Brain Trust - Matt Barber

Matt Barber is Director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel and also serves as Associate Dean with Liberty University School of Law. He joined the Brain Trust segment of the show to talk about the Republican debate and Occupy Wall Street. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his segment.

Tell us about last night's debate.

It's interesting; all the talk today is about Gingrich and his immigration policy. But it seems like the dust from that is dying down and it's down to the final three candidates.

It looks like it's boiling down to Romney, Gingrich, and Cain here in the final stretch. It'll be interesting to see where this thing ends up.

I just don't think the American people are going to be fooled by Mitt Romney, with his finger in the wind.

Will Gingrich take a hit for his immigration stance?

I myself have kind of evolved on this immigration issue. There is a reality of the existing problem; the toothpaste is out of the tube.

Do we just load everyone up on buses and ship them back? Or is there a way that is logistically possible and compassionate?

This is a tough issue, but it probably does hurt him with the conservative movement, especially with all the other candidates jumping on him. The reality is that he is going to take a hit for this.

Does the Occupy movement actually benefit conservatives?

I completely agree with that. I've said that the Occupy Wall Street movement, for conservatives, is the gift that keeps on giving. 

They can't even vocalize a position on any of the issues; it's just anarchy. Let them continue to be anarchists! 

President Obama said that the Occupy Wall Street movement was the reason he was elected. He's exactly right. 

We need to start calling the OWS camps ObamaCamps, because that's what they are.

Brain Trust - Hunter Baker

Hunter Baker is the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Union University, and a blogger at First Things. He joined The Matt Friedeman Show for the Brain Trust segment. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

Would you have predicted the Gingrich/Romney match up at the top?

Not in a million years. Gingrich, a few years ago, went on Dr. Dobson's show, made his big mea culpa for the divorces, said he was a "new man".

In 2008, he raised no interest at all. I thought it would be the same this year. And yet here he is.

He has positives as well as negatives, though.

That's definitely true. On the positive side, he was a big part of the GOP getting Congress in 94. Also, some of the best policies we've seen in the last 30 years came when he was Speaker of the House.

The thing that really pulled him down was having an affair during the same time that Clinton was busy being impeached.

Explain the Herman Cain phenomenon.

First of all, this is the most unsettled field I have ever seen.

Basicallly, there's Romney, who has been running for president for about 6 years. He  sounds presidential, he looks presidential, but the Republican party is not satisfied with him.

So they're kind of cycling through the options. Almost everyone has gotten a chance on top.

Is Romney going to end up on top?

He has been very patient, he's done a good job of not getting desperate. I think one of the problems Michelle Bachmann had was that she got increasingly desperate and strident in her attacks on him.

What Romney would have going for him is that the sentiment against President Obama is completely different than it was 4 years ago.

What are your predictions for this race?

I think that Romney is ultimately going to win. There's no one else in the Republican field who is able to knock him off.

It's going to be down to Romney vs. Gingrich, and I think Gingrich's baggage will weigh against him.

But there are always second acts in politics. Gingrich may have a second act, and convince people that he is a new man.

Brain Trust - James Jay Carafano

Dr. James Carafano is the director of Heritage Foundation's Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies. He came on The Matt Friedeman Show as the Brain Trust of the day. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his segment.

Tell us about the upcoming debate.

I'm pretty jazzed. This is the first presidential debate hosted by think tanks, so the candidates are going to be challenged by difficult questions.

They're going to have to lay out what their role will be as president in foreign policy.

When you have a 90 minute debate on one subject, no candidate can use the excuse that voters don't know their positions.

Everything you want to know about the debate, you can find on the Heritage website.

 What kind of questions are going to be asked?

This is an open-book test. Nobody has an excuse to say they weren't prepared, or they didn't know what would be asked.

These questions are going to be straightforward questions. How are you going to lead this country?

I think if you cherry-pick throughout all the debates, probably most of the questions have come up at some time.

These are questions these guys have heard before. But candidates answer the question they want to answer, not necessarily the question that is asked.

These men and women have ninety minutes to state their positions on how they're going to keep America safe and free.

The day after the debate is the report of the super-committee. What's going to happen there?

