jesus, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for over 20 years.
(Laughter)
I don’t want to stay up here and bore you with a lot of wonderful material, because we have a great show going. It’s my privilege and my honor to introduce a lovely lady that – the first time I saw her on TV, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. But then I realized she was sitting next to Alan Colmes.
(Laughter)
And then I thought she was the most intelligent woman I’ve ever seen in my life. But she had followed Alan Colmes, so, you know. Anyhow, she’s been a guest on major TV and cable news channels, including ABC, NBC, Fox and HBO; and worked as a commentator on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” for four years.
When the Fox News Channel launched in 1996, Monica Crowley joined the network as a political and international affairs analyst. Her insight and intelligent analysis on the day’s news earned Crowley a large following of fans. And in 2002, Monica began hosting “The Monica Crowley Show” on WABC Radio in New York. In 2005, Monica joined MSNBC as a political analyst and co-host of “Connected: Coast to Coast.“ In March 2006, Monica signed a deal with the Westwood One Radio Network to take her show national. “The Monica Crowley Show” now airs on major market stations across the country, including WABC AM New York, WTTK FM Boston, and WTNT AM Washington, DC.
Monica holds two master’s degrees and a PhD in international affairs from Columbia University and worked as a foreign policy assistant to former President Richard Nixon from 1990 until his death in 1994. Crowley’s experience with Nixon prompted her to write two bestselling books – “Nixon Off the Record: His Candid Commentary on People and Politics” and “Nixon in Winter.”
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you Monica Crowley.
(Applause)
But Monica, before Dick Morris leaves, make sure he signs this. He didn’t sign this for me, just –
Monica Crowley: Oh, for you?
Tom Dreesen: For me.
Monica Crowley: Oh, okay, I’m on it. I’m on it.
Thank you very much, Tom. That was so cool to be introduced by Tom Dreesen.
(Applause)
Fantastic. Thank you so much. And I also want to give great thanks to David Horowitz and everybody here at the Freedom Center for putting on this absolutely fantastic weekend for all of us. Big hand.
(Applause)
I should also say that I am so happy to be in a room of likeminded people – a lot of familiar faces, very friendly faces in this room. And given the fact that I spend so much of my time debating liberal maniacs, like my brother-in-law and others, you have no idea how nice it is for me to be here today.
Just a quick question – does anybody know what today is? No? Well, it is Friday. But as of today, there are now just 353 days until the 2012 Presidential Election. That is five Kim Kardashian marriages.
(Laughter)
That’s right. We only have five Kim Kardashian marriages until we elect a new President. If only Barack Obama had been President for just 72 days.
I am here to introduce somebody. And I’m so thrilled to do this. This is somebody who’s working tirelessly to make sure that Barack Obama doesn’t get another term, or another 20 Kim Kardashian marriages. I have to say, though, as much as I adore and respect my good friend, Dick Morris, he was responsible for inflicting two hideous injustices on the American people.
The first one – and I’m not sure if you know this, but when Dick was just a kid, at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, he was already a budding boy genius political strategist. And he put his talents to work managing the campaign of a classmate who was running for class president. Dick’s talents were so extraordinary, even at such a young, tender age, that the classmate whose campaign he was managing actually won his race and became class president. That kid’s name was Jerrold Nadler.
Nadler, of course, went on to win a congressional seat and become one of the most obnoxiously far-left members of the House. So thanks, Dick.
(Laughter)
Now, the second gross injustice Dick Morris has inflicted on us was, of course, also his greatest triumph as a political strategist, which was electing a President of the United States. It’s just too bad that that President was Bill Clinton, our 42nd President and national treasure. So again we say – thanks, Dick.
(Laughter)
Ultimately, however, I’m happy to say that Dick left the dark side of leftist policies and the politicians who love them, and he came to the light. And he put his prodigious talents to work for the good guys. And those of us who fight in the trenches every day in the conservative movement are lucky to have him with us, fighting with us, every day, every moment, side-by-side. Because there’s nobody more tireless in the fight to arrest this country’s slide into socialism and kleptocracy than Dick Morris.
He is a political strategist extraordinaire. He is a brilliant strategic thinker. He is a prolific and bestselling author. He is a keen analyst. He’s somebody who’s kind enough to change his schedule to join us here tonight. He’s the purveyor of DickMorris.com. I knew I had to get that in, Dick.
(Laughter)
And perhaps, perhaps, he is the only person to have ever been tackled to the ground and threatened with a punch to the face by Bill Clinton. Please welcome my good friend, Dick Morris.
(Applause)
Dick Morris: Well, before we get started, I have some serious business to discuss with you. My wife and I have written a book –
(Laughter)
— which is really the last statement in political theory. It goes into all of the reasons why Obama – no, that was the other book. This one is about my dog. And it’s called “Dubs Goes to Washington: And Discovers the Greatness of America.“ Dubs is my magnificent 90-pound Golden Retriever, who spends his entire life with a tennis ball in his mouth.
So he goes to Washington, and he goes on the train. And then the ball falls out of his mouth. It was a total disaster. It rolled faster and faster. It rolled faster and faster, it didn’t slow down. And poor Dubs had to look for it all over town.
So he goes to the Lincoln Memorial. And at the Memorial for Abraham Lincoln, Dubs sat up and started thinkin’ – if man from chains is meant to be free, get this silly leash off of me!
(Laughter)
(Applause)
And at the Jefferson Memorial – all men are created equal, Jefferson wrote, in the Declaration of Independence’s most famous quote. If people are equal, can it possibly be that dogs are, too? Especially me?
So all we could find in bookstores was “Heather Has Two Mommies.“ And we felt that it was kind of important to bring a patriotic, pro-American message to kids from four to eight years old.
(Applause)
So it’s not in bookstores, but it’s self-published. And it’s at DickMorris.com and Amazon.com. And I hope you get it for your children, grandchildren – I don’t have to say great-grandchildren here, do I? Good. Well, thank you.
On a more serious note – in 1945, Churchill was defeated as prime minister of Britain. And he was replaced by Clement Attlee, who was the Labour Party candidate, the Socialist Party. And when Attlee took over, he nationalized every sector of the British economy.
So this is a true story. Churchill was in the men’s room at the House of Commons, standing at a urinal, when Attlee walked in the door. And Churchill scooted down three urinals and brought his jacket over like that. And Attlee said – shy, Winston? And Churchill said no. No, ‘tis not that at all. No, it is just that whenever you see anything that is big and impressive, you nationalize it.
(Laughter)
It was so cool that I learned that story right about the time Obama won.
I think that – why don’t we talk a little bit about the economy – why we’re in the trouble we’re in, what the future is likely to hold, what the political future is likely to be. Let me look four or five – two or three years down the road and give you my sense of what’s going on, and we’ll talk a bit about the Republican candidates, and then be happy to answer any questions that you have.
We have to understand, to understand this economic mess, that we are not in a business cycle. This is not an alternation of boom-and-bust, such as has happened as long as capitalism has existed. That started in June of 2007 and ended in June of 2009. That boom-and-bust cycle ended.
But what happened was that the massive amount of borrowing that went on in the United States and in every country in the world triggered a recession of a graver and deeper and longer-lasting sort, called a debt implosion cycle.
What happens in capitalism is, over 30 or 40 or 50 years, debt piles up to a point where it gets so high and so exceeds the resources of the planet to sustain it, that everybody suddenly stops borrowing, stops lending, stops investing, stops spending; and the economy drops dead. It happened in the 1830s, it happened in 1907, it happened in the 1930s, and it’s happening now. And that cycle is one that does not take a year or two to recover from, like the recessions do. This cycle typically takes an entire decade to recover from.
Now, with all due respect to Monica’s gratitude, my old boss balanced the budget. And under my old boss, when he left office, the United States owed $7 trillion of debt, which was pretty manageable. Our GDP was about $10 trillion.
Then Bush took over. And with Katrina, and Homeland Security after 9⁄11, and Iran – I’m sorry, Iraq and Afghanistan, he borrowed a total of about 3 trillion more and raised debt up to $10 trillion.
Then Obama took over and went stark-raving mad. He borrowed – by the time his first term, and his only term, is over –
(Applause)
— he will have borrowed 7 trillion more. So from the time George Washington took the oath of office until Obama did, we borrowed 10 trillion. And then, in the four years of the Obama presidency, we will have borrowed 7 trillion more.
