I’ve written a couple of times now of an ongoing saga about an American weapons manufacturer, Hawker Beechcraft, being excluded from a bidding process for reasons that are as yet undiscovered. I additionally noted my concern related to the company that the contract was ultimately granted to, a Brazilian company named Embraer, because of their close relationship with the Brazilian government and the Brazilian government’s close relationship with Iran.

The circumstances as they have been laid out are frankly odd.  If Embraer had the superior product, why not simply allow them to win the bidding process as opposed to disqualifying Hawker?  If there was a problem with Hawker’s proposal that could disqualify them, couldn’t they at least be informed as to what it is to have the opportunity to address it in order to stay competitive in the bidding process?  Most importantly to me, am I the only one that sees red flags with a foreign company that has ties to Iran building weapons for the United States military?

I think these are legitimate questions about something that I find concerning and are worthy of being asked and answered.

However, as I’ve written about it, there are some that have reached out to me to essentially say that everything is above board and basically that there’s nothing to see here.  The evidence of this seems to be nothing more than that the people claim it to be so and are very upset that these questions are being asked.  In fact, one commenter in my last post on the subject flat out told me that the request by Hawker for clarification on the reason for their disqualification will cause American soldiers to die.

As I’ve stated in my previous articles, I could easily believe that the government had completely legitimate reasons for disqualifying Hawker.  Anything is possible.  However, there are looming questions that I think are appropriate to ask and apparently others agree with me.

Those people include member of Congress Mike Pompeo, Dan Lipinski, Glenn “GT” Thompson (PA), Lynn Westmoreland, Michael McCaul, Tom McClintock, Steve King, Adam Kinzinger, Anne Marie Buerkle, Mike Fitzpatrick, Kathy Castor, Robert Aderholt, Spencer Bachus, Christopher Murphy, Bobby Rush, Elton Gallegly, Paul Gosar, Kevin Yoder, MoBrooks, Trey Gowdy, Tim Griffin, Tim Huelskamp and Lynn Jenkins.

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I’ve written about the Muslim Brotherhood before at RedState and while researching that post, one thing became abundantly clear: it is a scary organization with a complicated history.

Bill Whittle narrates this excellent video from Encounter Books to help us understand the threat the Brotherhood poses.  Watch and learn.

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As many of you know, I’ve been working on landing a permanent gig at 50k watt powerhouse WBT 1110 AM out of Charlotte, NC.

This past Sunday was my second and final show for the month of January.  In it, I talk EPA, take calls, discuss the establishment, and interview Mark Daniels of Hilex Poly, a company I’ve written about before and America’s largest plastic bag manufacturer.  He helps guide me through the myths of environmental dangers related to their product.  I tried to get him to take a jab at the EPA but apparently they are nice to them.

I wish the same could be said for the coal industry.  Listen in to see what I mean.

Download audio here

Don’t forget to Subscribe in iTunes!

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On last night’s show, Co-host Ace of Spades and I caught up with actor & conservative Adam Baldwin, fresh off of his recent successful run on television series Chuck and on his way to collect an unemployment check.

Conversation went from Ace’s desire to see an Oscar for “Best Driving Into A Wall” to Adam’s contention that our remaining presidential candidates are not the huge steaming piles of cow dung that I perceive them to be.

Also, as the title suggests, we spend an undue amount of time discussing if and when Bill Maher has ever been funny.

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Yesterday I wrote an article on why I view the inevitability of an Obama defeat at the hands of Romney to be less than inevitable.  Mostly I attributed this to weakness on a core issue: Obamacare.  From my view, Romney cannot adequately take on this topic so long as he insists on defending the principles put forth in Romneycare.

His state’s rights position plays ok with the base, but I believe it will be less than compelling to the general electorate when it comes time to decide what separates Obama & Romney on this issue.

