Professor Calls Police on Student Supporter of 2nd Amendment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The assignment for Central Connecticut State University student John Walberg and his two classmates was to give an oral presentation on a “relevant issue in the media.” The three chose school violence for their topic.

After the oral presentation was over, professor Paula Anderson of Communication 140, promptly filed a complaint with the CCSU Police against student Wahlberg claiming he made students “scared and uncomfortable.” Professor Anderson deemed Wahlberg a “perceived risk” and felt it was her duty to “protect” her class.

What did the young man say in his oral assignment that was so threatening? Shockingly, Wahlberg had the temerity to discuss concealed carry laws, guns on campus in the hands of law abiding students, and the problems with the concept of a “gun free zone.” He was gauche enough to have posited that if students and/or professors had legal guns on their persons in 2007 the death toll in the Virginia Tech shooting spree could have been much lower.

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Professor Calls Police on Student Supporter of 2nd Amendment”


Politico: ‘How the Press Sucks up to White House’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Want to know the sordid details of how the press sucks up to staffers at the White House? According to Politico’s Michael Calderone it is via a “beat sweetener” article, a concept well known in Old Media circles. A “beat sweetener” is an article meant to flatter a White House staffer so that said reporter might find easier access to the inside stuff later on.

Calderone’s piece is an interesting glimpse into the world of Washington political reporters and it isn’t one that builds much confidence among us, the readers. Perhaps, like a magician revealing his tricks, Calderone might find a few of his colleagues being a bit miffed at the spotlight he shines on this less than edifying practice.

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Politico: ‘How the Press Sucks up to White House’”


UPDATE on Unions a Hatin’ Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

On February 25, we noted a story by Ben Smith of Politico about the newest troubles in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its President Andy Stern. Stern is attempting yet another hostile take over of yet another union in his attempt to gain iron-fisted rule of all unions in the country — no less than that is his ultimate goal.

It looks like Politico has another note in that battle.

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UPDATE on Unions a Hatin’ Unions”


WTH On Breitbart TV’s B Cast Show

-By Warner Todd Huston

Got a call from Scott Baker of Breitbart TV’s B Cast show to come on and talk about this war between Obama and Rush Limbaugh.

The B Cast crew saw my article on that originally appeared on NewsBusters on March 2 and then debuted on Publius Forum on the 3rd.

Scott and Liz were gracious enough to agree to a video experiment with this one, too. We hooked up via Skype and my webcam so that I was able to be on video with the B Cast crew! (a learning experience, for sure)

I had a ton of fun with Scott and Liz…

Yes, it was great fun thanks to Scott and Liz. I hope to do more with them as time goes on.

Be sure and tune in to the B Cast show live every week day at 4PM Eastern.


Conservatives Should Embrace the Triumph of Disruptive Innovation Over Old Media

-By Patrick Ruffini

In this space yesterday, Scott Cleland laid out an argument for why business should launch a “counter-movement” against the ongoing revolution in media and the distribution of digital content, writing:

The recession has created new urgency for multiple content industries to find a better way to protect and monetize their property/content in the digital world. The dot-com bubble ethos that “information wants to be free” is like a gross mold destroying the incentives to create valuable content and distribute it digitally.

Cleland defends the business models of traditional media concerns like the New York Times, CBS, and MSNBC who generate $40-60 in revenue per user as exemplars of the “real economy” as contrasted to the pennies on the dollar per user generated by many Internet companies (the “ecommony” or digital commons). It’s easy to laud old media for how well they monetize their audience — until you run headlong into a profit-and-loss statement.

Conservatives and free-market advocates should want no part of a rearguard defense of old business models built around pre-digital media. (Indeed, many on the right will feel a certain sense of schadenfreude at old media’s decline, given traditional newsrooms’ bias against conservatives.) Above all, the free market is about enabling disruptive innovation — and like legacy industries before it, traditional media will once again be forced to adapt or die. This isn’t a socialistic commons. It’s the free market deciding that it wants to easily access any piece of content from a multitude of online sources, as opposed to in print or on TV or in online walled gardens, where distribution is closely circumscribed by geography or an elite group of editors deciding what you should read or watch.
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Conservatives Should Embrace the Triumph of Disruptive Innovation Over Old Media”


Anatomy of a Left-Wing Smear: The Great Tea Party Conspiracy Busted

-By Warner Todd Huston

Playboy Magazine got its undies in a bundle over the nation wide Tea Party protests held last Friday that were inspired by CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s free market rant of February 19. As Noel Sheppard noted on March 1, the skin mag published a piece claiming that Santelli was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to protest Obama’s socialist policies.