Now, put that into perspective. The world as a whole has a GDP of about $60 trillion. And total indebtedness in the world is about 160 trillion. About 40 trillion owed by government – state, local, international, federal – and about 120 trillion of all debt combined – personal debt, corporate debt, mortgage debt, student loans, car loans, all over the world – comes to 120 trillion.
Now, when Obama started, the government debt level wasn’t 40 trillion; it was about 26 or 27 trillion – and that extra 14 or 15 trillion, half of which was borrowed by the United States. And if you count state and local governments, about three quarters of it was borrowed by the United States. So stretched the global capital capability to a breaking point that there was no more money to lend. And everybody began to cut back and cut back and cut back.
The United States government, we love to say, is borrowing from China. The hell it is. China reduces, is reducing, its net holdings of US government securities. It’s getting rid of more than it’s taking in each year now. You know who we’re borrowing it from? Ourselves. We’re printing the money. That’s how we’re borrowing it.
We take the Monica Crowley National Bank, and I’m the Federal Reserve Board. And I come over, and I say – hey, Monica, do you have any mortgage-backed securities kicking around in your vault? And Monica says – do I have mortgage-backed securities? I’m drowning in them. I’m using them for wallpaper. I might use them for some other kind of paper in my bathroom. They’re worthless. None of them are paying anything back. The debt is worth more than the homes are. It’s underwater. I can’t do anything with it. I can’t sell them, for Godsakes. Can’t really even give them away. And I say – well, Monica, I’d like to buy 100 million bucks of them. And she says – are you out of your mind? How many pennies on the dollar? And I say – oh, 100 cents, Monica. Here’s a check for 100 million bucks, give me your securities. And I walk away with this huge pile of totally worthless paper. And I give her 100 million bucks.
Now, there’s no money in the account. But I’m the Federal Reserve Board, that’s fine. I’ve just created $100 million backed by absolutely nothing, by these phony mortgage-backed securities. The United States government – when Obama took office, the money supply in the United States was $800 billion. We now have $800 billion of additional money supply backed by these mortgage-backed securities, backed by absolutely nothing; and another 500 billion backed by Treasury bills. Two and a half times the growth of money supply under Obama.
So Monica’s got this 100 million. And I come over to her – I’m her next visitor – and I’m the Treasury Department. I said – hey, Monica. I understand you came into some money. And she said – yeah, this moron just sold me – just bought 100 million bucks of my worthless paper. I say – Monica, what are you planning to do with that money? And she says – oh, well, I’m going to do what Obama wants me to do. I’m going to make loans and stimulate job creation, and get our economy moving, and jumpstart it all. Those guys there want to put together a shopping center. And over there, they want to expand their manufacturing facility. And they have a new real estate development. And those folks need mortgage loans and car loans, and I’m going to supply them. And I say – well, that’s great, Monica. That’s just what the President wants. That’s why we gave you the 100 million.
Are you sure they are all going to pay it back? Every single penny, on time? The reason I ask, Monica, is – under the new Dodd-Frank bill, I have to close you down if they don’t. I have to find that you’re an imprudent lender. And I fire you, I fire your board of directors, I liquidate your shareholders’ equity, which includes your pension; and I forcibly merge your bank into a larger one.
But please, make these loans. Get those two young kids in a garage, with the next Dell computer or the next bright gleam in their eyes – fund them, take risks, be entrepreneurial. Just make sure it is all paid back.
So Monica says – well, maybe I’m not going to lend it all out. I know these people, but I mean, it’s a bad economy. But what the hell am I going to do with 100 million bucks? Say – Monica, I’m so glad you asked me that question. I’m a little short this quarter, and I got to borrow $165 billion a month to pay for my budget deficit. I’d like you to lend me the 100 million that I gave you back to me. And she says – well, that’s all right. But what interest are you going to give me? And I say – three and a half percent. Says – three and a half percent? This moron gave me this money for free. If I show a spread of three and a half percent, I’ll serve champagne at the next board of directors meeting. They’ll canonize me.
So, what we have done is we have printed 100 million bucks of money, backed by nothing, and we borrow it back and pay three and a half percent interest for the privilege. That is how the United States of America is funding its debt.
Why doesn’t Greece do that? Because Greece doesn’t own a printing press.
(Laughter)
The Germans own the printing press. And in any case, the euro is not the currency of the globe; the dollar is. There is only one country in the world that can do that, and that’s the United States. We can print whatever the hell we like. And as long as everybody assumes that it’s good and it’s worth – and it’s valuable, and they accept it for 100 cents of goods and services, it’s fine. But if inflation starts, or starts going crazy, there is nothing behind that money. Nothing, except these ridiculous mortgage securities.
So in that situation, who is going to invest? Who is going to lend? Who is going to spend? The whole world is terrified, locked in terror. Households in the United States aren’t spending. They’ve taken all that stimulus money and reduced the household debt by half a trillion dollars since Obama took office. That’s money that they didn’t spend. They didn’t buy a car or flat-screen TV; they just paid down their credit cards, their mortgages, their student loans, their credit card balances.
Corporations in the United States, when Obama took office, were holding $1.3 trillion of cash – a relatively high amount, but still normal. Now they’re holding $2 trillion of cash, which they won’t invest in their own companies. And back when they had $1.3 trillion – okay, they’re investing it at 5 and 6 percent interest. Now it’s 0 percent interest. So they would rather have that money sit there burning a hole in their checking account, making absolutely no money, than investing it in anything. And banks are sitting on $1 trillion of cash that they won’t lend out. So the banks aren’t lending, the consumers aren’t spending, and businesses aren’t investing.
And you know what the Washington solution is? Print more money, spend more money, in the hopes that people change their mind. It’s like you have a 20-year-old dog who’s half dead, and all he wants to do is sleep on the damn floor. And the Fed is playing out more leash for him. That’s our economic solution. And that’s literally what’s going on in this country.
Now, the problem in America is that the Obama Administration puts social engineering ahead of economic recovery. See, FDR didn’t do that. When he took office in ‘33, he focused on recovery – get the banks back, restore industry, raise wages, raise prices, halt the deflationary cycle. And that was his goal. It wasn’t until ‘36 that he began to monkey around with the system, and do Social Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Wagner Act, and all of those reforms.
But Obama didn’t wait. He jumped right in with his program of change. And the result was he paralyzed the entire American economy.
So rich people aren’t spending money. Because they’re scared to death of tax increases coming down the pike, which he threatens us with every day. Sometimes I feel like a hog at the Chicago stockyards, you know – have more food, come on, manja, manja. You didn’t have enough lunch, here, here’s some more food. We have plans for you.
And consumer spending – the top 2 percent of the country spends 33 percent of the money. So you’re threatening them with taxes? You’re going to dry up their spending.
The healthcare industry – 17 percent of our economy. Now Obamacare is an Obama-nation, absolutely. But if he’d implemented it and at least had it take effect immediately, you could adjust to that. Instead, what he’s done is he’s said – I’m going to change everything, and I’ll let you know the regulations in 2013. So who on earth is going to expand their medical facilities? Medicine should be countercyclical. People are still getting sick, right? And it doesn’t matter if they have any income, because they’re all covered by insurance or paid for by the government, or subsidized by free medical care at the hospital. So why shouldn’t healthcare be expanding? It’s countercyclical. Because they’re scared to death.
They used to create 30,000 jobs a month. Last month, they lost 30,000 jobs. Because who is going to set up an MRI clinic, a colonoscopy clinic; and buy the equipment and hire 12 people, when you don’t know if next year the reimbursement’s going to be totally disallowed? That’s 17 percent of the economy paralyzed.
Manufacturing is in the same boat. They don’t know what kind of carbon dioxide emission regulations he’s going to impose through EPA. And American manufacturing has survived because of its tremendous productivity, which is a nice word for replacing men with machines. And we produce twice as many products as we did 15 years ago with half the labor force. We still produce 25 percent of the world’s manufactured products. We’re still number one in the world in that. But it’s with half as many workers.
Now Obama says – I’m going to tax the energy. I’m going to limit it, I’m going to regulate it. So you can’t automate anymore. So they’re terrified, they’re not going to expand.
The National Labor Relations Board is imposing unionization throughout the country. That paralyzes business because of fear. And then the banks aren’t lending for the stuff we just talked about, where Monica can’t give out those loans without the threat of being closed down. So these regulations have caused a reign of terror in our economy.
