“The Iron Lady” producer Harvey Weinstein is one of Hollywood’s most outspoken liberals. But Weinstein is finding himself saying some complimentary things about conservative icon Margaret Thatcher to drum up interest in his new film.

He’s also using Thatcher’s name to praise President Barack Obama.

I always find myself rooting for people who stand up for what they believe in, and it always gives me a great charge to see it happen. But it’s all too rare, and I know this will shock my Republican friends, but I know President Obama is someone who stands up for what he believes, and I know the First Lady does as well. They are strong believers in helping America’s underserved. They might go about it differently than Margaret Thatcher, but their belief is strong. And in the end, lending a helping hand, may achieve the same result as Thatcher, if it is done properly.

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If you’re Jon Stewart, you know you can’t point to President Barack Obama’s record and say, “just check the re-election box here.”

So that means Stewart and his fellow humorists, who more often than not set entertainment criteria aside to promote their agendas, will have to do some fancy footwork to keep Obama in office for four more years.

Voila, the race card.

Get the f[bleep] out out of here. Santorum? Really? Republicans, you gonna try every chocolate in the box? Is that, look, look, here’s your candidates. Here’s your candidates. Let’s call it a “White Man’s Sampler.”

Stewart couldn’t find the race card when the overwhelmingly white Occupy Wall Street crowd clogged up public space for weeks at a time. Handy that he found it just now, right?

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Jane Fonda must have slipped President Barack Obama one of her patented VHS workout tapes.

Why else would the “Barbarella” beauty think the president will be “stronger” in his second term of office?

Fonda, currently hitting the talk show circuit like a boxer pummeling the speed bag, shared why she thinks that not only will Obama win re-election next year but he’ll be an even better president come 2013.

Fonda also talked politics with CNN’s Piers Morgan on December 8, saying she wishes President Barack Obama would be “stronger” in office.

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Filmmaker Brian Malone ran into some trouble when trying to interview Congressmen for his documentary “Patriocracy.”

They feared he was another Michael Moore.

Malone eventually earned the trust of politicos on both sides of the aisle to complete his new film, which just had its world premiere at the Starz Denver Film Festival. The film strains to take a non-ideological look at why the current political system is in such turmoil, from the suffocating presence of lobbyists to partisan bickering of epic proportions.

For every Democratic Congressman on camera there’s a Republican member close behind him or her.

It’s everything a Moore film isn’t.

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Consider Michael Moore the latest celebrity to see the sour side of Hope and Change.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker won’t be voting for Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or Herman Cain next year, but he’ll pull the lever for President Barack Obama with a heavy heart. And no, that’s not a fat joke.

Moore described Obama’s first three years in office to the BBC as “heart-breaking” and a “disappointment.”

“He did not come into office like I hoped that he would, to do what Franklin Roosevelt did in his first few months where he came in and said, you know, ‘I’m in charge, this is the way we’re doing things, if you don’t like it, throw me out of office,’” Moore said.

Moore said Obama spent the past three years “running the ball in the wrong direction” before making somewhat of a turnaround with a jobs bill and other economic plans.

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The little boy sitting with a cop in a diner could have been myself sitting with my police surgeon father on a morning of “custody fights” between my “mom” and my “dad.” I wasn’t a runaway yet. I would be.

George Moriarty, my father – tacitly known as a “Little George” to my grandfather, “Big George” Moriarty – was easily as “big” as that police officer in Norman Rockwell’s ‘The Runaway.’

Over a decade older than that boy in the painting, I ran away to New York City and London only to face a painfully humiliating return to Detroit where I was born.

Oh, well … we’ve all had those moments in our lives … and, as I’ve learned, “God had other plans for me than my own” and God’s plans turned out more blissfully rewarding than the ones I’d dreamed of as a boy.

However, it seems like more than 40 percent of Americans are now running away from the defining principles of America and America’s individual freedom. They applaud Barack Obama’s efforts to “fundamentally transform the United States.”

Why do I say that?

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I’ll never forget the first time I caught the Discovery Channel’s long-running series “Dirty Jobs.” It was 2005, the year the show premiered, and we were visiting my dad who was already a fan. Truth be told, I wanted no part of the show. First, some background…

My father has spent his life keeping fighter jets flying in the Air Force, fixing your cars, keeping your nursing homes up to code, and remodeling your homes. At 72, there’s still nothing he can’t do, and that includes building a three-car garage from scratch and doing so all by himself. Over fifty-plus years, my father’s hands have been dirty and yet the idea of joining a union is unthinkable to him. He’s self-taught and too disgusted by the very idea of receiving something for nothing to want anything to do with the spoiled, entitled, collective mindset that infects most unions today. Therefore, I was shocked to learn that, because he felt it looked at the world of those who do physical labor for a living in a very entertaining and respectful way, there was a reality show he was enthused about .