In passing, I mentioned that Gingrich, who previously supported the mandate as well, has since determined that he was wrong and will take that to his debates with Obama should he win the nomination.  I based that on this exchange which took place in the South Carolina debate earlier this month:

For the video impaired, Santorum attacked Newt on his support of mandates and questioned his ability to truly stand up to Obama on this issue of healthcare reform, to which Newt responded:

“Of course you can. I’d say, you know, I was wrong and I figured it out.  You were wrong and you didn’t.”

Santorum quickly pointed out that after holding the position strongly for over 10 years, it may not fly in the debates.

When I witnessed this exchange, I decided that Newt had done an adequate enough job of acknowledging that he’d made a mistake and that overall, I was satisfied.

That was before I saw a video at Verum Serum.

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After many months of getting a pass, it seems that the other candidates are willing to finally start hitting Governor Mitt Romney on his major weakness: The Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Law.  The bill, known by most as Romneycare, is (as we all have been saying for many moons) the basis for the much maligned Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise affectionately known as Obamacare.

I’ve been in endless debates and discussions with Romney supporters and surrogates for some time now as they paint a beautiful picture of the ultimate State’s Rights battle. They claim that Romneycare vs Obamacare isn’t about socialized medicine vs the free market. They say it’s actually the core of the Federalist struggle and that Romney will channel Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and march onto the capital steps, fulfilling the dreams and desires of tea partiers nationwide by finally standing up and saying, “Enough is enough! Let the state’s make their decisions Obama! Your days of tyranny are at an end!” And they all rejoiced.

Yet, continually when Romney is approached on this subject in the debates with fellow Republicans, he seems incapable of defending any other point and seems befuddled at the idea that there might be more than one part about Obamacare that American’s had wholly objected to. For him, it’s all about the mandate.

But it’s important to keep in mind, Mitt Romney does not object to the concept of mandates. Far from it actually.

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If you haven’t been keeping up, I’ve been neck deep in a contest to get my own radio show on one of the largest radio stations in the southeast, WBT out of Charlotte, NC. You can see the stages of the contest here, here, & here. After much spamming of twitter and the gracious web real estate of RedState.com, the first day of my new show has finally arrived.

Well…sort of. Actually believe it or not, the contest isn’t over. The final stage of the contest was to have a committee choose the ultimate winner of the contest after the votes had been cast to determine the last two contestants. In order to remedy this, they decided to give me and the other finalist, Bobby DeMuro, a chance to show our stuff this month. We are each getting two shows in the month of January.

Bobby’s first one was last week, mine is tonight.

And what a show it will be! I’ll have none other than Governor Rick Perry on my show to discuss his campaign in South Carolina. We recorded it this morning and there were some minor connection issues, but I urge you to listen in.

Joining me live around 6:15 will be South Carolina superstar Congressman Mick Mulvaney to discuss our Social Security crisis and his endorsement of Governor Perry.

I’ll also be discussing Solyndra, throwing money in holes, myths about the tax code, Climate Gate 2 and much more.

If you’re on twitter and want to shout out to me, use the hashtag #TBHS. If you want to call in, just dial 704.570.1110!

Listen to the show online here from 6-9 pm EST tonight.

The lefties on Twitter are very upset with their favorite paper, The New York Times.  They’ve even started a hashtag (#NewNYTSlogans) attacking them for the apparent lack of dedication to truth that the paper has exhibited of late in its pages.

An article titled, “Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?” is what has sent them into full fledged mock mode and, as best I can understand it, they believe that the Times has basically acknowledged that the truth and fact checking are not top priorities in The New York Times newsroom.

They don’t sound too terribly off from opinions expressed on the right about the Paper of Record.  Perhaps we’ve reached a point where we can all agree that this old world rag is nothing but a liberal front and about as unbiased as Dan Rather?

Not exactly.  

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On last night’s show, Co-host Ace of Spades and I celebrated the inevitability of our presidential candidate.  We have been informed that this candidate will be former Governor Mitt Romney.  We are also told that we should be excited about this.  We are not.

