Andrew Klavan Comes to ‘Conservative Republican Forum’

Andrew Klavan

This week on Conservative Republican Fourm a well known author and PJTV host joins Steve Rosenblum & Daria DiGiovanni. He’s also a frequent guest on Fox News Channel’sRed Eye w/Greg Gutfeld.

Andrew Klavan is the host of PJTV’s Klavan on the Culture. There he examines many aspects of human behavior, culture and politics. He does this with a wit and intelligence that are both informative and entertaining.

Andrew Klavan is the author of the novels:
Corruption, The Animal Hour, The Uncanny, Man and Wife, Hunting Down Amanda, Don’t Say A Word, True Crime, Dynamite Road and The Last Thing I Remember.

His latest adult novel is The Identity Man and the 4th and final book in his young adult Homelanders series called The Final Hour will be released this summer.

Steve and Daria will talk to Mr. Klavan about his writing, his work on PJTV and get his take on some of the news of the day.

As always your calls with comments and questions are welcome at 347-637-1121.

Lessons In History, Geography and Humility

On Thursday President Obama gave a rambling speech on his policy for North Africa and the Middle East. Most of the speech was nothing but more of the same old platitudes about Muslim outreach and applause for what has become known as the “Arab Spring”.

The President touted the removal of 100,000 US troops from Iraq and the conclusion of their combat mission there. What he failed to mention was that the withdrawal was part of an agreement signed by the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government and that it would not have been possible had George W. Bush not gone forward with the so-called troop “surge” that then Senator Obama vehemently opposed.

Then Obama claimed that “in Afghanistan, we’ve broken the Taliban’s momentum” (which could be debated) and reiterated his intention to begin bringing our troops home from that nation in July, with no mention of that troop departure being contingent on conditions on the ground.

Continuing with his reality-free oration, the President asserted that killing Osama Bin Laden had “dealt Al-Qaeda a huge blow”. This despite the fact that intelligence gleaned from Bin Laden’s compound indicates that the various branches of the network are self sufficient and that there is a well defined succession of leadership which means that with or without their now deceased leader, Al-Qaeda is still a very real and potent threat to the United States and our allies.

Obama also declared that “Bin Laden was no martyr” even in the face of pro-Bin Laden protests in Pakistan- and elsewhere- and threats of retaliation from Al-Qaeda. Our President seems to believe that he gets to decide whether or not Bin Laden is a martyr, when in fact the terrorist’s followers are the one that determine this reality.

This is the point in the speech where the President truly left reality behind, as he compared the actions of Mohammed Bouazizi- a Tunisian vendor who set himself ablaze after dousing himself in gasoline, because his cart was confiscated by police- to the peaceful defiance of the colonists that took part in the Boston Tea Party and the silent bravery of Rosa Parks.

The President went on to talk about the revolutions sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East in terms of the “Arab Spring” and democracy. Like many naïve liberals Obama fails to recognize that in many parts of the world, especially in the Middle East where the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Sharia compliant Islamists are the only organized political factions, democracy can often lead to anything but individual freedom.

The people of Tunisia, Egypt and other nations that have been ruled by brutal dictators are likely to overthrow these autocrats only to end up being ruled by theocracies that are every bit as repressive and cruel.

Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan where the US, the United Nations and NATO were present to help provide security, and stable interim governments, that allowed time for political parties to be formed and the mechanisms of democracy to take shape, in the nations being swept up by the “Arab Spring” there are no organized political parties except the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ironically the President pointed out that many of the region’s leaders have- and still do- blame the West “as the source of all ills, a half-century after the end of colonialism”. Even as he himself continues to apologize to the world for every mistake that the US and the West has ever made, without pointing out all of the good that the US has done for the Muslim world and the world in general.

Obama spoke of the “peaceful protesters” in Tahrir Square that overthrew Hosni Mubarak and of the voice of the young mother in Cairo who he quoted as saying, “It’s like I can finally breathe fresh air for the first time,” while he disregarded the screams of CBS reporter Lara Logan who was brutally raped as the same crowd shouted “Jew! Jew! Jew!”