If you recall, things were a lot different in pop culturedom in the year of our Lord 2005. This recent flurry of reality programming that portrays working class Americans and entrepreneurs as the everyday heroes they are were still on the horizon, and popular culture was still very much enamored by young, hip urbanites. When you saw blue collar men on television or in films, they were usually the butt of the joke — the moron, the buffoon, the clueless, the creep, the ignorant, the guy with the butt crack who  fixed Rachel, Monica and Phoebe’s sink to hysterical canned laughter.

I was so sick of this, so tired and disgusted with elitist Hollywood and their heroic lawyers, professors, and journalists, that the thought of watching some snarky, superior television host mock and belittle those doing “dirty jobs” — or as I like to call it, the work that keeps the world turning — was the last thing I wanted to see.

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Rocker Jon Bon Jovi can afford to eat at any restaurant on the globe. It’s a perk of being a world-famous rock star, the kind that can gouge fans with insanely high concert ticket prices.

But his biggest culinary passion comes from running a “pay what you can” restaurant in his beloved home state.

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This series was inspired by the a six part, video examination of Dimitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

Before you go to sleep, however, or bump up another article, stay with me and this article’s title.

The cited video is Michael Tilson Thomas’ exceptional and exceptionally moving tribute to the soul of Dimitri Shostakovich and the hidden meanings within his Fifth Symphony that has profound relevance to the direction we are headed into with the Progressive New World Order.

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The Tilson Thomas complete video is an intensely condensed portrait of Stalin’s Russia. I consider the Tilson Thomas lecture/documentary a “must-see” for anyone viewing America primarily through the eyes of Hollywood and the performing arts.

The Soviet Union ravenously fed on the terror we can find breathing beneath the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony. The nightmare is only there, however, and can only be perceived if we begin to understand the musical code with which Shostakovich is constructing an obligatory deception.

Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is a lie?

How do you appease a terrorist, the homicidal Communist Joseph Stalin, while, at the same time being true to yourself and your calling as an artist?

With that challenge in mind, why would I ever come up with the title, Bringing America Home Again?

The history of Stalin’s Russia is vitally important as a measure of how far the Progressive New World Order has dragged America and Americans away from their original faith in individual freedom and individual responsibility.

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From Accuracy in Media’s Val Jensen II:

New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, broke a story last Saturday on the White House’s curious role in the production of a new Hollywood movie that tells the story of the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEAL Team 6. The movie is set to be released October 12, 2012, conveniently just before the November presidential elections.

The movie’s creators are none other than director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist Mark Boal, whose 2009 movie, “The Hurt Locker,” won six Academy Awards in 2010.

The White House has offered Bigelow and Boal a questionable in-depth look into the mission which ended the terror king’s reign and is getting “top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration,” according to Dowd.

Predictably, The Washington Post, Reuters and, The Los Angeles Times led their coverage of the story with White House denials of jeopardizing national security. The Politico took a more balanced approach.

According to a Politico article on the matter, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, has written a letter to the CIA and Department of Defense demanding an investigation into the White House role in allowing unprecedented access into the mission and is quoted as saying, “It shouldn’t have been out there that SEAL Team 6 did this, and there have been so many details out there.” King continues, “And now we find out they are cooperating with a movie — what are we doing?”

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Looks as though someone got the DNC memo:

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Man oh man, Jon Stewart has the left-wing spin and talking points down cold, doesn’t he? No one with even a smidgen of intellectual honesty uses the term “revenues increases,” and to blame the Bush tax cuts (or any tax cuts) on the deficit — especially after Obama’s unprecedented spending orgy — is nothing more than pure propaganda.

Do Tea Partiers want government gone? No.

Do Tea Partiers want to pay zero dollars in taxes? No.

But if you got your news from Jon Stewart, you wouldn’t know that. And God help us all, people do get their news from Jon Stewart.

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In 1796, President George Washington decided to retire from public service, thus not seeking a third term. He wrote a 32 page Farewell Address, with Alexander Hamilton’s ever present counsel. It was printed in Philadelphia’s American Daily Advertiser, on September 19, 1796. Not only is it mesmerizing, it is pertinent. To shed light on the remarkable, relevancy of his words and the timelessness of his wisdom, I am writing a five-part series on George Washington’s Farewell Address.

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Where is reason?

But the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory to all.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, speaks to us about the obligation we have, as citizens, to the United States Constitution. Obligation. Americans, we the people, who live in America, we the people, who reap from her spirit, her resources, her goodness, her history of independence and equality, should be obliged to live by and honor our Constitution.

But do we? How can we, if we do not know it?

Americans love football. How would we ever expect a football player to play the game, if he did not know the rules? Similarly, how do we expect to maintain our republic if we do not know the rules, the laws, of our intended government?

Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty.

George Washington states that we should respect the Constitution’s authority, comply with its laws, acquiesce to its measures.

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This is why we love having rockers on our side:

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When Russell Simmons recently said, “Donald Trump is not a racist,” I thought it was a nice gesture. Although Simmons was stating the obvious — we’ve all watched Trump on television for years, and unless he’s really good at hiding ulterior motivations, it’s always been clear that race is not an important issue to him – it was good to see Simmons stand up for a friend’s reputation.  However, the same thing cannot be said about Simmons’ recent support for Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., a.k.a. “Common,” one of the guests who joined President Obama in celebrating “poetry and prose” at a White House last night.

Simply put, whereas Simmons’ defense of Trump was well-received because Trump’s past doesn’t contain even a hint of racist tendencies, his attempts to gloss over Common’s participation in a White House event are untenable.

Why?

Well, for starters, Common is another disciple of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. You remember Rev. Wright don’t you? He’s the one who cursed America in God’s name and then implied that terrorist attacks against us were proof that “America’s chickens were coming home to roost.” (Of course, in a perverted way it makes sense that Common would be going to the White House as the President himself is another Rev. Wright disciple: the only difference being that Common admits and maintains his ties to Wright while Obama tries to downplay his.)

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So a lot of people deserve credit for killing bin Laden: President Obama, the Navy SEALS and our military in general, intelligence gatherers, the previous administration, and many other people.

But you also gotta give credit to Debra Burlingame, sister of one of the victims of 9/11, who used her chance to meet President Obama yesterday to gently prod him over the indictments of CIA interrogators.

Remember, CIA Director Leon Panetta admits that the initial info that led to finding bin Laden came, in part, from “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on detainees.

So why then, the prosecution? Well, Debra noted the irony, and asked the Prez to press Erik Holder to end them.

Obama said he wouldn’t.

Which is poop.

To me, prosecuting CIA agents after bin Laden’s death is like the Packers trading Aaron Rodgers to the Panthers after winning the Superbowl.

That’s not exactly like going to prison, but it is the Panthers.

(And yes, I made a sports metaphor. I do know my baseball)

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A queer rhetorical and ideological alliance is found recently between President Obama and Joe Guzzardi, a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and a prominent contributor to V-DARE.com, which Leftists have denounced as a “White Supremacist/hate group” website.

Mr. Guzzardi writes:

…population control [is] the ultimate green practice. As long as the most environmentally enlightened Americans ignore the relationship between population growth and environmental sustainability, then America will lose the green fight. In the 1970s, reducing population was so mainstream that biologist and Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich regularly appeared on the Johnny Carson Show as an advocate. Today, it’s rarely mentioned…  

[A] solution to slowing America’s population… advocate for limiting family size. Having two or more children is not an obligation.

In a stunning display, Mr. Obama echoes Guzzardi’s “solution” in a recent town hall appearance. During the question-and-answer, Mr. Obama singled out for Alinsky-ridicule at least two attendees for their dissent in driving “Big SUV/Monster Trucks,” and having too many kids:

Obama has also championed abortion and callously mocked the Special Olympics and “water heads.”

The Urban Dictionary defines “water head” as “a person with mental health problems, i.e. downs syndrome, or retard.” (more…)

If you know someone who graduated high school in the last 10 years, they don’t remember the Kennedys. They don’t remember what John Kennedy did to this country. They don’t remember what it was like having someone with such popular persuasion in the White House. Despite what the radical left tells people around my age, President Obama doesn’t have the charisma or the oratory skills that JFK is touted to have had. But no one my age could know that for sure without study. We’re told that Michelle Obama, who considers it chic to wear misfitted, neon-colored capris to Presidential events, is as enamoring and elegant as Jackie Kennedy. We’re told that President Kennedy was one of the great President of the 20th century. And “The Kennedys” almost wasn’t released because the institutional left and the Kennedys themselves didn’t want a picture to be painted that could possibly show otherwise.

The series demonstrates an exquisite attention to detail. The costuming is flawless and the cinematography fits with the era being portrayed. The casting and delivery not only makes the characters believable, but very enjoyable to watch. The two hour premiere shows glimpses of the road to President Kennedy being elected and gives some of the background stories from “Jack” and Joe’s childhood. As a person who currently has a close loved one deployed overseas in the War on Terror, watching any scene where a family is told about the death of a loved one lost in war is difficult. The atmosphere that was generated in the scene where the Kennedys are told of their oldest son’s death was so thick you could taste it, and the score was perfectly aligned with the all of the emotion of the moment.