It turns out, however, that the story has been proven false and in response Playboy has mysteriously removed the piece that first raised the question of the grand conspiracy. Happily, the facts have won over on Playboy forcing it to pull down the fallacious story. In its place, all we now get is a “We’re sorry, we couldn’t find the page you requested,” notice.

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Anatomy of a Left-Wing Smear: The Great Tea Party Conspiracy Busted”


Congress Letting Kids Fail In Bailoutville

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York has been a self-styled education mayor. He’s made all sorts of proposals and tried several different angles — some good some not so good — to improve the education of the kids of New York. He has, though, been a proponent of school choice and this advocacy looks to be a success, at least for the kids of Harlem’s District 5.

Recently District 5 sponsored the first ever Harlem Education Fair at which 5,000 parents and kids turned out to see what opportunities for school choice can be employed to improve their children’s education. 50 different schools, traditional as well as charter, competed for parents’ attention and the public money that will follow their children.

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Congress Letting Kids Fail In Bailoutville”


Terrorist to ‘Lecture’ Illinois Kids

-By Warner Todd Huston

Dear Illinois,  
Thanks for Paying me to talk to your kids.  
Love, Bill Ayres,  
writer, teacher, terrorist

Illinois you have the honor of seeing your tax dollars go to pay terrorist William Ayers to “lecture” students at the University of Illinois. Not only will he be “lecturing” your students for a week at the Urbana campus, but your tax dollars at work will afford him free room and board at Allen Hall, as well.

Isn’t it heart warming that this killer and hater of America is being paid state dollars to help teach your college kids? Doesn’t it make you all warm and squishy inside that this anti-American, hater is there in Urbana to spread his lies and destructive ideas among the students he encounters there? And doesn’t it make us as a society so smart and open-minded to allow enemies to nurture our youth?

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Terrorist to ‘Lecture’ Illinois Kids”


Stimulus Disincentives

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Family farms are losers in the stimulus pork barrel.

Bob Utterback writes a regular column called Outlook. It appears in the Farm Journal, the largest national circulation publication focusing upon family-owned farms.

Mr. Utterback travels continually among farming communities across the nation to gauge market conditions and farmers’ market sentiment. His February 14 column suggests that President Obama’s stimulus bill will be, on balance, a series of disincentives for family farms to run the risks of aggressive farming, because the stimulus bill unfavorably raises the risk / reward ratio.
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Stimulus Disincentives”


Obama Is Not America’s Hope

-By Frederick Meekins

During a recent trip to a local Wal-Mart, I saw something quite disturbing as I stood in the checkout line. In the magazine wrack was a commemorative edition of some publication with a portrait of Barack Obama on the cover.

That was not the disturbing part even to someone that did not vote for him. Behind him on the cover was a glow making him look angelic or even messianic in appearance. Above the image, the words read “Barack Obama: The Hope Of America”.
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Obama Is Not America’s Hope”


WTH LIVE on B Cast (Breitbart TV)

-By Warner Todd Huston

Folks,

I know it’s short notice (was for me, too) but I’ll be doing Breitbart TV’s B Cast show with Scott Baker at the top of the next hour on the Rush/Rahm Emanuel/James Carville et al deal.

We tried to work it for yesterday, but things didn’t work out.

This time I’ve got Skype set up and I’ll be doing a video with the B Cast team. Watch it live at:

http://www.breitbart.tv/?cat=49

As soon as the show is over, I’ll post the address for the archive.

WTH


More on the Flailing Inner Workings of Illinois GOP

-By Warner Todd Huston

I know, I know… it’s getting sickening to see the Illinois GOP flopping around like a dying mackerel, but if we don’t air this garbage it’ll never come out in the wash. These examples of the fecklessness of the Illinois GOP is the reason the party cannot capitalize on the most corrupt opponents in the Union; Illinois Democrats.

Anyway, this time we have the sort of double dealing and flip flopping that simply makes a candidate look foolish. You all have seen my discussions of SB600, the bill that will resurrect the policy of elections for party leadership positions of the state GOP central committee. You also may remember that the power players currently controlling the party want to prevent the rank and file from having the opportunity to vote them into or out of power.

Well, here is the next part of this twisted and disheartening saga. We have a State Senator, Bill Brady (R, 44th Dist), that has already run for governor without success. He was bested the last time by long-time party operative Judy Baar Topinka (last state treasurer) who got the party nod through the primary — and from the party leadership before hand — to face the criminal Rod Blagojevich in the race for governor. Since he lost to Topinka, Brady will be running for governor again for the 2010 elections.