Yes, our hypocritical President lectured us about “the shouts of human dignity” and the “moral force of nonviolence” achieving more in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades.  But he ignored the fact that the end results: Sharia law, intolerance towards non-Muslims, women and homosexuals may very well be the same.

The President pointed to Libya as the most “extreme example” of a country in the region where calls for change have been answered by violence. He apparently was trying to justify embroiling the United States in a civil war and taking the side of so-called “rebels” whose true alliances remain undetermined- but may very well rest with Iran or Al-Qaeda. Again he ignored Iran where since 2009 the youth have been peacefully attempting to change their government, only to be met by batons and bullets.

Obama also ignored the slaughters occurring in Darfur and the Ivory Coast, where the US and the West have chosen not to act. Apparently in his inconsistent and incoherent foreign policy not all massacres are created equal.

And while the President spoke of “when Qaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power” in Libya, in Syria; Obama said that “President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way”. However the President did not explain why he had determined one brutal dictator that is waging war on his own people had to go and the other had the option to remain.

It was somewhat comical to hear the President say of foreign journalists; “We will support… the right of journalists to be heard -- whether it's a big news organization or a lone blogger”. Since this is the same administration that has attempted to intimidate and restrict the access of American journalists that have posted videos or printed stories that they felt portrayed the President or First Lady in an unflattering manner, or they consider to be biased.

Then the President got to the section of his ramblings that angered many Americans that are suffering due to our struggling economy. The President promised to “relieve a democratic Egypt of up to $1 billion in debt” - without tying forgiving that debt to guarantees that the new government would live up to its obligations under the Camp David Peace Treaty with Israel, which many Egyptians- including the Muslim Brotherhood- have expressed a desire to scrap. And if that wasn’t sufficient to frustrate the public, the President also promised to guarantee $1 billion in Egyptian borrowing without explaining where the money would come from.

To conclude his naïve, adolescent and incoherent address the President went on to begin a moral equivocation, in support of the Palestinians, at the expense of our strongest Middle Eastern ally and the only democracy in the region: Israel.

He began this section by saying, “For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.”

It is a prevarication and a rewriting of history to claim that the Israelis are occupiers. The Palestinians are displaced Jordanians, which Jordan refused to reabsorb, not Israeli refugees or an occupied people. More than once Obama spoke of Israel as maintaining an occupation.

But the most contentious portion of the speech, the part that angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu- who was preparing to travel to Washington from Tel Aviv as Obama delivered it- and most supporters of our Israeli allies was this: “The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state”.

The suggestion that the Israelis who have consistently and repeatedly given up very tangible land for completely empty promises of peace would now accept the borders that they had before the 1967 Six Day War- an unprovoked war of aggression launched against it by Egypt, Jordan and Syria- is preposterous. Those 44-year old borders are, as Prime Minister Netanyahu and others have said, “indefensible”. Returning to the 1967 lines would also mean that Israel would have to give up the strategically important Golan Heights to Syria, which is still an aggressor and closely allied with Iran.

In addition Palestine as a “contiguous state” adhering to the 1967 borders would by definition mean a divided Israel and a divided Jerusalem. This would be unacceptable to Israel and would affectively cut off Christians and Jews from the holiest sites in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The result of President Obama’s arrogant and foolish speech on Thursday was something he’s been in desperate need of since he first took office and began what has become known as his “apology tour” and which Prime Minister Netanyahu was only too happy to deliver to our Community Organizer-in-Chief on Friday:  A very public and embarrassing lesson in history, geography and humility.

President Obama sat, looking angry and uncomfortable, as Netanyahu lectured him on the geography of Israel and the history of the conflict. Whether Obama actually learned humility is questionable. What is not debatable is that Netanyahu made it clear that there would be no negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, while Hamas and Fatah are allied and Hamas continues to profess its intention to destroy the Jewish State. He also made it clear that the 1967 borders would not be the starting point for any further dialogue.