Now, when we elect a Republican President, and when we elect a Republican Senate –
(Applause)
— we are going to cut those Lilliputian cords that are holding Gulliver down. We’re going to cut the threat of higher taxes, we’re going to cut the redoing of the medical system, we’re going to cut the threat of EPA regulation, we’re going to cut the threat of forced unionization, we’re going to roll back regulation of small community banks. And the result is that we’ll be free. Gulliver can rise up again. This huge, strong American economy can really get back up and begin to function. And once that starts, it’s going to have absolutely no end. It’s just going to go completely crazy with economic growth.
The problem is it will go completely crazy. Because there is so much damn money out there. And it’s as if Barack Obama took every car in the United States and filled it up all the way to full in the gas tank. But nobody went driving because it’s lousy weather out. So they park their cars in the parking garage. And they’re waiting for better weather.
And when the Republicans come in, and we undo all of Obama’s regulations, and we get the economy moving again, everybody’s going to bring their car out at once, and they’re all going to drive. And you know what that is, in LA – a traffic jam. And that means inflation. Way too much money chasing way too few goods. And I believe that we’re going to rekindle economic growth, but then I think we’re going to be hit with mega-inflation as 2013 and 2014 come.
And the only remedy for that inflation will be a new recession. That’s what Volcker had to do in 1982. The only way to stop this is to take the steam out of it. And I think by ‘15 or ‘16, we will have finally recovered from the catastrophe that this President has inflicted upon this nation and this world.
(Applause)
It’s literally going to take that long. So in our book “Outrage,” we predicted the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In our book “Fleeced,” we predicted the stock market crash. In our book “Catastrophe,” we predicted that the Obama stimulus package would fail. In our book “2010,” we predicted 60 to 80 seats winning the house. So don’t believe my prediction that Obama’s going to lose, but he’s going to lose.
(Applause)
And here’s why. He was elected not because he changed anybody’s mind, but because he changed the turnout model, which is an almost impossible thing to do in American politics. Never happens before, since John Kennedy changed it in 1960 by attracting white Catholics to vote.
So Obama raised the black turnout from 11 percent of the vote to 14 and got 98 percent of that vote. He raised the Latino turnout from 7 to eight and a half and got 65 percent of that vote. And he doubled the turnout of 18- to 24-year-old whites and increased 18- to 30-year-old turnout by about 30 percent, and carried that by two-to-one. That’s how he won.
But he’s not going to be able to replicate that now. He will get a higher black turnout, but not 14 percent; it’ll be 12, 12 and a half. He’ll still get 98 percent, maybe 90, but not on 14 points. Latinos don’t like him. His job approval among Hispanic voters is 44 percent – used to be 88.
And I believe that the ticket in 2012 is like an arranged marriage. We know who the bride is going to be; we just don’t know the name of the groom. The bride is going to be Rubio –
(Applause)
— which I think will bring Latinos en masse over to the Republican Party. And the young people of America are disenchanted. His approval rating among people under 30 is only 42 percent, where it was 80 percent when he took office.
So I believe that Barack Obama cannot rekindle the kind of turnout that he was elected with. And, on the other hand, there’ll be a major turnout of middle-aged and older people, largely whites, who reject him. Because they’ve seen what he’s doing to the United States.
When you look at the polls right now, there is no poll that ever shows Obama over 50 percent of the vote. Against a generic Republican candidate, he gets 43 percent of the vote. Against a specific nominee, he gets 47 or 48 percent of the vote. Once the nominee is chosen by the Republicans, that vote share will drop. But now, when it’s just a possible candidate, it remains that high.
But when you’re under 50 percent of the vote and you’re an incumbent, it means you’re going to lose. Are you going to be married to the same person next year? I’m undecided?
(Laughter)
What does that say about your relationship? And when you say you’re undecided about reelecting a President, it means you have decided to vote for someone else; you just don’t know who yet. And when you ask people – do you approve of Obama’s job as President, he gets 41 or 42 percent approval. Way below what he needs to win. But when you ask them – do you approve of his handling of the economy, the only issue there is, he gets 34 percent. Sixty percent disapprove of his handling of the economy. So that’s where he’s headed. This guy is headed not just for defeat, but for a walloping defeat.
And we’re also going to very definitely take the Senate. There are two seats that are basically givens – North Dakota, which is an empty seat that we’ll take, and Nebraska – we’re going to finally defeat Ben Nelson, who was the swing vote on healthcare. Finally.
(Applause)
We’ve waited a long time for this honor.
Then we’re – Ray Berg in Montana, the Republican, is ahead of Tester, the incumbent senator. He looks like he’s gone. There was just a poll out in Florida that has Connie Mack ahead of Bill Nelson –
(Applause)
— by 43 to 39 – an incumbent senator at 39 percent of the vote. That means he’s going to lose by 20 points.
In Missouri, Sarah Steelman is ahead of Claire McCaskill –
(Applause)
— 45 to 43. In Wisconsin – I don’t much like him, but Tommy Thompson – and he may be opposed in a primary. But if he’s the candidate, he’s ahead of the Democratic nominee by 49 to 42. Right there, I’ve ticked off six seats. That gives us three extras. And I believe we’re going to elect Allen in Virginia. I believe we’re going to win that seat, with Heather Wilson being the new senator from New Mexico. I think we’re going to defeat Sherrod Brown with Josh Mandel in Ohio.
(Applause)
I think we’re going to beat Debbie Stabenow with Pete Hoekstra in Michigan. So we’ve got a really good stable of candidates coming out here, and really good chances.
But there’s something else that’s important. We not only have to win a majority in the Senate – and we will, and we may close in on 60. We may be in the mid-50s. Get a couple of good candidates in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Minnesota and Washington State, we could get 60 seats. But we’re not only going to do that; we have to get a majority of the majority as conservatives, who are going to be non-RINOs and really vote conservative principles.
(Applause)
So there are three primaries going on that are particularly important. One is a guy named Richard Mourdock in Indiana is running against Dick Lugar for the Senate in Indiana. He should win. Lugar supports the DREAM Act for amnesty, he supported the START Treaty, where we didn’t get anything back for the Russians; he supports earmarks – all kinds of stuff like that.
And then, in the state of Utah, Dan Liljenquist, who is one of the leaders in the national pension reform movement, is, I think, going to defeat Orren Hatch. And so that we have – and then in North Dakota, a guy named Duane Sand, I think, is going to win that primary against a RINO who he’s opposing, named Rick Berg.
But the point is we have to go to each of these states and make sure the people that win are real serious conservatives. And that’s a very important mission.
Now to stay tuned for all of this, please go to my website, DickMorris.com –
(Laughter)
— as Monica said, and I’ll e-mail you the information about these races as they evolve. I’ll be following very, very closely. And it’s very, very important that we stay on top of it.
Now, you could get dizzy looking at the Republican primary field. There goes Bachmann – there goes Bachmann. There goes Perry – there goes Perry. There goes Cain – there goes Cain. There goes Newt, and so on. Up and down, up and down, up and down. And the question is – are we going to be left with a candidate when all this is over?
But we have to realize that this is a good thing, not a bad thing. We should be happy that this is happening. Because our candidates are getting vetted. And they’re getting all of their negatives thrown at them not in November of 2012 but in November of 2011. And by the time he’s the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney’s flip-flopping or Herman Cain’s sexual harassment possibilities, or Newt Gingrich’s divorces, or – I don’t think Michele has a scandal – those will all be old hat. They will all be ancient history. And nobody’s going to pay any attention to them.
Just think for a minute about Kerry and, for that matter, Edwards. Never vetted. Kerry was nominated in about five weeks, because they needed to get somebody to beat Howard Dean. And it wasn’t until the general election that we learned the Swift Boat was a fraud. And John Edwards – was he ever vetted?
On the other hand, look at Bill Clinton. He got hit with Gennifer Flowers in February. He got hit with the draft scandal in January. And by the time November came around, nobody remembered any of that. Look at Barack Obama – he got hit with Reverend Wright in April. He got hit with Bill Ayers in May. By the time the general election came around, it was old hat.
On the other hand, look at George W. Bush. He didn’t get hit with his DWI conviction until the weekend before the election. And he went from five points ahead to half a point defeat in the popular vote because of that. Had that come out six months before, wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference by Election Day.