On a brighter note, we also discussed Conan the Barbarian vs Conan the Destroyer, who was really the hero in Wall Street, Oliver Stone’s penchant for beating people over the head with the point in his movies, and the importance of shooting pistols while celebrating victory.

Also cancer.

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On last night’s show, Caleb Howe joins me along with co-host Ace of Spades as we discuss the Iowa primaries as they happened.
Here are your teasers:

• Will Caleb endorse Barack Obama?
• Will Ben pull his microphone off and leave the show mid-conversation?
• Will Ace decide to go 3rd party?
• Will the cat knock over my coffee and spill it on my computer ending the show early?

Download audio here

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The Ben Howe Show airs Tuesday nights at 8pm & 11pm EST on FTR Radio.

Today’s Guest:

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The Ben Howe Show Regulars:

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Cross-Posted at BenHoweShow.com.

In November I reported on American company Hawker Beechcraft being inexplicably disqualified from bidding on a weapons contract that appears ready to go to a Brazilian company named Embraer, which has questionable ties to America’s enemies.

Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace giant which is currently under investigation for potentially making illegal payments to obtain government contracts, is essentially owned by the Brazilian government. Through their “Golden Share,” Brazil essentially has control over the company’s business operations.

According to Embraer’s website, that Golden Share provision empowers the Brazilian government with veto rights over: “Creation and/or alteration of military programs, whether or not involving the Federative Republic of Brazil;” “Development of third parties´ skills in technology for military programs;” and “Interruption of the supply of maintenance and replacement parts for military aircraft,” among other things.

But Brazil has their own explaining to do regarding their long and sordid history with the rogue country of Iran.

According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, “In 1989, Brazil chose to sell Tucanos, Embraer’s relatively low cost and basic military aircraft, to Iran.” Currently, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Force operates around 40 Embraer T-27 Tucanos, according to the Washington Institute. In fact, the Iranians use the Tucano as their primary close air support aircraft.

In recent years, Brazil has continued its troubling friendship with Iran and ruthless leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Hudson Institute notes that, “Another area of tension between Brazil and the United States relates to Iran. In November 2009, President da Silva invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brazil. In May 2010, da Silva helped broker a deal in which Iran would ship only a portion of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey for reprocessing; the rest would remain in Iranian hands, where it could be further enriched for nuclear weapon production.”

After I wrote the article, most of the pushback I received was related to whether or not the Brazilian aircraft was superior and therefore deserved the contract.  This painfully misses the point which thankfully, the U.S. government is conveniently highlighting for me.

The point of my original article, which I apparently didn’t make obvious enough, was that Embraer didn’t “win” the contract.  Hawker Beechcraft was disqualified from bidding further without explanation.  The question I had and still have, is why? Thus far responses to all inquiries have been met with the transparency we’ve come to expect from this administration: complete silence, further highlighting the reason to continue asking the question.

Not surprisingly, Hawker seems to feel the same way.

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Tonight, Ace of Spades co-hosts as we bring Transom superstar Ben Domenech on to discuss the blogger journalist love emanating from Jen Rubin at The Washinton Post. We also spend some time talking about just how many faults can be looked past when considering Mitt Romney as the nominee.

Also, Ace asks the ultimate question: How does candidate Romney effectively attack Obamacare while sparing himself the same scrutiny?

All of this, plus more discussions of Men’s Health Magazine in today’s podcast.

Download audio here

Subscribe in iTunes

The Ben Howe Show airs Tuesday nights at 8pm & 11pm EST on FTR Radio.

Today’s Guest:

Follow @bdomenech

Subscribe to The Transom

The Ben Howe Show Regulars:

Follow @ben_howe

Follow @AceofSpadesHQ

Follow @FTR__Radio

Cross-Posted at BenHoweShow.com.

Tonight, my on-again-off-again Co-Host, Ace of Spades, work through the issues of the Republican party nominees.  Namely, that they all suck and the ones who are good suck at letting people know.  Also in the week’s episode:

• What is truth?
• Is war sometimes the answer.  Or is it always the answer?
• Has the Tea Party lost it’s steam? Or have we all gone back to eating bon-bons on our couches while yelling at the tv?
• What does it sound like when Ace impersonates Ron Paul?
• Who killed JR?