Taking A Victory Lap Without Spiking The Ball

Obama at Ground Zero Thursday
(Charles Dharapak-AP)

After the virtually flawless raid by the US Navy SEALS and CIA paramilitary forces on Sunday, which resulted in the termination of Osama Bin Laden, President Obama and his administration seem to have fallen back on bad habits.

First there was the changing narrative of just how the raid went down. Did Bin Laden resist, or not? Was he armed, or not? Did he use his wife as human shield, or not?

Then came the question of whether the administration would release the photographs of Bin Laden’s corpse or not. Initially it seemed like a no-brainer; of course the pictures would be released. CIA Director Leon Panetta said he expected the pictures would be released. The next day President Obama declared, via Press Secretary Jay Carney, that the photos would not be released. We were told “that’s not who we are”, “we don’t need to be taking a victory lap” and “we don’t need to spike the ball”.

But the reason that the Bin Laden photos are being withheld seems to be more about sensitivity to Muslim sensibilities than about avoiding “spiking the ball”. In his speech Sunday night President Obama said that Osama Bin Laden “was not a Muslim leader, he was a murderer of Muslims”. We are constantly being told that most Muslims are peaceful and not radicals. If these two statements are accurate then why would the release of the photographs of a mass-murderer who was not a Muslim leader, but killed many Muslims, offend the sensitivities of peaceful Muslims?

The President’s visit to Ground Zero Thursday seemed to be a victory lap and a photo-op, more for political gain than to comfort 9/11 families. To illustrate this, look at the visit itself. While President Obama made no remarks while at Ground Zero, there was a gaggle of politicians- mostly from his party- in attendance. By contrast only a handful of the thousands of 9/11 families were invited to be present at the wreath laying. In addition, when the President met briefly with the sister of American Airlines Flight 77 pilot Charles Burlingame, Debra Burlingame, he treated her poorly because she spoke up in defense of the CIA agents whose use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques led to the discovery of Bin Laden’s hiding place and eventual termination.

To be clear, the photographs of Bin Laden’s corpse should be released not to prove that he was killed by the SEALS- we know he was. They should be released because the sensitivities of the American people should be more important than the sensitivities of Islamic extremists that will want to kill us whether they see the photos or not. It should also be noted that our enemies respect strength and power, not weakness and dhimmitude. In war you don't worry about your enemy's feelings, you try to make them fear you and make them think twice before attacking you. Showing our Jihadist enemies the pictures of their vanquished ex-leader will show them that the United States will pursue them, no matter where they hide or how long it takes.

My brother-in-law Eric was killed on 9/11 in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. so this issue is very personal to me. I and the families of the 3,000 people murdered by Osama Bin Laden that day have waited almost 10 years for justice to be served. We and the American people have paid for those pictures with our blood and treasure and we have a right to see them.

President Obama needs to reconsider his decision and release the photographs of Osama Bin Laden. Taking a “victory lap” on the hallowed earth of Ground Zero, but not “spiking the ball” by letting the American people see the pictures of our deceased enemy is despicable.

Herman Cain Blogger's Call, April 29th

Potential Presidential Candidate Herman Cain

Thursday evening I had the opportunity to sit in on the blogger’s conference call for potential presidential candidate Herman Cain, who was in New Hampshire engaging in what he termed “retail politics”.

The call began with his Communications Director Ellen Carmichael  informing us that, including the Tax Day Tea Party rallies he had attended, Mr. Cain had made 12 speeches, in 10 states, in 8 days.

In addition she let us know that Cain had won the Presidential Straw Poll held during Congressman Steve King’s Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines, Iowa back on March 26th.
Ms. Carmichael concluded her introduction by telling us that Mr. Cain had been featured on ‘Special Report w/Brett Baer’ earlier in the evening on Fox News Channel and that his “mainstream media star was rising”.

