On the fifth anniversary of the passing of America’s 40th President, Ronald Wilson Reagan, we’re posting an article written about the legacy he left behind, from the Heritage Foundation

The Legacy of Ronald Reagan
by Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.

Conqueror of communism, sworn enemy of statism, leader of unshakable conviction and contagious optimism, Ronald Reagan became one of history’s heroes long before his death.

At a time when patriotism was mocked, he exposed the bankruptcy of modern liberalism and proved that true liberty is still a fighting faith. And like all great presidents, he created a yardstick against which future presidents will be measured.

President Reagan was not only congenitally optimistic; he could talk “through the camera” to the American people, making each viewer feel as if it were just the two of them. They were comfortable with him — and this made them comfortable with his ideas. He had no need for spin doctors to convey what he “really meant.” His message of lower taxes, smaller government and a strong U.S. military resonated deeply with the nation.

Indeed, no one since Franklin Roosevelt connected so well with ordinary Americans. In many ways, Reagan did for the 1980s what Roosevelt did for an America struggling with the Great Depression. He took an America suffering from “malaise” and double-digit inflation at home, as well as declining respect and foreign policy embarrassments abroad, and made its citizens believe again in their destiny as the “last best hope of mankind.”

Long before voters began pining for “authentic” candidates, President Reagan was the genuine article. What you saw was what you got. Those who say he was scripted — a former actor in the role of a lifetime — didn’t know the man.

Continue reading at heritagefoundation.org

Thank you to all the men and women who serve and have served in this nation’s armed forces, fighting for the freedoms we enjoy every day. The sacrifice of those who have died to preserve this great nation will be in our thoughts and prayers today.

Iowans showed their displeasure at the Capitol today by gathering in peaceful protest at a Tea Party. Thousands Hundreds of Iowans listened to speakers on the west side of the building on Tax Day and held signs saying “Give us liberty, not debt,” “Taxed Enough Already,” “Don’t Tax Me Bro!” and “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Iowans have come out against taxes previously this legislative session by showing up in droves to a public hearing on the elimination of Federal Deductibility, a proposal that Democrats brought before the House. The public out cry appears that it may be working as it was reported in the Des Moines Register today that the Federal Deductibility Tax plan ‘dead this session,’ some Dems predict.

House Republicans will standby Iowa taxpayers and continue to fight against policies that seek to increase taxes on Iowa families.

Below are pictures from today’s Tea Party:

See more pictures from today…

“Crook, do you know I believe there are men who want to take my life? And I have no doubt they will do it…..I know no one could do it and escape alive. But if it is to be done, it is impossible to prevent it.”

– Abraham Lincoln to bodyguard, William H. Crook, on April 14, 1865

Today marks the 144th anniversary of the assassination of President Lincoln. Taking place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, when President Lincoln was shot while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre with his wife and two guests.

Abraham Lincoln was the first American President to be assassinated. His assassination had a long-lasting impact upon the United States, and he was mourned around the country. On the Easter Sunday after Lincoln’s death, clergymen around the country praised Lincoln in their sermons. Millions of people came to Lincoln’s funeral procession in Washington, D.C. on April 19, 1865, and as his body was transported 1,700 miles through New York to Springfield, Illinois. His body and funeral train were viewed by millions along the route.

After Lincoln’s death, Ulysses S. Grant called him, “Incontestably the greatest man I ever knew.” Southern-born Elizabeth Blair said that, “Those of southern born sympathies know now they have lost a friend willing and more powerful to protect and serve them than they can now ever hope to find again.”

Lincoln is now immortalized with the Lincoln Memorial, which opened in 1922.

To read more, visit this informative page: http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln.html

From 7 to 9 tonight the House will be holding a public hearing on House File 530, the Choice of Doctor Bill. We posted on the issue last week. Click here to read that post.

You can contact your members to let them know how you feel about the bill. Find their contact information here.

The bill is scheduled to be debated on Friday in the House.

In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday today, here’s a story from Great American History:

by Gordon Leidner

In May 1860, the nation’s attention turned toward Chicago, where the Republicans were meeting to select their presidential candidate.

William H. Seward, the Republican front-runner from New York, sent his political team to Chicago to lock up his party’s nomination. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was not considered proper for the aspiring candidate to go to the convention himself, so Seward sent his political manager, Thurlow Weed, along with his states’ 70 delegates and 13 railroad cars of supporters.

The residents of Chicago were delighted to have their city of 100,000 chosen for the Republican party’s second presidential convention. At the cost of about $6,000, Republicans there built a new convention center for the occasion. Nicknamed “The Wigwam,” it had excellent acoustics and could seat more than 10,000, which purportedly would be the largest audience yet assembled in the country under one roof.

The candidates

Seward and Weed–some would say the unscrupulous Weed–were confident. It would take 233 votes to win the nomination, and they had nearly a third of that in the New York delegation alone.

Who could possibly upset their plans? Not Pennsylvania’s candidate, Simon Cameron. Cameron was considered a crook by most of the country, and would have little support outside of the 54 delegates from Pennsylvania. Not Ohio’s Salmon P. Chase. Ohio’s 46 votes probably would be split between he and fellow Ohioans Sen. Ben Wade and Judge John McClean. Not Missouri’s Edwin Bates–although Bates had Missouri’s 18 delegates and the backing of the nation’s most powerful newspaper editor, Horace Greely of the New York Tribune.

Seward and Weed recognized that they were not on their own turf, and anticipated that Illinois’ “Favorite Son,” Abraham Lincoln, probably would receive all of the states’ 22 votes. Since Illinois was considered a doubtful state for candidate Seward should he be the Republican candidate (where he would have a tough time defeating the anticipated Democratic nominee–Illinois’ other favorite son, Stephen A. Douglas), Weed was prepared to acquire Illinois votes on the second ballot by offering Lincoln the vice-presidential spot.

That should secure Seward’s nomination in the event of a tough floor fight, he and his supporters reckoned.

Lincoln’s strategy

Continue reading…

On this day, November 19th, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. Today marks the 145th anniversary. In honor of that solemn occassion, here is the the speech as engraved on the wall inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow…this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

As the state prepares to deal with the aftermath of this year’s flooding, it’s helpful to take a look back at some historical documents about the Flood of 1993 on the Legislative Service Agency’s website.

The documents can be found here.

Saturday June 14 is Flag Day. During the 2007-2008 General Assembly, the Iowa House took two votes regarding the flag. Click on the following links to see how your state representative voted. Amendment H-8507 (by Rep. Baudler, at the request of his granddaughter, Lauren, who noticed that an American Flag was not displayed at a school assembly at her school) would have required the display of the American flag in school gyms or where the school holds assemblies. It was defeated on a nearly straight party line vote. H-1954 would have required schools to say the Pledge of Allegiance each school day. It was defeated on a nearly straight party line vote.

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.”

Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.

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