So get it all out there. This is inoculation, this is immunization. This is very important for us to go through.
Now, let me give you my position on the Presidential race, because I have a decided preference. My head is for Mitt Romney, because I think he has the best chance of winning. My heart is for Herman Cain.
(Applause)
Because I love 9-9-9. And my gut is for Newt Gingrich.
(Applause)
And my feet are uncommitted.
(Laughter)
But let’s spend a minute on each of these candidates – start with Mitt Romney.
I believe that he was conning the voters of Massachusetts, not us. I believe that this Mormon was always pro-life, that he pretended to be pro-choice to get elected in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. And I think that when he decided to leave there in 2005, he went back to his real opinions on all this stuff. I even believe that on healthcare reform, he can be counted on to destroy Obamacare. And it must be destroyed.
(Applause)
By the way, just a digression on that – the disaster is happening. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has just recommended a 16 percent cut in doctors’ fees for specialists over the next three years, followed by a seven-year freeze – after you take 3 percent inflation, that’s a 50 percent pay cut – and for GPs, a 10-year freeze with no cut, but it’s like a one-third pay cut. Inflation might be more than 3 percent.
So who’s going to become a doctor? Who’s going to go into medicine? Who’s going to incur that kind of debt? They’re not cutting tuitions by 50 percent. They’re not cutting student loans by 50 percent. And you know what’ll happen? Even if there are doctors, they’re not going to take Medicare patients. They’re not going to accept that ridiculous rate of reimbursement, or Medicaid.
So what’ll happen is, if you’re over 65 and you get cancer, and you want to see an oncologist, you’re going to have to pay for it yourself. You want to see a cardiologist, you’re going to have to pay for it yourself. Which means that you’ll be obliged to keep health insurance just as you had when you were 50 years old. Because Medicare will become like public housing, or the public schools in inner-city areas – destroyed by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.
Now, those cuts don’t take effect until ‘13. So we’ve got to get rid of him in ‘12.
(Applause)
Herman Cain – when Ronald Reagan ran for President, his platform was 10-10-10. He said our economy is in such terrible shape, for so long, that we have got to cut the top bracket on income taxes by 10 percent a year for each of the three years. And then, in ‘86, he cut them again. And it fell from 70 percent to 28 percent. Now it’s back up to 35, but Reagan cut it in half. And that triggered 20 years of tremendous economic growth and five or six years more of tepid economic growth. Pretty damn incredible.
So when Herman Cain says – I’m going to lower the top bracket to 9 percent, which is by far the lowest in the industrialized world, the United States will become a magnet for entrepreneurs, inventors, risk-takers, business builders, job creators throughout the world. Poland is the only country in the industrialized world that did not ever go into a recession this year, this past cycle. Because they had an 18 percent tax rate, half of the other countries in Western Europe – or in Europe. If we’re 9 percent, that is going to be incredible.
And what you really have to understand about his consumption tax is that we have a VAT in the United States. We call it the payroll tax. Okay? The employer has to pay 6.2 percent for Social Security, 1.5 percent Medicare. So it’s a 7.6 percent VAT tax. The farmer has to pay it on his employees. The trucker who takes the wheat to the bakery has to pay it on his truck drivers. The bakery has to pay it on its employees. The distributor has to pay it on his employees. This retail has to pay it on its employees, added at each step in the process. He eliminates all of that. And he charges an honest, open, upfront 9 percent tax.
Businesses are not going to be able to make you eat that tax. They’re going to have to eat it themselves, taking it out of the money they’re saving on payroll taxes and on corporate income taxes that get cut to 9 percent. Because the economy, in a recession, will be so competitive that nobody can get away with a 9 percent price increase. And therefore, what he’s doing is forcing business to eat that tax by taking away the other taxes, and then having a low top bracket on the income tax and the corporate income tax. An amazing transformation, a brilliant idea. A Reagan level of an idea.
And Herman Cain is the one to push it. And boy, I don’t see any kind of charisma coming anywhere close to Herman Cain’s charisma.
(Applause)
And then you have Newt. I mean, how many debates do you have to go through till you get it that he is the smartest, the most experienced, the most knowledgeable, the most able, the best probable President? And I’d pay admission to watch him flay Barack Obama in a debate.
(Applause)
Absolutely pay admission for that.
Now, you know, he’s had a tough personal life, and he also committed the grave sin of earning a living after he left Congress, for which he’s now being flayed. But Newt is there to stay. And I think Cain is going to come back, and I think Romney’s there. And I think it’s going to be a tight, vigorous, three-way fight. And I think we’ll win with whichever candidate is selected.
And don’t count Michele Bachmann out. Because that Deficit Reduction Commission is going to recommend $600 billion of additional taxes, supported by the Republican members of the Commission. And Michele Bachmann is going to raise hell about that. And just as she developed traction when Boehner gave away the store on the continuing resolution to Obama, she’s going to get traction on that issue with her Tea Party following. So it might be a four-way race.
And I just think that we are blessed to be endowed with that caliber of candidate. I think any way it goes, I think it’s going to be a great candidate, and I think we’re going to win.
So, that is the world according to Garp.
(Laughter)
And I’ll be happy to answer questions.
Let me just tell you one other thing. Every day now, I publish a video. It’s called the Lunch Alert. How many of you watch it? Okay. Rest of you need to.
Michael Finch: – have time for two questions.
Dick Morris: Okay, but I get my pitch in first.
The Lunch Alert is a daily video that I do, without O’Reilly interrupting me.
(Laughter)
And I talk about many of the topics I just spoke about. So it comes out at 11 a.m. every morning, Eastern Time. Go to my website or subscribe, and it’ll be e-mailed to you. And I think you’ll love it.
The other thing is that whenever there are debates, I tweet during the debate on my site. I post like 200 comments as the debate’s unfolding. I also did it when Obama spoke to the country. And when he ended his speech with a peroration, saying – the problems we have are made by man – and he was about to say – and they can be solved by man, I yelled at the TV set and tweeted – yeah, you da’ man.
(Laughter)
Okay. Questions?
Unidentified Audience Member: We know that Barack Obama is not going to stand still for the next year. So all your predictions of a Republican victory across the board – what can he do to counter that?
Dick Morris: Well, there were two theories to getting an incumbent Democratic President reelected – my theory, which got Clinton reelected; and the leftist theory pushed by Carville and Begala, and Stephanopoulos and a few of those folks. And we had a vigorous, vigorous fight in the Clinton White House over that – a knockdown, drag-out fight, that eventually I won. And I got control of the policy, and I got us to move to the center.
The liberals all said move to the left. Energize your base. Get them to come out in record numbers. Carry them by huge percentages. Speak to your base. Don’t regard the voters in the center, move to the left. And I said – baloney, you’re not going to be able to do that. Your base – they said that’s how Clinton got elected. I said yeah, it’s how he got elected with 42 percent of the vote. Because Ross Perot got 19 percent. You can’t get 51 percent of the vote doing that. There just aren’t that many liberals in the country. It’s like 35 percent.
And Clinton agreed with me, and Gore agreed with me, and they moved to the center. And they got reelected, and welfare reform, and balanced the budget, and all that stuff.
Obama looked like he was moving in that direction, that I call triangulation, when he approved the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Then, he absolutely lost it and moved way over the left – this class warfare insanity, making war on job creators – it makes so much sense in a recession – polarizing the electorate, the Occupy Wall Street stuff. Absolutely went berserk in moving over to the left.
And what he’s trying to do is recreate the electoral base that elected him. And he can’t do it, it won’t work, and he’s going to lose because of it. And my proof is that in the first two quarters of 2011, when he was beginning to move to the center, his job approval was 46 percent, according to Gallup. In the last quarter, it’s 41 percent, since he started to move to the left. Why is he doing it? Oh, the cheers of his fellow Democrats. The hurrahs in the caucus room. The relief that at last we have a spokesman, that at last he’s fighting, at last he’s fighting the good fight. And that’s just how the Democratic Party is.
But they – there’s a wonderful line that Chesterton, I think, said of the French – no, Gouverneur Morris said of the French – they prefer lightning to light. And that’s the Democratic Party for you.
Michael Finch: I’m afraid we’re going to have to make that the last question, Dick, I’m sorry. Thank you.
