leon panetta

"Read My Lips , No New Taxes!!" , the most famous words George H. W. Bush ever uttered. He said it at the 1988 Republican National Convention as he struggled to unite his party for the coming race for President against a surging Michael Dukakis, Governor of Massachusetts.  Dukakis was a whopping 20 points ahead of George Bush the sitting Vice President. While Ronald Reagan had grown to have a good relationship with his Vice President, those around Reagan and the conservative wing of the Republican Party he represented did not trust George Bush. He had to bring them into the fold if he had any hope of catching and defeating Michael Dukakis. So Bush made a promise, a promise he would have to break for the betterment of the country. 

He would live to hear those words again. 

This is the story of the 1990 Budget Deal that led to George Bush reneging on his promise to not raise taxes. It would lay the groundwork for much of the division among the various factions within the Republican Party that still lingers to this day.  Robert Cahaly, of the Trafalgar Group National Polling Firm, says much of what you see today in the modern political landscape is found in the coming 1992 election divisions that would eventually cost George H. W. Bush his Presidency. As he points out the Ross Perot voters of then are Republicans now, and 20% of the Republicans then are Democrats now. 

The decision to go back on that pledge had a profound effect on the Republican Party.  It led to the "America First" anti establishment campaign of Pat Buchanan, and in the remnants of that campaign are the seeds of the rise of another political figure nearly three decades later, President Donald Trump.  That is a story we will tell in our next season of shows but for now here is where it all started. 

In this episode we go back to the very start of it all, the 1990 Budget Deal that may very well have laid the groundwork for the boom of the 1990s, but it did so at the expense of the unifying principles of the old Republican Party, and in that split, lay the seeds of the populist party of Donald Trump we see today. 

Ranked 4th as one of the best American History Podcasts of 2024
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On Saturday February 4, 2023, after several days of monitoring a Chinese Spy Balloon as it meandered across the nation at 60,000 feet. The United States Military sent F-16's up in the air to shoot it down as it went out over the Ocean just off the coast of South Carolina. 

For those of us who live in Myrtle Beach it was a Saturday like no other in memory. I was busy editing my two podcasts when the news flash came over that the Spy Balloon was over head and the U.S. Military was circling it. When suddenly my entire house shook and we all headed outside to to watch the balloon fall from the sky. Suddenly, Myrtle Beach S.C. was the center of the World's attention in a dispute that featured the two most powerful nations on Earth, The United States and China. 

This is a story we thought we would try and share,  if you, like most people, had only sort of paid attention to the news until the balloon was shot down.  Here in Myrtle Beach where I live it was just six miles and 60,000 feet from my front door. We set this episode up much as we do shows on our sister podcast. This episode features news reports from several of the major news outlets, and we want to say thank you right now for the extraordinary coverage of FOX , CBS, ABC,  CNN, Sky , Bloomberg and several other news outlets. Plus we were thrilled to have the radio transmissions from the Air Force that were released a day or so after too. This podcast is proud to let you relive the fateful few days that the Chinese Spy Balloon wandered the skies above us and the day we shot it down...

With a Missile over Myrtle Beach..... 

The way we can honor the legacy of Zad Leavy is to be vigilant and to always work for the preservation and restoration of the wild and rustic beauty of the Big Sur coast!

Thank you for listening.
Please email here with any comments, critique, suggestions...Thank you!

Links to some of the people and places we touch on:
The Big Sur Land Trust
The Big Sur Gazette
Jim Josoff
Nancy Hopkins
Sherna Stewart
The Odello Fields/Clint Eastwood
El Sur Ranch
Ansel Adams
Leon Panetta
David Packard

Podcast episode #5 with Brian Steen, the first Executive Director of BSLT

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This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County!
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In the news today: For our first headline of the month focusing on MSU football, four Spartans receive Big Ten offensive honors. For our second headline focusing on MSU hockey, abundant penalties force Nightingale to bench Jagger Joshua versus Miami (OH). For our final headline of the day focusing on culture, Leon Panetta visits MSU to talk government polarization, war in Ukraine. 

We’ve made it to 1994. In September, House Republicans gather on the steps of the Capitol and sign the Contract with America. It’s a carefully-worded list of bills they promise to bring to a vote as soon as they win the majority. Election night arrives, and the Republican sweep is decisive. Democrats are completely thrown by the size of the loss — and start searching for answers. And in January 1995, Newt Gingrich’s biggest moment finally arrives: The Democrats hand over the gavel, and he becomes Speaker of the House.

In the early 1980s, Newt Gingrich starts recruiting Republican congressmen to his cause. They form the Conservative Opportunity Society and take advantage of a new cable channel, C-Span, which lets them circumvent the traditional media to spread their message to voters. And they confront Democrats with a fervor that old-school Republicans find distasteful. But when — in 1984 and 1985 — Newt and his followers inspire two angry showdowns in the House, their more staid colleagues start to see value in this new, confrontational style.