Then the potential candidate himself made his opening remarks, telling those on the line that in his travels around the nation he was getting a very positive response to his message and that he was not simply making speeches and talking to people, but also listening to the people.

What he said he’s hearing is that the American people are frustrated with the lack of leadership they’re seeing from the current occupant of the White House. In particular the frustration with the lack of leadership from the administration on a subject that affects every American, everyday, the price of gas.

He was asked many questions about how bloggers could help get his message out. One blogger asked if he could be sure to get at least one Tweet out per day, which he said he would do. Apparently since the profile on ‘Special Report’ his Twitter following has increased significantly. As of 11:50 PM, April 29th his followers on  @THEHermanCain numbered 22,445.

Asked what his message to the youth of America was he said, “Don’t stay on the sidelines because when you become a productive adult, there may not be any sidelines.”

When my turn came I asked Mr. Cain about specific federal departments he would eliminate to cut the budget. He didn’t want to get too specific, saying that he’d like to do a detailed assessment of all the cabinet departments to identify which ones needed improvement or elimination.

Not completely satisfied with that answer I asked him more specifically about two cabinet level departments created under the Carter Administration, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education and I asked him whether either of them had achieved the purposes they were intended to.

To his credit Mr. Cain chose to address the two departments individually, saying of the Department of Education that he’d like to “unbundle it”. He went on to say that any program he identified that had unfunded mandates would be “unraveled” or he would “disband it”. He also said he would ask the States what was working and what wasn’t. I would characterize him as wanting to use a scalpel rather than a chainsaw on the department.

In terms of the Department of Energy, he addressed the EPA. He called the EPA “the most abusive agency in Washington, DC, hindering our economic growth, second only to the IRS”.

He also said that, “We have gone regulatory crazy”. And that he would appoint a regulatory reduction commission to address the EPA, IRS, the Department of Labor and the Department of Commerce.

He closed out the call by thanking the bloggers “for being patriots” and ended the call by saying “It’s not about us, it’s about the grandchildren”.

US Energy Policy Simplified For Politicians To Understand (Updated 4/28/11)

With the price of food and other commodities on the rise and the national average for a gallon of gasoline at about $3.85 and climbing, Americans are feeling the pinch and getting angry. Yet the President says there’s no “silver bullet” that will quickly bring down gas prices. In addition the government tells us that inflation is low, because it excludes food and energy from the calculation.

Well the President and the administration are lying to the American people and many of us are fully aware of it. They tell us with a straight face that the US only possesses about 2% of the world’s energy reserves. They also tell us that more domestic drilling would have little affect on the price of gasoline and that any new drilling wouldn’t affect supply for at least 10 years. All lies!

The truth is the US has more untapped energy reserves than any other nation, especially if you include ANWAR, the outer-continental shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, untapped reserves in the mountain states and reserves of coal, natural gas and oil shale. The US has 8 times more oil in the form of shale alone, than exists in all of Saudia Arabia.

If we had started additional domestic drilling 5 years ago, the last time the national average for gasoline was approaching $4 a gallon, that crude would be flowing by now. And anytime a US President says that we are going to drill for more US energy, the price of crude immediately drops. Much of the speculation on oil futures is emotionally driven. If traders believe that supplies will increase in the future, the price falls.

So here is the very simple plan for US energy policy going forward for any politician, or dare I say leader, bold enough to follow it:

1. Stop printing money. Oil is traded in US dollars. When the dollar is weakened and devalued by printing too much currency, the price of oil rises.

2. End altogether subsidies for all “green energy” (i.e. wind turbines, solar panels, ethanol, bio-diesel, etc.).

Wind turbines only work when there is wind, they kill birds & bats so environmentalists hate them.

Solar is only good when the sun is shining and it takes vast farms of solar panels to generate a profitable amount of energy, so again environmentalists hate them and complain about them marring the landscape.