Dick Morris: Thanks very much.
(Applause)
Tom Dreesen: I’m getting my book signed, and I’ll be auctioning this off in a few minutes.
(Laughter)
Dick Morris: My dog does it with pawtographs.
Tom Dreesen: Dick Morris, ladies and gentlemen. Another nice round of applause for Dick Morris.
(Applause)
Great job.
At this time, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce our host, who has boundless energy and a brain that never seems to rest. If I were to make a list of the five smartest men that I’ve ever met, his name would certainly be on it. However, I would probably add my name to that list, so you might want to ignore that last accolade.
(Laughter)
Anyhow, his numerous books that he’s authored – from “Radical Son,” “Uncivil Wars,” “The Professor,” “The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America,” “Indoctrination,” “Party of Defeat,” “One Party Classroom,” “Reforming Our Universities,” and “A Point in Time.“ In 1988, he created the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. And in 2006, it was renamed the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
He’s spoken at over 300 colleges, and he continues – this brilliant man, and our host. Will you welcome, please, David Horowitz?
(Applause)
David Horowitz: Thank you. Thank you.
I have a confession to make. That wasn’t really Dick Morris, that was his other brother. Because no single human being could write all those bestsellers, do all those TV shows, tweet all those tweets, and self-publish children’s book in the same lifetime.
(Laughter)
And I’m sorry we had to close down the questions. We’re way over. You guys have a lot of stamina, and that’s going to tested this whole weekend.
But I need to talk a little bit about the Center, and what we’re about here. The Center is not a think tank; it’s a battle tank. That’s basic – we are a permanent campaign. And we’re in a war. And actually the main part of our message is to teach conservatives – even conservatives, but especially Republicans who don’t understand this – that we are in a war.
And in a war, the weapons are words. And the Democrats have a huge training facility, called the American university system, to train their warriors, who are very good at what they do. Democrats, leftists – they have no answers to anything. They have no programs that work, no policies that make sense. But they’re terrific at politics and about the art of political warfare.
And the first thing I want to say this evening – I want to introduce you to a battalion that we have put together this year at the Center, thanks to Dr. Bob Shillman, who is one of our board members, who donated the money to allow us to create the Shillman Fellows. And they’re all here tonight. And you’ve probably either heard them on a panel or met them. So I would like them to stand up and just be recognized.
Raymond Ibrahim –
(Applause)
— who is our specialist in the Muslim persecution of Christians, and wrote a really important book called “The Al Qaeda Reader.“ It’s so amazing to me. I mean, I understood why it was so hard for people to understand, you know, who the communists were. Because, you know, they were all talking about peace, jobs, democracy. These Muslims – our Muslim enemies, the jihadists – you know, want to kill you. I mean, they say it, it’s all – and Raymond has put together that text.
Ben Shapiro, who I first met when he was a college student some years ago – now he’s a lawyer. He is the – I think Ben is the lawyer for the Andrew Breitbart division, and has written a book called “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of the Left’s Takeover of Your TV.“ Ben? Where’s Ben? There’s Ben.
(Applause)
Daniel Greenfield, who has written two pamphlets for us. One is in your bags, called the “Muslim Hate Groups on Campus.“ This will tell you how bad the situation is. On every campus, there’s a Muslim Students Association, and a Students for Justice in Palestine. These are organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. They are incredibly protected by university administrations. They hold Hate Weeks, attacking Jews. And if you mention this, you’re an Islamophobe. So – I try – I actually came up with this title, because hate groups is something that the liberals – I hate calling them liberals, because they’re bigots – but liberals claim to abhor. So if we could identify the Muslim Students Associations and SJPs – SJP is a creation of Hamas, but Hamas is a creation of the Brotherhood – maybe we could sort of beat them back.
Anyway, where’s Daniel? And he also wrote this wonderful pamphlet called “Ten Reasons to Abolish the UN.“ Where’s Daniel? Is he here?
(Applause)
And the fourth Shillman Fellow is Mark Tapson, who was a screenwriter on two of the most important films of our time – one, “The Path to 9⁄11,” which appeared on ABC and has been suppressed by the Clintons – literally, you can’t get the CD, although 27 million people saw this program – and “The Stoning of Soraya M.“ Where’s Mark? Hey, Mark?
(Applause)
And I want Bob Shillman to stand up. He is what all donors should be. I mean, he is fearless. He’s always pushing my envelope. I love Bob.
(Applause)
And he’s a good toastmaster.
Do we have the film cued up? Yeah. This is a film we made. It’s a short video, but it tells what the Center – what we actually do.
(Video played)
Well, I want to introduce my board. These are very brave people who sit on my board and support me, and keep this army going. Marion, just stand up and –
(Applause)
We have people supporting us who can write six-figure checks, and we have 100,000 people who write $25 and $50 checks who support us. So we’re not the 1 percent or the 99 percent; we’re the 100 percent.
(Applause)
We’re going to show you one more film here, to begin the – I do this every year, our Annie Taylor Awards. We have to introduce you to Annie Taylor, whom I discovered when I took my wife to Niagara Falls. And I’m an addict for these flea museums they have, like in Dealey Plaza in Dallas and at Niagara Falls. And they have all the devices people use to go over those falls.
And they had a film about this woman, Annie Taylor, after whom we’ve named the award, which is the perfect award for conservatives, since Annie Taylor was the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive.
(Video played)
Monica Crowley: If America is going to travel a different road than has Europe in the challenge of confronting Islamism, we will need to learn from the mistakes that have been made in Europe. And the woman that I am privileged tonight to honor is supremely qualified to help teach us those lessons and share the experiences which will cause us to hopefully, if we are understanding, choose a different course.
In the crucible of every civilized crisis, people are given exceptional leaders that possess the passion and the powers of persuasion to direct the culture away from destruction. The English tradition has given us both Winston Churchill and Lady Margaret Thatcher. While not as well known, but every bit as principled and valiant, Great Britain now gives us the Baroness Caroline Cox.
What is most remarkable about this woman is that she goes far beyond being a brilliant thinker and commentator. She is a conscientious and lifelong doer. Caroline Cox has ridden 32-ton trucks into Poland during the days of solidarity to bring humanitarian relief. For this she was awarded Poland’s highest award to a foreigner, the Commander Cross of the Order of Merit.
She routinely goes behind the no-go lines into Armenia and the savaged regions of Africa to support Christian communities who are oppressed by Muslim regimes. In recognition of her courageous and selfless work, Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship presented her the prestigious William Wilberforce Award for Humanitarianism. She was fittingly the director of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation. She cofounded the Committee for a Free Britain and is considered a euro-skeptic, even before being a euro-skeptic was cool.
She is one of the 18 cofounders of the One Jerusalem organization. Caroline Cox has been shot at with more than just guns – with RPGs. She has lived under the harshest of conditions and survived the most violent of threats, but she considers this opportunity a privilege. When tempted to feel fear, she finds courage in a verse she was given at her Anglican confirmation – “Have I not commanded you to be of good courage? Be not afraid, neither be dismayed. For I, the Lord your God, am with you where ever you go” – Joshua 1:9.
Her country and the world community of liberty-loving Western nations are fortunate that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher recognized this woman’s commitment to leadership by example and offered her a peerage giving her the deservedly noble title of the Baroness Cox of Queensbury.
Baroness Cox is now a member of the British House of Lords and was Deputy Speaker for 20 years in this capacity. In February 2009, Baroness Cox and Lord Pearson invited Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders to show his anti-Islam film, “Fitna,” before the House of Lords.
(Applause)
And this is even better. Baroness Cox is currently the sponsor of a bill called British Law for All that will delegitimize the Sharia tribunals in Great Britain.
(Applause)
It is as if the Annie Taylor Award was created for the Right Honourable Baroness Caroline Cox of Queensbury. And it is a true privilege to present the award to her now.
(Applause)
Baroness Caroline Cox: In saying my very heartfelt thank-you for this great privilege awarded me, I do so because it is especially precious. Because it is given by people who are kindred spirits, who have, in the words which we heard from Herman Cain this morning, the courage to tell it how it is, and you who speak the truth in the defense of freedom.
So I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to bring a message to this august gathering this weekend from the United Kingdom, where we now do face many threats to our fundamental freedoms. So I hope you can learn from our experience, our challenges, some successes, and continuing real problems.