All of this and more in the weeks podcast.  Link below.  Love it.  Share it.  Just don’t kill yourself afterwards.

Download audio here

The Ben Howe Show airs Tuesday nights at 8pm & 11pm EST on FTR Radio.

Follow @ben_howe

Follow @AceofSpadesHQ

Follow @FTR__Radio

Cross-Posted at The Ben Howe Show

A little over a month ago, I had the opportunity to put together a video honoring Veterans Day to be shown at BlogCon 2011 in Denver, Colorado. In conjunction with FreedomWorks, I was able to get a handful of questions about Veterans Day over to a handful of politicians to have them say thank you to our troops. Because of technical difficulties, it wasn’t actually uploaded and shown to anyone until one day after Veterans Day much to my disappointment. You can view that video here and I hope you do.

But there was another part of this work that hasn’t been shown. When I sent the word out to these various politicians and policy makers that I wanted them to talk about veterans, I gave some very simple instructions: “Please be yourself, try not to do it scripted, and just basically tell me your thoughts on our troops.”

Out of those who responded, all but one sent me great videos that were about a minute and a half in length and mostly scripted. The one that sent me something different was Governor Rick Perry. His was a bit longer than a minute and a half. Eleven minutes actually. And I was so taken by how natural and patriotic he came across when he was off script and not trying to ‘zing’ another candidate that I immediately knew the footage had to be seen.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and that, if nothing else, it will give you an insight into a man that is much more complex than the narrative being put out by his opposition.

I’ve often talked about what I think of as the “Rule of Two” when it comes to Republican candidates. This rule states that for each election year, the media requires two types of Republican candidates: an idiot and an evil guy. Which one is the presidential candidate and which one is the vice presidential candidate is irrelevant. All that matters is that both are in attendance.

Don’t believe me? Take a look back.

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So what exactly is Barack Obama’s plan?  Wasn’t he the great problem solver?  The great unifier?  Wasn’t this the moment that the oceans started to recede?  The winds started to change?

Wasn’t he going to usher in a new era and fundamentally transform the United States of America?

Turns out Barack Obama’s grand ideas and plans were little more than brainstorms.  An excellent new video from the RNC highlights this fact using his own words:

This is the quintessential example of liberal thought: intentions are more important than results.  For Obama and his Democratic brethren, this will be all they can claim to have accomplished in their bid to retain power.

Because when actions, plans & execution all fail to produce results, remind people that at least you thought about it.  That’ll put food on the table.

As Obama moves closer to his perception of the center, he moves further from the environmental base that had placed their hopes and dreams in him.  Over the summer, he ended up in a heated battle with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Lisa Jackson over a proposed Ozone rule that he was set to weaken against her wishes.  According to the New York Times, it was not pretty.

The summons from the president came without warning the Thursday before Labor Day. As she was driven the four blocks to the White House, Lisa P. Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, suspected that the news would not be good. What she did not see coming was a rare public rebuke the president was about to deliver by rejecting her proposal to tighten the national standard for smog.

The half-hour meeting in the Oval Office was not a negotiation; the president had decided against ratcheting up the ozone rule because of the cost and the uncertainty it would impose on industry and local governments.

The environmental movement was left asking whether or not Obama could be trusted with their green dreams.   After the dust settled, things seemed to return back to normal as the EPA moved forward on their agenda, including proposed rules like the extremely controversial (and very costly) Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule.

Unfortunately for the EPA, President Obama aimed his sights on weakening that rule as well.  Someone wasn’t having it.

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[promoted because Ben is too modest for his own good]

So its come down to this moment.  RedState readers and my friends on Twitter have helped me make it through round 1 & 2 of the Next Talker contest to win my own radio show on the 50,000 watt radio juggernaut that is WBT which on clear nights can be heard in 22 states.