I think this is the untold story: regardless of what happens with the super committee, President Obama has already made enough defense cuts that we are going to have a smaller and less prepared military than we had when he went into office.

The savings that they're spending, they're not reinvesting. They're going to have a real readiness problem. 

Brain Trust - Janice Shaw Crouse

Janice Shaw Crouse is a columnist and senior fellow for the Beverly LaHaye Institute. She joined the Brain Trust segment to share her perspective on Mississippi's failed Personhood Amendment. Below are the "CliffsNotes" of her interview.

What did we learn from the Personhood Initiative?

I think we learned that there are not many good political solutions to problems like this. Our major challenge is to change attitudes, and I think we are winning in that department.

We do have a long way to go. We still have a lot of people who aren't comfortable with the legal realities of abortion. We've got to win the public over more before we can make any legal headway.

The general public doesn't see the numbers. They don't see the problem as big as it is. We've got a big job ahead of us to bring that home and help people see that as it really is.

It's about how you perceive things. We've got to have an understanding in this country that this is a matter of human rights; this is a matter of decency. It's not something people can be blase about.

We have to recognize that the comfort level is there, and work to make people understand the severity of the problem, that it is a life-or-death issue.

Quite frankly, I can't tell you how many people want to keep it there in case their children or grandchildren need it.

We've made it quite easy to be a Christian these days. The standards aren't very high. We've got our work cut out for us to convince people that your beliefs touch your behavior.

In spite of the defeat, I think we are winning this war. We lost that battle, but in the overall war, we are winning.

Brain Trust - Phil Bryant

Mississippi Lieutenant Governor Phil Bryant came on The Matt Friedeman Show to talk about Initiative 26 and the presidential campaign. Below are the "CliffsNotes" of his segment.

Tell us about the opposition to Initiative 26.

What our adversaries do is use the worst possible examples. I had a man ask me the other day, "What if a ten year old got raped?"

I was offended by that question. That you would use the rape of a ten year old girl to win a political battle, which is what he was trying to do.

Do you think the initiative will pass?

I do believe it will be successful.

I believe this is a battle of biblical proportions. I believe Christians need to step out and make their voices heard.

I can tell you, this is a battle where God puts you in a position and says, "Will you stand for me?"

Do you have any pressure on you not to touch this issue?

Every day people will tell me to stay out of this, and stick to the job creation problem.

That's the way the Democrats always try to spin this, is that we have "more important" things to worry about.

I cannot imagine what would be more important than stopping the murder of innocent babies.

If this fails to pass, what could a Republican governor do to work against abortion?

That's why we're working so hard to elect Republican governors throughout the nation.

Republican governors can help pass legislation to make abortions more difficult.

I think that being able to speak out with passion about the lives of those children is crucial.

We could kill a child legally in the United States at 7, 8, 9 months, without a trial or the child being able to defend himself.

What are your thoughts on the presidential race?

It is dangerous to be the front-runner, because the media automatically targets that person.

It astounds me that now that we have a African-American front-runner in the Republican race, you don't hear the media talking about how forward-leaning the GOP is.

The media wants to pick the nominee for the Republican party, and that would be the nominee they think Barack Obama can beat.

And at this point, I think that's Mitt Romney.

Brain Trust - Diane Katz

Diane Katz, is a research fellow in regulatory policy at The Heritage Foundation.She joined The Matt Friedeman Show to discuss Congress's recent move to legislate bank fees. Below are the "CliffsNotes" of her interview.

Regions has revoked its debit card fee. Why is that such big deal?

Banks are in business, and they're in business to make money for their shareholders. One of their ideas was to invoke a monthly fee on debit cards.  

The problem is that while consumers are upset, they're upset at the wrong people. They're looking at the banks as if they're the bad guys, when in fact it's what Congress did that caused this to occur. 

The banks are saying that because of consumer backlash, they're revoking this policy . We would be so lucky if Congress were that quick to pay attention to us.

What are the effects of this legislation?

Banks cannot stay in business if they're going to give up billions and billions of dollars.

As consumers, we're going to see new restrictions and higher costs.

How do we fight back?

Ultimately, we have to fight back against the root cause, which is the government regulation.

The recession was not caused by debit cards. It's just been an excuse to impose controls on banking.  

That's the real problem.