Get the big hook -- or maybe a butterfly net

Remember in those old movies about vaudeville -- when a terrible performer just keeps cracking unfunny jokes, then tries tap dancing, then starts doing card tricks, desperately trying to turn the audience's boos and jeers into cheers?

And then suddenly this giant hook extends out from the backstage wings and pulls the hapless performer off the stage    While from the other side of the stage, the guy with the dancing dog act makes a quick entrance trying to grab the crowd's attention.

Thhat's where we are with Newt and the Republican primary vaudeville act.   It's time for the hook.   Or maybe even a butterfly net might be necessary to capture this "angry little attack muffin" (Peggy Noonan's wonderful sobriquet for Newt) and put him away.

And there's Newt -- with yet one more trick up his sleeve -- "Let me just try this !!   I know they'll love me then.  Please, pretty please? . . . .No, not the hook !!!"  "NOOoooooooo.  I won't go!"

That's what Newt is saying now.   True, he had two wins in SC and GA and a total of 135 delegates to Romney's 660.  Since SC and GA, he has had a string of third and fourth place finishes, with a couple of distant seconds and no further prospects.   His campaign is in debt;  his main donor says he is at the end of his line.    One of his big consulting groups is filing for bankruptcy.

Here's the trick Newt is offering up now.    He will stay in the race to influence the GOP platform and force Romney to stick to a more conservative stance.

Big deal.    Nobody pays much attention to platforms these days, Newt.    Not if they are politically inconvenient.   They are policy statements that mollify some insiders,  but the voters could hardly care any less.   They listen to what the candidate says.  And you can bet that Romney is going to tell them what they want to hear, regardless of what's in the platform.

So, Newt.   Either you go quietly and peacefully, or it's the hook.   Don't make us call in the white coats with their big butterfly nets.    Make that the extra large size, please.

Ralph

Newt's financial irresponsibility

The latest in a long string of bankruptcy filings by Newt Gingrich's political and non-profit groups was announced Wednesday.   The Center for Health Transformation was founded by Gingrich in 2003 to generate legislative proposals for health care reform -- and they included individual mandates, by the way.  The Center is filing for bankruptcy to liquidate its assets and escape its debts -- a repeated pattern for Newt's enterprises.

Huffington Post has reported:

Since 1984, Gingrich has launched 12 politically oriented organizations and initiatives based in Washington. Of those, five have been investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and the House Ethics Committee, another five closed down with debts totaling more than $500,000, and two were subject to legal action.

Newt's second wife has also revealed in an interview last year that Newt was hopelessly in debt personally, and unconcerned about it, when they married.  She took over the finances and finally got them out of debt.   Newt thinks big ideas, you know?   He can't be bothered with pesky details like paying bills.  People give him money and he spends it -- apparently rather lavishly -- on private jets and jewels.

It has also been reported previously that Newt often leaves others holding the bag and losing money when these enterprises fail -- and he just blithely moves on.   He always manages to escape and leave it to others to mop up and take the financial hit.  Meanwhile, he traipses off to Tiffany's on another shopping spree with Callista.

It fits with his character.   The folly of his "big ideas" campaign is catching up with him.  Even his sugar-daddy, billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has said that Newt is "at the end of his line."

Whew.    It's about time for this juvenile clown to get his come-uppance.   The image of Newt as an over-inflated balloon, floating above the crowds at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade sticks with me.    I think we're about to see a big whoooosh as Newt gets deflated.

Ralph

New theory about Mitt Romney

Here's my latest theory to explain Mitt Romney's inconceivably non-sensical comments.

He must be deaf -- and can't hear what he is actually saying.  So he just says anything and nevermind that it is totally disconnected from reality or anything else he has said.

What produced this wonderful insight, you ask?

Today, Mittens was quoted as saying that Barack Obama "spent too much time at Harvard."

OK.  That's an opinion.  But here's a fact.   Obama spent three years at Harvard Law School.

Mitt Romney spent four years also at Harvard getting a joint JD/MBA.

Go figure.

Ralph

Playing politics with prices at the pump

How much control does the president of the United States have over the price of gasoline at the pump?   Very, very little -- and certainly not in the short run.

That didn't stop Newt Gingrich (in his High Dishonest mode) from promising that he would lower them to $2.50 if only voters would give him the chance.   Did he have a plan?   No, not one that had any practical validity.

Newt was more blatantly dishonest, but Romney and Santorum are loudly blaming Obama for the price at the pump.

