Your Tax Dollars at Work

Martin Scorsese welfare king?

Photo source: Wikipedia

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced recently that Martin Scorsese, director of such films as Taxi Driver and Hugo, would deliver the 2013 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at the Kennedy Center in Washington on April 1. According to the NEH press release, “The annual lecture...is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.”

But what got my attention were these words near the bottom: “The lectureship carries a $10,000 honorarium, set by statute.”

TheRichest.org estimates Mr. Scorsese’s net worth at $70 million. I do not begrudge him that - in fact I voluntarily contributed to it by going to see his movies. His segment "Life Lessons" in 1989's New York Stories helped make it one of my favorite movies of all time. But with all due respect to Mr. Scorsese, I question the appropriateness of paying him thousands of dollars that were taken involuntarily from the taxpayers at a time of sequesters and budget cuts. When I asked NEH media contact Paula Wasley (who was very polite and professional, by the way) for comment, she confirmed that it is set by law. “We don’t have any control over that,” she explained.

In spite of all the whining that President Obama has been doing about the sequester, if we’re taxing the middle class to give grants to multimillionaires, then IMHO we haven’t cut enough.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Here we go again

John Kerry's appointment as Secretary of State has created a vacancy in the US Senate, so once again we will have a special election here in Massachusetts. I caught up with the three Republican candidates yesterday at the Boston Republican City Committee. Not the best quality video I ever shot (stupid Reggae Brunch upstairs), but a good introduction to three gentlemen who want to be the next Scott Brown (who, by a remarkable coincidence, was on the TV is the background).

Businessman Gabriel Gomez. Check out my challenge for Mr. Gomez at 4:18.

Former US Attorney Michael Sullivan

State Representative Dan Winslow

The primary is April 30 and the winner will face off against either Ed Markey or Stephen Lynch in the special election on June 25. Please check out all the candidates and support the one you think will do the most to advance the cause of freedom

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Celebrating Andrew Breitbart

The faithful gather at J.J. Foley's in Boston to toast the life of Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Read about the time I met Mr. Breitbart here.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans

Gallery from the Winter Fundraiser at Lir Irish Pub in Boston. Very nice event.

Good turnout

Mary Z.: Winning the Urban Voter

Paul Adams: Defining the Republican brand

No rest for Katie

Things getting heated? :-)

Brad Marston and Victor Navarro strategize the 8th Suffolk District

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Never Surrender - March 2013

On the surface, FrackNation is a straightforward documentary about fracking, a natural gas drilling technique that has the potential to unleash torrents of energy wealth, but has been heavily criticized by environmentalists. The film debunks environmentalists’ claims that fracking contaminates groundwater, releases carcinogenic chemicals, and causes earthquakes.

No such film would be complete without addressing the environmentalists’ spectacular demonstrations of methane-laced tap water bursting into flames. FrackNation argues that it’s a natural phenomenon that was observed long before fracking: as far back as 1783, George Washington set fire to the Millstone River. In the words of co-director Ann McElhinney, there’s a reason there are towns in the U.S. called Burning Springs.

At a deeper level, however, FrackNation demonstrates what conservative and libertarian authors and filmmakers are up against every day. FrackNation tells the story of two documentaries: FrackNation itself, and the anti-fracking GasLand.

The latter film was directed by Josh Fox, one of the beautiful people. He frequently appears at Hollywood parties dressed in black, with trendy glasses and carefully cultivated chin stubble. He has been showered with awards and even received an Oscar nomination. The critics love him: Dave Shifflet of Bloomberg News called him “the Paul Revere of fracking.”

Contrast Fox with FrackNation filmmaker Phelim McAleer. Traveling around Pennsylvania shale country in a baggy blue pullover, the soft-spoken McAleer is a regular guy who fits right in with the flannel-clad denizens. Neither Hollywood nor the gas industry funded him: he and the other directors raised what they needed from thousands of small donations on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter; the 2,000+ donors all have producer credits at the end of the film. During the course of the movie, McAleer is shoved, threatened with lawsuits and confiscation of equipment, thrown out of several buildings, and even interrogated by the police. The finished product has played in only a handful of theaters and has been largely ignored by the critics (although, to its credit, The New York Times printed a fair review).

Most conservative and libertarian artists don’t face quite the challenges McAleer did. But they all struggle to get their projects made, and then struggle even harder to get the results in front of the public. Unlike liberals, they don’t have ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, The Washington Post, and the Academy promoting their work. What they do have is you. Please give them your support.

The work of Phelim McAleer, along with many conservative and libertarian authors, is featured in the March edition of my free e-mail newsletter, Never Surrender. To subscribe, please e-mail subscribe@MonteferroPress.com.

Implausible Deniability

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

"Pailout" against "Bailout"

In 2009, a group from the Hickory 9-12 Project in Newton, NC attempted to "stimulate" the water level in a pond by applying Keynesian economics. They drew buckets of water, carried them to another part of the pond, and poured them back in. The results, seen in this video, were entirely predictable. With Loren Spivack, "The Free Market Warrior."

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com