Reagan birthday centennial to be noted at Super Bowl

Happy 100th Birthday Ronald Wilson Reagan! Your achievements will forever be emblazons upon this great country that you loved. Thank you!!!

(Star Telegram) WASHINGTON -- Ronald Reagan admirers wanted to go all out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 40th U.S. president's birth on Feb. 6 -- a fighter jet flyover, a 21-gun salute and a Beach Boys performance are among the commemorations. But the Great Communicator's centennial birthday conflicts with another great American megaevent: Super Bowl Sunday.

Yet Reaganites, true to the Gipper's attitude, saw an opportunity.

Just before kickoff, a tribute to Reagan will be displayed on the Jumbotron at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, perhaps fitting for this larger-than-life persona.

It's one of the scores of centennial events planned through the year for Reagan -- from his birthplace in Tampico, Ill., to his final resting place in Simi Valley, Calif. -- in a celebration that has taken on greater significance after Republican gains in Congress.

Although many events are being organized by or with help of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, activities large and small are being planned by others, including GOP clubs, former Reagan aides and admirers.

In Valparaiso, Ind., Chuck Williams, a Board of Public Works member and former county GOP chairman, was so fond of the former president that he named his daughter Reagan. Now he's seeking to name a street in town after him.

"He was an inspirational president," Williams said. "We've got Roosevelt Road. We've got Garfield Boulevard. We've got Lincoln Way." Why not Ronald Reagan Parkway? he asked.

Congress created a bipartisan Reagan Centennial Commission to help plan events, but no federal funding was provided. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., didn't believe that such spending would be very Reagan-like. Instead, many celebrations are privately funded.

"The centennial celebration is about more than just one day and one man," said John Heubusch, the Reagan foundation's executive director. "It's a yearlong historic occasion for people to remember an extraordinary man who restored pride in America and spread freedom throughout the world."

Reagan's wife, Nancy, 89, is expected to attend many events.

Reagan's boyhood home of Dixon, Ill., will premiere a 25-minute musical composition, Reagan of Illinois.

Tea Party House Republicans Aiming to Defund the United Nation

It is time to dissolve the United Nations. Its usefulness is mired by corruption, deception, and unaccountability. Its intended goal is to help those countries affected by human rights issue. Instead, they turn a blind eye when human rights are being violated. An example are human rights issue in China and Iran not being addressed. There are UN resolutions against Israel. There is no transparencies to the billion of dollars given to the United Nations. What good have they done lately? Global warming??

(The Hill) A key House Republican is quickly pressing forward with her goals to scale back U.S. funding for the United Nations.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Hill that oversight would be a key function of the panel, particularly funding to the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) that is "a waste of taxpayer dollars." "The fact that the U.S. continues to contribute billions of taxpayer dollars every year to an unaccountable, unreformed U.N. is no laughing matter," she said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Ros-Lehtinen will host a panel of U.N. critics and advocates that was originally scheduled for the week that the House suspended most activity in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

U.N. critics set to appear include Claudia Rosett, who unveiled the oil-for-food scandal in 2004 and 2005 in The Wall Street Journal; Brett Schaefer, who regularly takes on the U.N. at the conservative Heritage Foundation; and Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, which monitors the controversial HRC.

Neuer told The Hill that UN Watch is going to release new data at the briefing on how the HRC has been run since then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan dissolved the Human Rights Commission in 2006. Annan called the commission "politicized" at the time, but the commission's replacement, the HRC, has attracted many critics as well.

Ros-Lehtinen, one of many lawmakers critical of Obama for that 2009 decision, led the charge against the United Nations in the 111th Congress, introducing bills urging transparency and accountability as well as the withholding of funding.

But the first bill in this Congress taking on the U.N., introduced on the first day the House was in session, came from a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, not from Ros-Lehtinen's panel.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) introduced a measure to ensure that no federal funds may be used for the "design, renovation, construction, or rental of any headquarters for the United Nations in any location in the United States" unless Obama "transmits to Congress a certification that the United Nations has adopted internationally recognized best practices in contracting and procurement."

“During the Bush administration, it was learned from internal U.N. auditors that 43 percent of $1.4 billion in procurement contracts investigated involved fraud," Stearns said in a statement to The Hill. Over the past five years, the council has produced about 45 resolutions, he said, 35 which are "one-sided measures against Israel."