I am so thankful to everyone that has helped me get this far and no matter what happens next, I’ll be eternally grateful.

But, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, this ain’t over yet.  We are now in the final round of voting for the contest.  Voting has been reset (which means even if you were awesome enough to vote for me before, I need you to do so again) and the competition is stiff.

As of this writing, I sit in 3rd place (out of the final 5) behind Ladd Lesh who sports 76 votes and Bobby Demuro who has a whopping 127 votes.  I have a respectable 66 votes and need your help to take the lead.

What I’m asking is a pain in the butt, I’ll grant you that.  WBT decided to make it so people had to actually join their website in order to pick the Next Talker.  Great for preventing cheating, but certainly a roadblock to getting anyone other than family and close friends to vote for you.

However, in the last round, a great many of you did anyway.  And this time I have Michelle Malkin throwing her endorsement behind me!

Recently, WBT had me on by myself for a half hour to “show my stuff” and let others see what kind of radio show was in store.  I hope you like:

Download audio here

If you like what you hear, I hope you’ll go to the link below and press the “like” button for me.

I am so thankful to Erick Erickson and RedState.com for allowing me to use their website to draw attention to this contest.  And again, thank you to everyone who has worked with me to help make this dream come true.  Hopefully I’ll be able to thank you every night over the air waves.

CLICK HERE AND “LIKE” MY ENTRY

The chorus of CEOs and business leaders saying that regulation is choking business and growth had a new addition yesterday: CEO Clarence Otis, Jr. of Darden Restaurants, Orlando, Florida’s only Fortune 500 company and the parent company of Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse.

This is interesting to me for a handful of reasons.  The first is that a quick look at campaign donations from Otis shows that he has historically been a supporter of Democrat candidates, including Obama himself.   He gave the maximum donations ($2,400) to Democrats in his home state.  Democrats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ron Klein and Kendrick Meek.  Granted he supported a Republican (sort of) last year by contributing to Charlie Crist’s campaign, but that was the only one since late 2007.

In 2008 he contributed thousands of dollars on multiple occasions to the campaign of Barack Obama as well as giving over $28,000 to the “Obama Victory Fund.”  He’s even been invited to some of those high profile meet and greets that the President has from time to time, though there is little evidence that he actually listens to the people he meets with.

In fact, with the exception of Mr. Crist, Otis has been a staunch supporter of Democrats since 2008.  But, just as the CEO of BET had recognized the impediment of government on business, and just as the Caterpillar CEO changed his tune even after getting special visits from the President himself, Clarence Otis, Jr. has started to say things that do not sound too in line with the rhetoric of class warfare emanating from the White House these days.

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Obama’s tactics are becoming obvious. Whether it’s destroying coal to prop up green, endlessly extending unemployment benefits to keep the public desperate so as to allow him to push through more entitlements, how he intends to bring his “fundamental changes“ to the United States are about as veiled as laminate.  He is a radical trying to institute change by manipulating the facts on the ground in order to create a narrative that allows his “solutions.”

Now comes the news that the gun walker scandal known as “Fast & Furious” in which thousands of guns were permitted to cross the Mexican border, ostensibly to help the ATF track the guns to “big fish,” may have actually been used as a justification for new and stricter gun laws CBS news is reporting:

ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3″. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

“Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.” (emphasis mine)

The Obama manipulations to support radical change are now accessories to murder.

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I’ve said before that when the Democrats propose a tax credit it’s called a “business incentive” and when a Republican proposes a tax credit it’s called a “loophole.”  This game of semantics only works because of a complicit media which is more than willing to apply the Democrat designated classifications to ensure the correct narrative.

In reality, all sides are using fancy words to avoid the one word that best describes what is happening: subsidization.

Subsidies aren’t necessarily inherently bad.  There can be subsidies that work in favor of economic growth or better opportunities for the disadvantaged.  But more often than not, subsidies are used as a way to prop up industries that serve other agendas.  Like elections for instance.

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