But I’d like, if I may, to introduce myself a little more modestly than your very generous and gracious introduction. All I ever say about myself is I’m a nurse and a social scientist by intension – that’s what I thought I was doing with my life – a baroness by astonishment.
(Laughter)
And I can tell you it is God’s sense of humor. I was not in the political arena, was not a politician at all. I was so much out of that world that I was actually the first baroness I’d ever met.
(Laughter)
It takes a little bit of getting used to. You wake up in the morning and see a baroness looking at you out of the mirror. But then, of course, it is a great privilege. Because being a baroness in the modern day means you’ve been appointed to the British House of Lords, the equivalent of your Senate. And what a privilege to be able to speak in one of the houses of the British Parliament, and particularly to speak on matters of freedom.
Now, I was appointed at the House of Lords, as you mentioned, at the instigation of our wonderful former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. And the reason why, I think, she gave me that freedom or that privilege was because I tried to work as a freedom fighter in the dark days of the 1970s, when we in the United Kingdom were facing real threats from Marxism/Leninism.
For example, I found myself as a head of a department of social sciences in one of our big London colleges. And out of my faculty of 20 staff, 16 were Communist Party or further left. Their agenda was not mine. In higher education, the agenda should be freedom to pursue the truth within the canons of academic rigor. Theirs was hard-line political indoctrination, physical assaults and violence – I myself was physically assaulted – academic blackmail, character assassination. What they stood for was the antithesis of freedom. We saw a little bit on that powerful film.
Well, I couldn’t tolerate what was the antithesis for me or the values of liberal democracy. So I’ve fought that battle for nine tough years.
Eventually, because I knew it wasn’t only happening in that college but throughout the soft underbelly of higher education throughout Britain, I wrote a book with two colleagues who were not from the epicenter of violence in social sciences. They were from the sane areas of physics and mathematics. But we wrote a book together with the incontrovertible title, “The Rape of Reason.“ That book became known to Margaret Thatcher – I think was why I was appointed to the House of Lords.
But those tough years were paralleled with experiences behind the Iron Curtain. I experienced that form of Marxism or Leninism in what was still a free society, challenging as it was. But when I went behind the Iron Curtain, I met and felt the terror of totalitarianism in its full reality – in Poland, in Russia, in Romania, in Armenia.
Just one tiny story – on one occasion, I was taking medical aid into Poland with one of the 32-ton trucks. And it was – you could feel the fear in the air; it was tangible. On my last offload, my very experienced truck driver, Tony – delightful cockney guy – was ballistic with rage. I said – what’s the matter, Tony? We’d been together – I’d been living on that truck for a week with Tony. And he said – and I won’t repeat his language here – but he said – blankety-blank, look what we have on this truck, we could be imprisoned for this. I looked at what was on the truck that was causing him such rage – two boxes of blank computer printout paper. I said – what’s the deal, Tony? Two boxes of paper, blank paper? He said – we could blankety-blank be imprisoned. I said – well, shut up, the KGB’s just the other side of the canvas. They can hear us. Shhh. Give me some medical supplies; I will smuggle the blank paper into the seminary. We worked through the church. I ran the gauntlet of KGB twice with the blank paper.
That night, I stayed with a Polish doctor. I said – I don’t understand. Tony, my experienced trucker, said two boxes of blank paper, we could be imprisoned? She said – of course you could be imprisoned. Don’t you understand, in a totalitarian society, blank paper is dangerous – you can write ideas on it? What price freedom? And I was going back to an academic department in London with 16 out of 20 staff wanting to change our liberal democracy into that kind of totalitarian alternative.
Well, mercifully, the Soviet Union imploded, and the Soviet threat dissipated a little bit. We’re still reaping the whirlwind of it with those who came through those days in the United Kingdom and are now in key positions in the politics, in the media, in many influential positions in our society, with a deep cynicism about anything that is precious in our heritage. And of course, cynicism in a vacuum leaves the situation wide open for alternative ideologies.
And as that situation imploded in the Soviet Union, I began my concern about freedom, working with other people on the frontiers of faith and freedom in countries such as Indonesia, Sudan, Nigeria. And I began to see a very disturbing pattern of strategic Islam around the world.
And I studied Islam. And I started looking at what was happening in United Kingdom. And what I saw has given me grave, grave concern. I’ve written about it. And the more I read, the more I study, the more I look around, the more concerned I am. So I’m here to share those concerns with you.
In the aftermath of the Soviet communism, the way it swept away for many people a commitment to the fundamental appreciation of freedom, has left that vacuum. Into that vacuum has moved political Islam.
And I’m now able to discern what I will call nine strategies of political Islam designed to take over our freedoms, or nine forms of jihad – political jihad, attempts to use the freedoms of democracy to destroy democracy and the freedoms it enshrines, particularly freedoms of freedom of speech.
There was a bill – and I won’t talk about that tonight, there isn’t time – but which would, if it’d not gone through [amended] in the House of Lords, have made it a criminal offense, subject to seven years in prison, to say anything critical about Islam, anything positive about another faith; or to make jokes about Islam. Mercifully – and it’s a story for tomorrow, not for today – but we put amendments on in the House of Lords to protect those fundamental freedoms.
Tony Blair’s administration, under the influence of Muslim Council of Britain, were determined to remove those freedom amendments. Our freedom hung on a thread the day the House of Commons was going to vote out those freedom amendments. Those amendments were preserved by the failure of the freedom of the vote to destroy them by one vote. Our freedom hung on a thread that day. I would’ve been imprisoned, but I’d probably be imprisoned in good company. That’s the political jihad.
Economic jihad, Sharia finance – designed to undermine, destroy, Western economic systems. Legal jihad – we already have Sharia courts in the United Kingdom – over 60 Sharia courts. They are fundamentally antithetical to every value of liberal democracy. And that is why I’m moving a private member’s bill in the House of Lords to try to address that issue.
Cultural jihad – we heard a little bit about it. Massive jihad, massive investment in our symbolic and our strategic institutions, our universities, our schools; the building of mosques in significant places – one of our many successes, means that if you come to the Olympic games, you will not now be greeted, as the first thing you see on the Olympic site, by a mega-mosque, which would’ve been a place of worship for 70,000 Muslims on the Olympic site. One little victory we had – not won yet, but won for the Olympic games. What happens after will be a continuing battle.
Demographic jihad – we allow polygamy in our country, thanks to Sharia law. It’s been said that the most popular name for newborn boys in the United Kingdom now is Mohammad.
And abroad, we have other jihads – military jihad. I’m still working in Sudan and Nigeria. Already this year, so many deaths through military jihad. Humanitarian jihad – in Africa, many countries, wherever you go now, you’ll see mosques growing, clinics growing. Islamic aid is conditional – you have to convert to get it.
I talked to Christian mothers who say – I will not go and get aid for my baby, because I have to convert to Islam. I will let my baby die. I’m a grandmother, with 10 grandchildren. I cannot imagine the anguish, letting your child die for your faith. That’s happening in our world today.
Now, no time to go into that now. Tomorrow afternoon, I will have the privilege of going into more detail about these particular threats to our freedoms in our home countries – United States, United Kingdom, and abroad.
But as I finish – what to do about it? Well, first of all, as I have said, Sharia law is fundamentally incompatible with anything that’s precious in our legal systems, our heritage of democracy. We already have it in United Kingdom. I think you have it in United States. What are you doing about it? I’m doing what I can. I’m trying to introduce a bill to raise these issues, and particularly gender discrimination. Many women are really suffering. Because of that in United Kingdom today, I cannot sit on the red benches of the House of Lords and let that happen.
(Applause)
And finally, freedom of speech. We still have our freedoms. We have the freedom of speech. We must use it to speak out. I know that many people in Britain are deeply worried. But they don’t know how to articulate. They intuit; they don’t know how to articulate. When we do speak, they do respond. We must use our freedoms to speak while we can.
And as I conclude, two challenges from our friends in the same world, on another continent, in Africa. One of our friends, an Anglican bishop in Nigeria – and already, many of his people are being killed this year – has said to us – if we have a faith worth living for, it’s a faith worth dying for. But don’t you compromise the faith we are living and dying for. We still have our freedoms. We must not compromise them or the faith others are living and dying for. And finally, he also said – if you don’t resist now, your grandchildren are going to have to fight the battles you have not had the courage to fight yourselves.