Making ethanol puts 37% of our corn crop into our gas tanks, raising the price of feed for livestock and in turn for food. It also takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you can extract from it. This means the more ethanol the government mandates the oil companies to blend into our gasoline, the less miles per gallon you get for increasingly expensive gas. (SEE UPDATE BELOW).

Ironically in many areas of the world deforestation is occurring to make more farmland to grow more corn to produce ethanol. This has the affect of increasing carbon dioxide levels that environmentalists would have us believe are contributing to “manmade climate change".

If these “clean” energy technologies can be made efficient and profitable, so be it. But the government should not be subsidizing them to artificially prop them up.

3. Phase out all tax credits for oil, natural gas and coal companies while simultaneously phasing out oppressive regulatory structures. These are all well established industries. Without subsidies propping up the “green” energies these industries should be able to be profitable, without tax credits from the government, if unnecessary and cumbersome regulations are removed.

4. Build more refineries in the United States and make it easier to modernize the existing ones. The US has not built a new refinery in more than 30 years and modernizing the existing ones is a regulatory nightmare. We don’t have enough refining capacity to meet our growing needs.

5. Open up more of ANWAR for drilling. The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline as been proven safe and the caribou love it, they snuggle against it for warmth. The area in question is relatively small but has much energy to yield.

6. Issue more leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in both shallow and deep water, including 7-10 miles off the coast of Florida. If we enforce our safety regulations and put in place the equipment to mitigate any spill it is safe to drill for oil, much safer than shipping oil from half way around the world on tankers, where most accidents actually happen.

7. Disband the US Department of Energy. The Department was created during the Carter Administration allegedly for the purposes of creating a coherent US energy policy and making the US more energy independent. It has done neither, but has cost the American taxpayers billions of dollars over the course of the past 3 decades, while creating no solutions and a vast wasteful bureaucracy.

8. Reign in the EPA and end the lie that carbon dioxide is a pollutant or “greenhouse gas”. Al Gore’s convenient lie is that carbon dioxide levels have historically risen AFTER a corresponding increase in global temperatures, not before. The very idea that humans and animals exhaling pollutes the atmosphere defies all logic and common sense and is not supported by science. It is quite simply green-propaganda.

9. Inform Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and other OPEC nations that, since we are now producing our own domestic sources of energy, we will no longer be held hostage by their cartel. Those countries that we have freed or shielded from aggression with our military can sell us oil at a fair market price or lose our protection and the right to buy our military hardware. We should not and will not be buying oil from countries like Venezuela and Iran that are hostile to US interests and support terrorism against our allies and/or us.

10. Build more nuclear power plants in the United States, taking care to build them in areas that are geologically stable and relatively seismically inactive. If the French cansafely get 80% of their electricity from nuclear energy, the United States should be able to achieve similar results.

11. Free American innovators and entrepreneurs to explore other alternative energy sources that we haven’t even thought of yet. When left to it’s own devices the American entrepreneurial spirit can achieve more than any government program ever could.

None of this is complicated; it’s just common sense and good economic policy, foreign policy, national security policy and environmental policy as well.

It requires genuine leadership and the willingness to put the interests of the American people and our nation before the interests of foreign dictators and so-called “environmentalists”.

Steven Rosenblum is the host of 'Conservative Republican Forum' & 'CRF Weekdays' on BlogTalkRadio and the USA Talk Radio Network. He was also the 2010 GOP nominee for Florida State House-District 89.



UPDATE (4/28/11): We interviewed Congressman Steve King (R-IA) this afternoon on 'CRF Weekdays' and asked him about the amount of corn being used to produce ethanol and ending subsidies for it. Congressman King gave an excellent and in-depth answer on the subject of producing ethanol, with more up-to-date information than I had when I originally wrote this article.


He explained that the corn being used to produce ethanol is not corn grown for human consumption, but for livestock feed. He also explained that the starch is used to make ethanol, while the protein is used to make high quality feed. Therefore the amount of loss is negligible and does not affect food prices.