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More on the Flailing Inner Workings of Illinois GOP”


Obama’s New Jobs Success: For Creating New Lobbyist Jobs, That Is

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, President Obama really does have some success at new jobs creation that he can proudly point to as evidence that his “stimulus” is working. Apparently, Democrat staffers are fleeing the Hill for K Street, that swanky address where so many lobbying firms have taken up residence in D.C. Not only have Democrat aides been finding some great new jobs in lobbying firms, but they’re getting premium salaries, to boot. These Democrat aids turned lobbyists are commanding $350,000 to $450,000 salaries on K Street.

Chris Frates of Politico is reporting that Democrat aides are “hot commodities” as new employees for lobbying firms. The reason? Obama’s new policies are so confusing and complicated that these firms are scrambling to get a staffer that has any idea at all about what is going on to help them figure out what to do for those they represent.

So, Obama is growing the size of K Street and helping create lucrative new jobs for his loyalists on the Hill in the doing. Must be nice. It is a bit perplexing, though. Obama spent nearly two years attacking lobbyists as the bane of American politics. Candidate Obama was all about the evil, evil money in politics, that money he so hated, and he was going to eliminate it all for you and me. It’s only because he loves us so, you see.

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Obama’s New Jobs Success: For Creating New Lobbyist Jobs, That Is”


Newsweek Map Labels Israel as ‘Palestinian Territory’

-By Warner Todd Huston

I don’t know if Newsweek is as eager to be rid of Israel as “The State of Islam” is these days or not, but on its interactive online map of the mid east, the news mag is featuring a map of Israel labeled as “Palestinian Territory.”

Once you click over to the Newsweek map, holding the mouse over the tiny red shape north of Egypt will bring up a popup map showing Israel clearly labeled as “PalestinianTerritory.”

Here is a screen shot of the current map on Newsweek’s site:

Of course, we all know that to be the shape of Israel, not any “Palestinian Territory”… unless you happen to be looking in Jihadi textbooks and online sites, of course. Perhaps Newsweek hired some nice Jihadis to create its website?

Nice move, Newsweek. Really trustworthy work, there.

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Newsweek Map Labels Israel as ‘Palestinian Territory’”


Obama WH Secret Phone Conferences Bear Fruit With TV Media’s Limbaugh Attack

-By Warner Todd Huston

Back on January 29, we discussed the daily strategy phone call engineered by Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for friendly TV commentators and “reporters.” Politico reported that Emanuel has a daily phone conference call with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, and CNN’s James Carville and Paul Begala. With Rush Limbaugh’s raucous CPAC address, as he termed it his “first address to the nation,” we can see at least one example of what is likely an attack strategy resulting from the Emanuel phone session with a rush to bash Rush the day after the appearance. [Image credit: politico.com]

As soon as the sun rose on the day after Limbaugh’s CPAC appearance, three of the four of the phone call participants attacked Limbaugh with the same talking points. It seems obvious that they coordinated their attack together in the Obama secret strategy session. It is amazing that a president’s staff can have such power over major media figures without a peep being heard from those that only months ago bashed former presidents over a perceived undue, even “dangerous,” control of the media.

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Obama WH Secret Phone Conferences Bear Fruit With TV Media’s Limbaugh Attack”


Burris Deals From a Full Deck of Race Cards

-By Warner Todd Huston

I have been saying for some time that we will have our recalcitrant Illinois Senator Roland Burris representing himself… er, I mean us… at least until 2010 and quite probably during the upcoming primaries for those seeking a full term afterward, as well. This weekend more proof to that eventual end was arranged by a room full of black ministers from Chicago.

ABC channel 7 news televised a report of Senator Burris’ appearance in a church on the south side of Chicago for a laying on of ministerly hands and a defiant claim that he isn’t going anywhere but right back to Washington D.C.

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Burris Deals From a Full Deck of Race Cards”


The Greenpocrisy of Congress: Canceling ‘Carbon Offset’ Buys for Congress’ Power Plant

-By Warner Todd Huston

Go “green” or go out of business. That is the message Congress wants to send to America’s power plants run by coal — and any and every other power facility for that matter. Congressmen after Congressmen have waddled forth onto TV and into print to wag a green finger at our power grid scolding it for being “too dirty” and not environmentally friendly. These politicians, you see, know better and they must be listened to. After all, they are trying to save the planet!

And to show how the folks walking the marbled halls of the nation’s capitol care about the environment they are canceling the buying of so-called “carbon offsets” and announcing that they are abandoning efforts to further “green” the aging coal powered power plant that keeps the lights on, cools its halls, and heats Congress in the summer.