And a bishop in Sudan – a peaceable, loving man, not aggressive at all – said – if you don’t fight this battle now, your grandchildren are going to have to fight the battles you don’t have the courage to fight, and they’re going to have to fight with guns.
My friends, we have our freedoms now. We have the freedom of speech. And I thank you, David Horowitz, and all you stand for, for giving this arena for freedom of speech. May we use it well. Thank you.
(Applause)
Monica Crowley: It is truly a moment of historic significance to have Phyllis Schlafly in the same room as Caroline Cox.
(Applause)
Meeting each of these women has changed my life in a very dramatic way. Phyllis Schlafly – I was telling her this morning – it was decades ago – but I pray that these women have many, many daughters in the cause of faith and freedom.
Now I would like to call up John Fund, our friend – and those of us who attempt to [write, our muse]. And he is going to present the next award.
(Applause)
John Fund: Hang in there. This awardee is worth it.
David Horowitz, and also Peter Collier, spent their entire careers fighting for civil rights, in the classical sense of that term. Therefore, it is very fitting that this next award goes to someone who’s been fighting for civil rights in the area of voting.
When it comes to voting rights, there are two fundamental ones. One is the right not to be prevented from voting, not to have intimidation exercised, not to have someone block the polling place door, not to have arbitrary restrictions such as poll taxes thrown up to vote. We fought a great civil rights struggle in the 1960s to guarantee that right. A Voting Rights Act was passed in Congress in 1965. It’s forgotten, but it was bipartisan in support. Seventy-three percent of Democrats voted for it, and 93 percent of Republicans. We’ve forgotten that history.
There’s a second civil right, though. Each and every one of you have the right not to have your vote canceled out by someone who shouldn’t be voting, someone who’s voting twice, someone who’s dead, someone who’s an illegal alien, someone who’s a felon who’s been disenfranchised, stripped of their voting rights because of their crime; or simply doesn’t exist at all. You have a right not to have your vote canceled out.
Our awardee, Catherine Engelbrecht, of True The Vote, has been fighting for both civil rights. She wants to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. Now, her group is nonpartisan. But I can’t resist in telling you that Engelbrecht in German means “angel of the right.”
(Laughter)
So it’s highly appropriate for this audience.
Now, the Left is going to fight her, and fight her group, and fight anyone who stands up for voter integrity. After all, if you have 9 percent unemployment, you may pull every trick you can out of the book. And if you don’t think that will happen in 2012, I would remind you – Barack Obama’s first job in politics was head of Project Vote, the ACORN registration affiliate. He did such a great job for them they made him their top trainer in Chicago. He did such a good job in that position, he became ACORN’s lawyer. And now he is President of the United States, running a Justice Department that ignores anything, anything, having to do with voter fraud.
Now, the Left has two arguments against voter fraud. First is – it doesn’t exist. Well, in 2008, there was a Senate race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. You might remember it. It was very close. It took six months of court battles to decide. And the final margin was 312 very disputed votes. If you don’t think that election had consequences, I would remind you that when Al Franken was finally seated as the 60th Democratic senator, that provided exactly the number needed to overcome filibusters and objections, and to pass Obamacare, on Christmas Eve in the dead of night. And Obamacare would not have passed without Al Franken’s vote. And Al Franken’s Senate seat was probably illegitimate.
We now know how illegitimate. I have here a list from the district attorneys in Minnesota of 144 people who have been convicted of voting illegally, with foreknowledge of the fact, in that same election. One hundred forty-four people. There are over 200 cases in the pipeline of people who are being prosecuted for this. That number already exceeds the margin of victory in that race. We now know over 1,200 felons illegally voted in that race.
The second objection that the Left has against people who raise the issue of voter integrity is that it’s racist. It’s the return of Jim Crow. Bill Clinton himself raised the specter that photo ID laws were the return of Jim Crow. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Chairmonster – I’m sorry, the Chairwoman of the Democratic –
(Laughter)
— National Committee, said the same thing. But you know, it’s interesting. Three days after Clinton made those remarks comparing photo ID with Jim Crow, the legislature in Rhode Island, which is five-to-one Democratic, passed a photo ID bill at the behest of minority voters who were tired of seeing the local political machines run over reform minority community members and constantly losing elections. It was signed into law by Lincoln Chafee, that wonderful new conservative you know about – not.
The bill was carried in the State House by Gordon Fox, the first African American Speaker in Rhode Island’s history. It was carried in the Senate by Harold Mets, the first African American state senator in the state’s history. And it was supported by the head of the Latino Caucus. Despite that, Democrats all over the country heaped a program in vitriol against those Democrats who passed photo ID.
Well, we now know what that was all about. And I’ll close with this. A few weeks ago, Artur Davis, a former African American Democratic member of Congress from Selma, Alabama – and Selma, Alabama has significance to the voting rights struggle – this is a man who worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was a civil rights lawyer. He was the first congressman outside of Chicago to endorse Barack Obama for President in 2007. In 2008, Barack Obama personally selected Artur Davis of Alabama to second his nomination for President at the Denver convention.
But Artur Davis is an honest man. He ran for governor in 2010 on a platform of economic development and school choice. And the Teachers Union mugged him, and he lost. He’s now out of office, but he is now speaking out, speaking truth to power.
This is what he said recently – When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on the issue of voter fraud. I lapsed into the rhetoric of partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black votes. The truth is the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community is the wholesale stealing of ballots in parts of the black South. Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens exercising their rights. If you doubt this happens – I don’t – I’ve heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I’ve been asked to provide the funds for it, I’ve sat in the rooms where the schemes were hatched, and I am confident it has changed many election results. I was disappointed to see Bill Clinton compare voter ID to Jim Crow. It is chilling to see the intimidation tactics brought to bear on African American Democratic legislators in Rhode Island who had the nerve to support a photo ID in that very liberal state.
We have truth on our side here. Artur Davis has called them out. The battle, the smear against photo ID, voter integrity efforts, is a big lie. Why in the world are they doing this? Maybe they know an awful lot more about what happens behind the closed doors in elections than we do. All I know is we need citizens to stand up and fight for voter integrity.
Catherine Engelbrecht and True The Vote – they have three goals. And she’s going to tell you her story tonight. The first goal is – every poll that can possibly have an observer and someone watching what’s going on should have one. Every voter registration list possible should be scrubbed to get rid of the dead, the deadwood, and the people or illegal aliens that are not eligible to vote. And every American citizen should be alerted to the fact that voting is only their first responsibility. They also have a responsibility, if they can, to make sure the election process is clean, fair and honest, so all of us can have confidence in the results. None of us want to see a repeat of Florida 2000 again.
I am pleased and honored to present this award to Catherine Engelbrecht.
(Applause)
Catherine Engelbrecht: Thank you. Thank you, David. This is a tremendous honor.
I accept this on behalf of everyone back home who is studiously working on a new project that we’ve got going on, looking at a database that compares the nation’s voter registry – not only what’s happening back home, but people across the nation, that have recognized the importance of an issue like this.
I’d like to tell you my story, tell you a little bit about how we started. You may have read in my bio that I’m the president of an oilfield services company. Surprise. I don’t have a huge political background. I have always considered myself more of a life activist. My husband and I started our company 17 years ago. We’ve founded a church, we’ve been very involved in our children’s school. And I always thought that if you elected the right guy, you didn’t have to worry about it. Right? You just made sure that you were hiring the right guy on that ballot, and they would go and do their job, and I would be left in peace.
And it was in about mid-2008 that, for the first time for me, the scales fell away. And I recognized that I was bringing up children in a country that I thought was beginning to stand in stark contrast to what I had grown up in, to the dreams that I felt like I had the privilege of living. I was concerned that my children might not have that same opportunity.
And that was about when the Tea Party sort of birthed itself spontaneously onto the scene. And I thought – I can be a part of that. That sounds like a big gathering of people that know very, very little. And so that’s what I can do. And after the rallies, those first few months, a group of us recognized that, you know, this is all well and fun, the rallies are wonderful. But we need to actually do something to make a sustainable, positive difference.
And so we formed an organization. And from that organization – which is called King Street Patriots, from King Street – we had heard that there was a need for people to go and work at the polls. And we thought – we can do that. We’ll just check that off our civic duty, you know, good citizen list. We’ll go work at the polls. I had visions of being the person at the end of the table that handed out the “I Voted” sticker. That was going to be my big job, my contribution.