In addition, he explained that while it was true in the early days of ethanol production that the process was inefficient and it required more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you could extract from it, that is no longer the case. In fact, it now requires less BTUs to produce a gallon of ethanol than it does a gallon of gasoline.


Furthermore, since the ethanol industry can now compete with the oil industry, both he and the ethanol producers now favor a "soft landing" for ethanol subsidies. In other words they want to phase them out.


You can hear the complete interview with Congressman King by clicking HERE.

Starring: Taylor Shilling, Grant Bowler, Matthew Marsden, Graham Beckel, Edi Gathegi, Jsu Garcia and Michael Lerner

Directed by: Paul Johansson

Rating: PG-13

**** (out of 5 stars)

Atlas Shrugged- The Movie Part 1 opened, appropriately enough, on April 15th. Based on the 1957 book by Ayn Rand this movie has been greatly anticipated by conservatives since its production was first announced.

I say appropriately enough because April 15th (Federal Income Tax Day) is the day that the productive members of American society provide the funds for progressives and those that believe in “Social Justice” to redistribute.

The underlying themes of Atlas Shrugged are the dangers of an overreaching government, the loss of respect for those that produce and what happens when individual achievement is demonized in favor of equal outcomes.

Having not read the book, I had no preconceived notions of what to expect when I saw this movie. I was pleased to find well-developed characters and stellar performances all around.

The central characters: are Dagny Taggart- played brilliantly by Taylor Schilling, Henry Rearden- played by Grant Bowler, James Taggart- played by Matthew Marsden and Ellis Wyatt- played by Graham Beckel (the older, smarter brother of Bob Beckel).

Dagny Taggart and her brother James are the owners of Taggart Transcontinental, the largest remaining railroad company in America. Dagny is hardworking and interested only in running the company to make it successful. James is more interested in using his contacts in Washington, DC and the reputation of the company their father left them to slide by.

Henry Rearden owns and operates Rearden Metal, which is unveiling a new and untested metal, which holds the promise of revolutionizing the steel industry. He and Dagny cut a deal to rebuild the century old Taggart rail line in Colorado to create a reliable transportation corridor for Ellis Wyatt’s oil company.

Behind the scenes there are sinister, progressive forces moving to destroy the innovation and entrepreneurial efforts of these three characters for their own ideological reasons.

All the while, the best and brightest employees of the biggest and most innovative companies are vanishing. The only clue to their disappearances is one question: “Who is John Galt?” By the end of the first third of Ayn Rand’s tale you will know the answer to that classic question.

That is the question.

You will recognize themes in this 54-year old story that are pertinent to the issues we face today:

• Unions complaining that large companies need to provide jobs for workers, even as they create a climate where those same large companies cannot provide those jobs.
• Government regulations designed to prevent entrepreneurs from profiting from their labors.
• The idea that equal outcomes are more important than compensation for doing the best work or producing the best product.

I found the performance of Graham Beckel especially satisfying. The smarter, conservative brother of Fox Newscontributor Bob Beckel, provides a very enthusiastic performance as oil titan Ellis Wyatt. Wyatt is exploiting vast untapped reserves of oil and natural gas in Colorado, the only state in the union that is still productive in Atlas’ fictional (but eerily realistic) 2016.

For viewers that enjoy looking for cameos, keep an eye out for Andrew Breitbart (of Big Government, Big Hollywood fame).

Overall this movie is well worth the price of admission and I would suggest that conservatives try to bring their liberal friends and family along. Don’t tell them it’s a political story. You can tell them honestly that it is a great drama, with an excellent plot that includes mystery and romance as well.

Atlas may have shrugged, but at the end of the 102 minutes, you will applaud.

Note: The producers have said that they will only make Parts 2 and 3 if Part 1 draws enough people to the theatres. So get out to the movies and see ‘Atlas Shrugged- Part 1’ and if you enjoy it as much as I did… See it 2 or 3 more times!