While watching “The Kennedys,” it was easy for me to slip into the mode that I was watching an entertaining historical documentary. Seeing how this mini-series portrayed Joe Kennedy, the older brother who tragically died in WWII, as a man who was driven to become President, I believed it was true. For a moment, I believed that HE was truly the one that was supposed to run for President, when in fact, I personally don’t know that at all. I never studied the Kennedys in any depth. The left is always trying to shove them down my throat so I want little to do with them even though they were iconic characters in American history. But watching “The Kennedys,” seeing how easily my perception could be altered about them (in conjunction with the reviews of this series from here at Big Hollywood and Rush Limbaugh), it occurred to me that one day my children could watch a miniseries called “The Bushes” (doesn’t have quite the same ring to it).

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When I read Sarah Silverman’s gushing description of a “private” meeting between her and President Obama in a hotel hallway, one in which he gave her “a big hug,” my first reaction was to laugh out loud. I found it hilarious that even amid crippling unemployment figures, skyrocketing energy prices, and foreign policies only Jimmy Carter could love, Hollywood elitism was still clinging to the dream.

Of course it went from hilarious to sickening when I read further into Silverman’s account of the event, and saw how she reacted to the “big hug” by equating Obama’s body with that of a thoroughbred. At this point I said to myself: “Silverman has obviously never hugged a thoroughbred.” (I grew up around racehorses, and Obama’s emasculated frame is by no means reminiscent of a thoroughbred.)

As a matter of fact, Silverman’s comparison of the two – Obama’s body with that of a thoroughbred – is so silly that one might call her sanity into question were it not for the fact that she’s not alone in speaking the absurd in relation to Obama. In other words, she’s not the only Hollywood celebrity to utter such imbecility; she’s just the latest one.

For example, during the 2008 campaign cycle, director Spike Lee said an Obama presidency would not simply bring “a new day, [but] a better day.” George Clooney said Obama possessed “the one quality you cannot teach…which is he is a leader.” And actor Josh Lucas described Obama as “a truly scholarly man.” (Pardon me while I throw up.)

I wonder what the people represented by the approximately 10% unemployment figures in this country would say about Obama’s new day? I wonder what Gulf of Mexico residents who watched Obama play golf in 2010 instead of taking a hands-on approach to the BP oil spill would say of his leadership? And since when does thinking the United States has 57 states or stuttering through speeches on a teleprompter or spending a country into oblivion by running a 3 trillion dollar deficit up to 14 trillion in 2 years seem scholarly?

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It’s impossible to work in the theatre industry and not have colleagues, business partners and life-long friends who are gay. I have always viewed this fact as one of the most wonderful and enriching dynamics of the theatre community.  It’s so invigorating being part of a show (which very soon takes on the characteristics of a family) and have people from every walk of life represented, often by “Type A” personalities who bring joy and variety to the daily routine of presenting a show.

After collaborating with gay associates for almost thirty years, I’ve reached the conclusion that most gay men hold a fundamentally center/right view on most economic and national security issues.  The over-riding feeling expressed to me from my gay friends is the deeply held desire to be left alone.  And after watching GOProud Chairman Christopher Barron take this obnoxious attack from non-entity Cenk Uyger for having the temerity to identify himself as a conservative, I’ve reached the greater conclusion that the conservative movement needs articulate and courageous voices like this as part of our team.

As Mr. Barron puts it: “I have an easier time being openly gay with conservatives than I do being a conservative with other gay people.”  So, if CPAC and the Republican Party can be accepting of gay conservatives who don’t hold exactly to every single position espoused by the party, why can’t Broadway do the same?
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We, the American public, hold it as an article of faith that those responsible for devising and implementing public policy have our best interests at heart. Our best minds are hard at work, striving to make the world a better place. Our elected officials are dedicated to protecting our freedoms, increasing our prosperity, and securing justice for all.

What, then, is the public to assume when, in spite of the best efforts of our most brilliant thinkers and politicians, freedoms erode, prosperity decreases, and for a great many, justice seems elusive? Surely, sinister forces must be at work.

Let us take for an example the nation’s system of public education. For years, American taxpayers have been sold on a triad of public policy fixes for public education. In order to improve student performance, state and federal governments must dedicate a greater portion of their budgetary dollars to education; class sizes must be reduced, and there must be greater oversight by the federal government. So fervent is the belief in this holy trinity of education, that to even ponder the efficacy of the federal Department of Education is seen as heresy. Any politician who attempts to curb the unrestricted flow of tax dollars to public schools is accused of not wanting to “invest in education.”

And yet, increases in spending have not resulted in a corresponding increase in student achievement. Studies have shown that over the last 50 years, student proficiency in math and English has shown little improvement even as spending and federal government oversight has increased and class size has decreased. Given the brilliance and dedication of our public servants, the failure of significant academic gains to materialize, in spite of billions spent on education, can only be the devil’s work.

And if you are a black man, the devil must, indeed, be working overtime. (more…)