What happened, though, on that day, is why I’m here. Because what happened the day that we went and worked – there were not many of us; there were probably 20 folks – we saw people who would come into the polls and not show any identification whatsoever, and just be passed right through to vote.
Now, in Texas – in some states, I know – and some of you are listening and thinking – you have to show identification to vote? In some of your states, you don’t. But in Texas, you did. You had to show one of 11 kinds. You could show your water bill, you could show your Blockbuster card, but you had to show something. And people were being passed right through.
More disturbing – and we saw this repeatedly – we would see people come into the polls and say, sheepishly – I don’t remember who to vote for. And then the election judge would pop up and say – I can help you with that. And to the voting booth they would go.
And then you would hear the vote be stolen right out from underneath that voter, as they would say – well, let me just – here’s how you vote. I’m going to make it real easy. Here’s how you vote straight party. Or – well, you know, if you just vote for this person, it fills in the rest of the ballot automatically, so don’t worry about it. Or – why don’t you just let me handle it. You click three to the left, and four to the right. Hit the green button, and you’re all done. It was very, very evident that the voters that were coming had, for years, experienced that type of a voting experience. Well, their job just was to get to the poll. The rest of it was taken care of for them.
At the time, when you see something like that – first of all, you’ve certainly not been trained to expect it. But when you see it, and you try to call it out, what we were told – and we were told this to a person – is, what are you going to do about it? It’s my word against yours.
At that point, you have a decision to make, don’t you? Because you’ve seen it. And in the way I look at things, once you’ve seen something like that, if you choose to turn a blind eye to it, if you choose to do nothing, then you are complicit. You are no greater than an accessory to the crime.
And so we decided, in our infinite wisdom, we were just going to solve the whole thing. We were going to – we started the effort called True The Vote. And our idea was to deconstruct the whole election process soup-to-nuts. We were going to fix it. We had thought that this would start locally and stay local. Certainly thought that there would be a possibility that nationally it would have merit. But you know, we wanted just to really focus on it in our own back yard first.
And so the first thing, first step that we made, was in looking at how names get added into the registry. Now, I’ll step back and I’ll tell you that our system currently looks at not only how names get into the registry but the registry itself. We recruit and train people to work at the polls, and then we collect data all along the way, so that at the end of the cycle, we have empirical evidence that we can use to then advocate for comprehensive election code reforms. And so the cycle begins to correct itself end-over-end. But our first foray was to see how names were getting put into the registry.
Now, I’ll make this quick, but it’s just too good to – you know, I’ve got you captive. I’ve got to tell you the story, because you’re not going to believe it. I still don’t, as I recount it even now.
We submitted, through a series of open records requests, certain very specific questions that we wanted to see whether or not applications that were being turned in met certain criteria. Because we had been told that there was a group that had rolled into town, and they had claimed they were going to get over 100,000 new signatures in the matter of a month or so. If any of you have ever registered voters, you know that that would be a herculean task.
So we were curious to find out where they were going to find these 100,000 people so readily available to register. Through open records requests, we began to develop patterns of inconsistencies. We took those patterns, in our full-color bar charts, to the county. And we said – Harris County – it’s the third-largest voting bloc in the nation – we said – you’re getting rolled.
The county said – we’re going to check this out. They pulled aside a very brief period of time. They just looked at a slice of the registrations – 24,000 registrations. And out of those 24,000 registrations, provided by one group – this one group that had said they were going to get 100,000 registrations – they had submitted the 24,000 – the county went through those with a fine-tooth comb and found out that only 7,000 new voters were added to the roles, and the remainder were, as the county termed, problematic.
Okay, now here’s where the train really starts to leave the station. Because the county calls a press conference and makes this announcement. And they are very proud to say that this citizen-led group has stood beside them to help them find this evidence and bring this to the public attention. And they said – not on our watch we’re going to let this happen in Harris County. That happened on a Tuesday.
On a Wednesday, our little group went to Washington, to the Glenn Beck rally, 8⁄28. We were gone Wednesday. Thursday, the group that had been called out by the county to begin with, called a counter-press conference for Friday morning. We were in Washington; we had to call a counter-counter-press conference. It was that Friday morning that all of our election equipment burnt to the ground. Ten thousand voting machines, $30 million worth of equipment.
So, we’re now in Washington. And I’ve taken our children out of school. We’re at this rally. And we’re trying to do as all good parents do – we’re trying to see every last DC landmark in the space of about an afternoon. And so I’m dragging my children up and down the stairs to go to the different monuments. And my daughter is racing up the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial. And I see a number come across my phone. And I don’t recognize it; I let it go to voicemail, and I check it. It was the editor of the Huffington Post. And I thought – this probably isn’t going to go well.
So before I called back, I went ahead and wanted to see what was already been written about us. And surprise, they had written an article and never even asked for a quote from us. Shocking. They had linked us to the arson and called us – and I quote – the largest voter suppression effort ever in the history of the country.
What? How does this happen? But it was like a starter’s pistol had gone off. Because all of a sudden, it was [Game Day] in the far-left blogosphere. And it still remains that way for us to this day, as I saw an article come across just prior to coming out here – a new article that’s come up now that calls us the fifth column.
But in any case, one thing led to the next. We were being harassed and harangued on an endless basis by the Left. We then get to looking through the registry. That engenders a whole other series of events. Then we get to train people to go and work at the polls. And it was in that period of time that the Black Panthers decided to get involved, and made it very, very clear publicly in our community that if we were to show up, they would push back. And we showed up, and they pushed back.
It was by this point that Christian Adams, last year’s Annie Taylor Award winner, was with us on Election Day, helping us try to manage our way through this eye of the storm that we found ourselves in. Suddenly, we were on Fox News, people from across the nation were finding out about us. And the curious thing was they would hit our website and say – that’s what you’re seeing? That’s what we saw, too! And all of a sudden, it wasn’t a dirty little secret anymore.
There is a problem. There is a problem. But people didn’t quite know how to wrap their heads around it. And when they did wrap their heads around it, what do you do with that information?
It begs the question – what – and John addressed it earlier – what could we be so close to that they cannot stand the thought that we would actually turn citizens out to go and work at the polls? It’s a very curious question.
And John laid it out masterfully when he talked about the history of our President, who has now consolidated his reelection campaign headquarters in Chicago, headquartered there with Operation Vote. It’s quite something seeing what’s unfolding.
Make no mistake – they are very, very organized, they are methodical, and there are strategies that are there to exploit our system – ACORN, the unions, George Soros and Open Society – they are more than willing to sidestep legality if it means that they will retain power. Don’t think otherwise.
It’s always curious to me that in events like this, where we talk about all the woes of our nation – but when we get back to the election, somehow in our mind, we still hold that sacrosanct, like – no one would ever, no one would ever subvert the process of an election to hold onto power. That’s not the case. That’s not the case. And when we think about 2008 and the Presidential election, and we think about the huge gulf that existed in the final analysis between those two Presidential candidates, right – over 10 million votes – well, we have over 200,000 polling places in this nation. Fast math – that’s fewer than 50 votes per polling place.
Every single vote counts. And it is critical, it is critical that as citizens we stand up and get involved in this process. We face real challenges. But we can stem the tide.
And we can stem the tide by people like yourselves, people like the people that we’re working with now, as we have trained thousands all across the nation. We’re currently working in 30 states. We’ve got concentrated efforts in battleground states, people that have said – you know what? I don’t really get maybe working for a party right now, and I’m not so keen on backing a candidate. But I will stand and protect and defend the integrity of the vote.
And that is something that as citizens we can all do. We must all vote, but we must also do a little bit more in making sure that that vote counts and is counted. If our elections are not truly fair, then we are not truly free.
And so True The Vote is making its mark by encouraging people to get involved at every level of the election process. It is unfortunate that we are catching the grief for it. That seems to be part of the territory. But as Baroness Cox said earlier – what price freedom?
So, I thank you again very much for this distinguished honor, David.
May God bless each and every one of you, and God bless America.
(Applause)
Tom Dreesen: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. That concludes our program this evening. We’ll see you all tomorrow, and we want to wish Justin Bieber a happy 75th birthday.
(Laughter)
See you all tomorrow. Thank you very much.
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