CAN WE STOP THE GROWING MENNACE OF THE NEWT GINGRICH POLITICAL JUGGERNAUT
Today is the start of the Year of the Dragon, and how fitting. What Newt Gingrich has accomplished these past two weeks borders on the Impossible. But he did it. He went from in excess of twenty points down in South Caroling to winning over Romney 40% to 28%. This still places the tally of those, even S C who did NOT vote for Gingrich at 60%. Newt has yet to prove that he can win a majority of votes in any tate. People thought Florida was safe Romney country, being a more moderate state than SC by far. And yet Romney was ahead ten points in Florida a week ago and is trailing now. They say that nation wide Newt only trails Romney by two or three percentage points? How can this happen? This is a man who less than one month ago did a virtual flame-out in Iowa due to negative advertising. But it didn’t work in South Carolina . No matter how many details we learn about Newt, it seems to not only no effect at all but produce the opposite effect from the one imagined. It would seem that Republican’s hostility to the media borders on the delusional and mental unbalanced. I bet medical experts have had people committed for exhiting these sorts of breaks with reality. They speak of the “liberal media working to re-elect Obama”. This was the knee jerk response to Newt when questioned about his second wife. But of course these “good old American capitalists” whom they praise are the very corporatists who own the vast majority of the media. Keep in mind ABC is the home of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. It was ABC and not CNN who broke this story last Thursday. And did you know that Gingrich had been having this affair with Colista since 1994? At a prayer breakfast in late 1995 Newt went on a rant about family affairs and the need for God and prayer and said “You know, I need to go to God to work on my own marriage”. Keep in mind at this time he was a year into an affair that would go on another four years before he would finally get a Divorce. And when he was confronted by Maryanne, his second wife, he did not say “Well I’m not in love with you; I’m in love with her now. She’s the one I want to be with”. No. Instead he blamed his wife for “Not sharing me with her” and “Colista doesn’t have any problem with sharing me with you”. How generous of her! On the subject of being a lobbyist, the reason why what he did wasn’t labeled as “lobbyist” because when he began working as one it was Illegal for him to BE a lobbyist because he hadn’t been out of congress long enough. And apparently he never advised against “the real estate bubble”. It seems what he really said in that NY Times article he talked about was he wanted Republicans to vote against the Wall Street bail out because it was going to pass regardless, but they could make themselves look better politically by voting against it. And unlike Romney, whose health care program was only for the uninsured in Massachusetts and just state wide, what Newt was for was for a far more global approach Republicans had been advocating since Nixon and was proposed by the Heritage Foundation. And it would be universal and not targeted. As Governor Christie says, “you know the laundry list of political baggage”. I have noted how often Romney uses the phrase of “a need for Sobriety” when referring to Gingrich. Is he implying that Newt either has now, or has had some sort of a drinking problem?
They used to say that figures don’t lie but liars figure. But people are able to lie so successfully today because the American People are a bunch of ignorant “sheeple” who will believe anything the tea party tells them. They are not only told what TO believe but even are told what things are even relivant to even think about or contemplate or investigate. Many of the lies they are told would be simple enough to Google the answer to on their own, but they won’t do that. So they are told Obama exploded the National Debt, but ignore the fact that President Bush kept two wars and Medicare part D off budget, so it wasn’t counted. When President Obama decided to institute honest accounting practices, naturally the deficit went up. There are so many lies about energy production to even list them briefly takes time. First of all you know this Canadian pipeline to Texas - - is not our oil. It is not “a means of getting domestic oil production so we don’t have to import oil from a foreign country” as the right never tires of saying. It is a pipeline put in by another country using OUR space as a conduit- - and we refine it on its rout to China , because without our help the oil could not get to China . So why would we want to use a third party to get oil to China and help them? Why does John Huntsman want to help China and feel apparently more empathy for their economy than our own? Tell me. They will lie and say “production is way down because Obama shut down the oil wells and gas prices exploded”. Dr. Levy’s tag line last spring was “Oil prices are almost to five dollars an hour and if they are that high next year, the President doesn’t stand a chance or getting reelection. And he shouldn’t”. Of course last spring was the peak in oil prices. Petrolium prices are speculation driven and they say that from 40% to 60% of the price of petroleum is due to speculation and not supply. As a side note only rich people can afford to play the future’s market this way. Ordenary people have so thin a capital margin that one minor setback for a wealthier person would completely wipe them out. This is why I said low income people should be able to deduct a capital loss. Futures prices are illusiary. And it can come crashing down at any time. In point of fact oil production in the United States right now is the highest it has been since 2003 during the beginning of the Iraq war. People have spoken of using switch grass instead of corn for ethanol because it is twice as efficient a producer and easier to grow. President Bush talked about switch grass in one of his speeches and was laughed at. Our energy problem is solvable by coming up with alternative sources. And this is just what we have been doing. But here again the right wing is pretending that it isn’t happening. But time is marching forward and we are developing alternative energy.