Yes, while they are attempting to force the lowly, great-unwashed people of the country to “go green,” they themselves are abandoning their own efforts to do so. The folks of the Democrat controlled Congress are nothing short of green hypocrites, see them at their greenpocrisy.

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The Greenpocrisy of Congress: Canceling ‘Carbon Offset’ Buys for Congress’ Power Plant”


Adam Kinzinger For Illinois 11th — Hero, Patriot

-By Warner Todd Huston

Captain Adam Kinzinger, 30, officer in the Air National Guard, was enjoying a night on the town in Milwaukee in May of 2007 when he saw before him a woman clutching her neck and bleeding profusely, a man with a knife standing behind her. Acting quickly, then Lt. Kinzinger subdued the man and stopped any further harm from coming to the unknown woman.

Others also came to his aid to keep the attacker subdued and still others whisked the injured woman off to a local hospital for treatment. It is reported to have taken about 100 stitches to close the wound. The attacker is in jail awaiting trial for the assault.

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Adam Kinzinger For Illinois 11th — Hero, Patriot”


An Internet Economy or “Ecommony?” Growing pushback against ‘Information wants to be free’

-By Scott Cleland

The recession has created new urgency for multiple content industries to find a better way to protect and monetize their property/content in the digital world. The dot-com bubble ethos that “information wants to be free” is like a gross mold destroying the incentives to create valuable content and distribute it digitally. (Be sure not to miss the shocking analysis at the end of this e-mail comparing revenue generation per user in the digital “ecommony” versus the real economy.)

The first point of this e-mail is to connect-the-dots about why several content industries are currently in the news, actively pushing back against the “ecommony” anti-business model, where content owners are expected to essentially give away their valuable content to the open Internet/digital commons without the requirement of permission or payment.
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An Internet Economy or “Ecommony?” Growing pushback against ‘Information wants to be free’”


‘Oh, God!’ It’s Bobby Jindal!

-By Frank Salvato

It is no secret that today’s mainstream media has morphed into an ideological and agenda-driven propaganda machine, complete with preconceived notions and pre-existing biases. We witnessed the repercussions of this ethical degradation first-hand in the mainstream media’s failure to critically examine the Obama presidential candidacy prior to the 2008 Presidential Election. This bastardization of the media’s informational charge can only be understood as being detrimental to the United States.

Recent episodes involving Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews illustrate precisely how the mainstream media is leading the intolerance movement and why their actions serve to divide our country.
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‘Oh, God!’ It’s Bobby Jindal!”


ABC News: Conservatives Are Biggest Porn Consumers?

-By Warner Todd Huston

ABC News is excited about porn. At least excited by the “fact” that conservative and religious states have the highest levels of porn usage in the country. This, ABC says, is according to a study by Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School. Yes, it’s another one of those dime-a-dozen studies.

ABC trumpets the bare “facts” in its February 28 piece titled, “Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are Biggest Consumers.” In its first few paragraphs the report claims that, “Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious” than states in the more liberal areas of the country. But there is a problem with ABC’s heavy-handed claim. Even the Harvard researcher doesn’t put too much emphasis on the “conservative states” aspect because his data doesn’t show a very wide gulf between states, conservative or not.

In fact, professor Edelman takes pains to say, “When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different.” This tends to relay that the rates from state to state really aren’t that notable. Edelman also says later in the piece that, “The differences here are not so stark,” where it concerns the data he compiled.

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ABC News: Conservatives Are Biggest Porn Consumers?”


More on Where Our Schools go Wrong

-By Warner Todd Huston

U.S. colleges are demanding. That’s right they are sternly demanding. You see, they are all upset that the Japanese government is not promoting study abroad for its citizens and they are demanding that the Japanese government get more of its citizens to pony up the cash for a U.S. college degree and if the people won’t do it, why these U.S. colleges demand that the government do it in their stead.

And this demand proves once again just how unAmerican U.S. colleges are.

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More on Where Our Schools go Wrong”


MSNBC Headline Focuses on ‘Assault Rifle’ in Killing — No Other AP Headlines Do

-By Warner Todd Huston

MSNBC took the occasion of a triple homicide on Chicago’s south side to push its own anti-“assault rifle” meme on February 27 by including the words “assault rifle” in the headline of its story on the incident. No other media source, however, took this unusual step. So, here we have some old fashioned bias by MSNBC.