As to some of my motivations for certain provisions in the 59 points, the adage holds that the American people would rather be led by a President who is “strong and wrong” rather than weak and right. Being right counts for little in this life. Bearing this in mind- - you know there were Powerful people behind the spread of the Catholic Church. The whole thing did not get going due to the actions of a poor carpenter in Nazareth . I have said that medical mal practice insurance is inherently wrong. It’s akin to the selling of indulgences in the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. People are NOT entitled to “sin insurance” for protection from the consequences of their future actions for a given period of time. If they blow it they should be made to pay out of their own pocket. It will hurt more that way. The punishment then won’t be “just another cost of doing business”. Capish? Getting rid of drug price controles will increase competion and access to the people. And as to the bit about the size of the claims, the moral there is “Don’t make a threat you don’t have the power to back up”. It’s kind of like, “never point a gun at someone unless it’s loaded and you fully intend to use it”. The court system is too clogged up with rubbish. People on both sides of the bench refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. And by the way- - unlike John Huntsman and Herman Cain and others- - I believe at being able to look at yourself morally in the mirror each morning. I’m not ready to let China continue to bully us around economically. I am prepared to call their bluff. If they refuse to fund our debt because we block their goods I’ll just say “Well, we have your money already. If you want it back, just come over here and try and get it”. Most bonds can’t be cashed out immediately, at least not without incurring a financial penalty. The Chinese aren’t stupid. They know if the US goes down, they lose all our import goods - - at ANY price. They don’t want to do that. At the same time my proposals are the most strenuous deficet reduction measures you will see from anybody. I'd rather "err" on the side of excess revenue rather than too little because as I have come to know personally lately, if you're broke all the time it can be very constricting, greately reducing your options in life. We don't need to build a dirty oil popeline for another country to generate jobs. It's not if there isn't enough "work to do" right here, and the government can cartainly institute a targeted jobs program for infrastructure or whatever. But you will note there are few if any overt increases in expenditures in this plan. This is by design. I am certainly not advocating any new increases in "entitlement" programs, and this plan gives you the option of either retiring or not at age 66, and if you choose to work in your later years, you get a 5.2% boost in your salary due to your pay no longer being withheld. They have actuarial tables for pro rating life expectancy. If the measures on that list seem strange- - they aren’t. People have lived in this Ronald Reagan fantasy world for so long they don’t know what America used to be like, if they were even alive then. As I say this list merely “gets us back to Normal ”.
THERE'S A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE
Dr. Oz is having some of the most ridiculous bit of medical quackery I’ve ever seen on TV. He is saying you can “sleep your way” to losing weight. He says for every extra hour of sleep you get a night you lose fourteen pounds a year. So that if you sleep six rather than eight hours per night you are gaining thirty pounds a year. Believe me if losing weight were that simple they would have discovered it decades ago instead of my just learning this “discovery” today. Then he talks about gastric bypass surgery. This segment was strewn with misinformation. One big thing is they have promoted the idea that this operation is some how a new breakthrough. Not so. One of Elvis’ aids had the operation forty years ago. They remark that so few people get it. It’s like Newt Gingrich. It’s been around a long time but up till now few people have gone for it. Do you ever wonder why? But in addition to losing weight the most preposterous claims are made that it is a virtual cure for both diabetes and high blood pressure. One woman who had the surgery five DAYS ago and has only lost a few pounds, claimed to have gone from a fasting blood sugar of 172 to a new level of 114, I kid you not. Others have thrown away their blood pressure medication. They do point out the “Side effect” of this operation is being mal nourished so life so “you have to take vitamin supplements”. Of course these people got fat through lack of discipline, so what is the assurance that these people will follow their doctor’s nutritional instructions now? And as you know countless doctors have been saying “Vitamins are no substitute for food” because food has properties vitamins cannot possibly contain. Dr. Dean Edell even states that taking certain vitamins causes cancer. And Dr Oz goes on to say that people with a body mass over thirty should get the operation. Keep in mind normal body mass index is around 22 or 23. So we are kind of saying anybody 30% overweight should get this operation. And you thought it was just for the morbidly obese who weight 350 pounds or something. There is a sucker born every minute and something is “true good to be true”, then it isn’t.