MSNBC’s version of the story clumsily screams “Man charged in assault rifle killings of 3 teens” over the top of its AP wire feed. Yet, while every story in the news and certainly every AP story mentions that the killer used an “assault rifle,” only MSNBC put the words in the headline. This befits MSNBC’s anti-gun agenda, presumably.

It is well known that many news outlets write their own headlines for AP wire stories. Not every paper, TV station or radio website does this, of course, but it does happen frequently. So, it is no surprise to see the MSNBC website with a different headline than other versions of the same AP wire story. However, no other story has “assault rifle” in the headline but MSNBC.

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MSNBC Headline Focuses on ‘Assault Rifle’ in Killing — No Other AP Headlines Do”


In Defense of the White Man

-By Selwyn Duke

While many believe that prejudice has diminished over time, it’s not really true. Prejudice is much like the wind: Its direction changes, and the sheltered and well-situated may not sense it, but it’s always blowing on some people somewhere. Put literally, every age has its fashionable biases – and unfashionable people.

This was obvious during the presidential inauguration benediction, given by the Reverend Joseph Lowery. While making a supplication to the Lord, he made the following anachronistic plea:
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In Defense of the White Man”


Publius Podcast: The Battle Hymn of the Republic — A Fantastic School Concert

-By Warner Todd Huston

You’ve just got to hear this great effort of some school bands and choruses doing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It is inspiring.

It can be found on greatdanepromilitary.com and had it recommended to me by my friend Paul Young at prying1.blogspot.com.

Take a listen to this fantastic arrangement…

Feel free to visit the Publius Forum TalkShoe page to see my past podcasts. New podcasts appear approximately monthly, or whenever the mood strikes me to do one.


Stop Illinois from Adopting California’s Destructive Fuel Standards

-By Warner Todd Huston

California has always been a destructive force in American politics. All too often the worst ideas from the farthest Euro-left spectrum have leaked out of the Golden State to blight the rest of America. Just one of those currently destructive ideas is the absurdly stringent fuel economy standards that California has foolishly enacted. Several western states have pegged their standards to California’s and many other states are attempting to do the same. The current effort in Illinois is one of those attempts.

Illinois H.B. 422 (see .pdf of legislation), sponsored by Karen May (D, Highland Park) creates the Illinois Clean Air Act establishing new motor vehicle emission standards based on California’s Low Emission Vehicle Program requirements.

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Stop Illinois from Adopting California’s Destructive Fuel Standards”


SanFran Chron Columnist: Obama is ‘Articulate, Zen-like, Brave,’ There’s ‘Obamafied Bliss’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mark Morford out does himself with sycophantic, hyperbole over his Obammessiah, today, February 27. He so revels in hero worship for The One, it’s amazing that the White House doesn’t feel compelled to get an order of protection against this creepy columnist.

No one in the Old Media is more sold on The One and less credible for his girlish crush than Morford. He is a fount of mush as he wonders if he should be scared of today’s problems or suffused with lust in his heart for Obama (if you’ll remember the Carterism).

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SanFran Chron Columnist: Obama is ‘Articulate, Zen-like, Brave,’ There’s ‘Obamafied Bliss’”


Neutralism: Identifying the ideology behind net neutrality —

-By Scott Cleland

Where did the net neutrality issue come from? And why is it such a persistent issue? In researching answers to these important questions, I came across a key quote by Yale Professor Yochai Benkler in his 2006 book “Wealth of Networks”:

“There was a moment…in 2001, when a range of people who were doing similar things … seemed to cohere into a single intellectual movement, centered on the importance of the commons to information production and creativity in general, and to the digitally networked environment in particular.”
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Neutralism: Identifying the ideology behind net neutrality —”


Paul Harvey, Good Day and Goodbye

-By Warner Todd Huston

Paul Harvey is gone. Harvey was a giant in the industry of radio broadcasting but he was a singularly different sort of news reporter. In a day when the goal of every other broadcaster seems to be to dive straight to the lowest common denominator, to celebrate to low born and venal, Harvey’s was always to uplift the listener and to celebrate the greatness of America.

With his easily parodied style, his was a distinctive voice. He was from a time when the sound was important, the delivery the thing. And deliver he did. His well used pause and distinctive cadence was so entirely compelling that one simply could not turn away.

But it wasn’t only the style and sound that interested Harvey. It was the content.

Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story” segments always, always told the story of some man or woman that struggled hard through life until they found that one thing that brought them fame, fortune or adulation. Harvey meant these stories to give us all hope. His guiding principle was that “tomorrow is always better than today.”

Paul Harvey, gone at 90. He will be missed and we will wait a long, long time to see his like again… if we ever do.

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Paul Harvey, Good Day and Goodbye”