Here's the truth about how the price of gasoline is set, from an Associated Press article by Jonathan Fahey.   It matches what all responsible economists who study oil prices say.  The pump price is determined by:

1.  The price of crude oil.  This is the primary fluctuating factor, and this is set by the price of crude oil on the international trade exchanges.   Factors which are making this high right now include:
     a. The rising demand from developing nations of Asia, Latin American, and the Middle East.
     b.  Global traders and the prices they are willing to pay, which in turn respond to things such as fear of nuclear tensions with Iran.

2.  Retailers buy from oil refineries through exchanges such as the New York Mercantile Exchange.  It is then sold to distributors who set wholesale prices and then eventually to the retailers (gas stations) who set their own prices, often influenced by the competition down the street.

3.   Are prices manipulated by Wall Street investors?    To some extent.   Investors in futures can either bet on prices rising or falling.  So that somewhat limited effect can go either way.  And this, of course, also makes the prices vulnerable to manipulative, political motives.

4.   Politics?    There is little any single politician, including the president, can do to directly effect prices.   Increasing drilling -- the Republicans' loud mantra -- has no immediate effect, and even any long-range effect is dampened by the fact that the increased production simply goes on the international trade markets and would be but a drop in the bucket.  It is not a one-to-one relation (drill here, keep the gas here) that Republicans are implying.

     The Republican claim that opening a new oil well now will lower your pump price next month is an outright lie.

     a.  Releasing oil from emergency supplies, another Republican demand, may cause a slight dip in prices temporarily;  but it would be quickly absorbed in the global price of crude -- and could even have the opposite effect by other nations taking it as a sign of scarcity and cutting back their own production to save their supply.

      b.  Cutting gasoline taxes.   This will lower the pump price -- but it also reduces the incentive to cut unnecessary use and to produce more fuel efficient cars.   In truth, raising taxes would be a more effective curb on excessive use of gasoline.

5.  Long range effective help:

     a  Setting higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and partially subsidizing development and purchase of more fuel efficient vehicles.   Obama has done this, and it is beginning to have an effect.

     b.   Encouraging expanded domestic production through granting drilling rights while still protecting the environment.   Obama has done this too, and gets much flak for his caution about the environment.   In truth, more new wells for drilling have been approved during his term than in the past, and for the first time in decades we now supply more than half the oil we consume.

     c.   Encouraging the development of alternate energy for heating to reduce the need for use of oil for heating.   Solar and wind power.   And again Obama has done this.

A New York Times story last Sunday by Richard Thaler, a University of Chicago professor of economics and behavioral science, reported a poll taken of a panel of 40 well-respected economists from top universities.  They were asked to consider this statement:

"Changes in U.S. gasoline prices over the past 10 years have predominantly been due to market factors rather than economic or energy policies."

Not a single one of the 40 disagreed with that statement.

So let's demand that Republicans tell the truth about gasoline pump prices.   Make them back up their claims.  They won't be able to do it.

This is not an issue that should be a political football -- but as long as the Republicans can fool the people into thinking they could actually do something about it -- they will use it as a weapon.

Ralph

Don't tread on me

While I'm on my soap box about right wing bigots trying to force the rest of us to conform to their beliefs, let me extend this to include the recent flap about birth control and medical insurance coverage.

Sometimes the point is made better by writers of Letters' to Editors than by the professional pundits.  Maybe it's the requirement for brevity that makes them so pithy and so right-on.

Here are two from this week's Newsweek concerning their recent article by Peter Boyer about Cardinal Timothy Dolan's indignant position that the Obama health care plan was trying to force the church to support contraception against its principles:

"Churches have all the freedom in the world to explain their belief systems and to define behavioral expectations.  But it remains the choice of the individual to follow a church's precepts.  Dictatorial Catholics, evangelicals, and others need to accept the fact that others' personal decisions, including those regarding contraception, are simply not theirs to make."

     Michaelens Gorney, Johns Creek, GA."

"I wish Peter Boyer had asked Cardinal Timothy Dolan why he doesn't object to insurance covering Viagra.  After all, Viagra is a drug used by men who want to have sex.  Is the Catholic Church going to make sure this sex is with their wives and for procreation purposes only?  What if an unmarried man wants a Viagra prescription -- how is that OK?"

      Becky Bartlett, Nazareth, PA.

 Very well put.

Ralph

NOM's shameless tactics exposed

The National Organization for Marriage.    Wouldn't you think those would be good people, even if misguidedly thinking that they alone own the rights to say who is entitled to marry?

Not so.   These are evil, manipulative, despicable people.   The odious Maggie Gallagher, whose writings I detested years ago when the AJC carried her weekly opinion column, is one of its leaders.

Now NOM's tactics have been exposed when a Maine judge unsealed memos from NOM introduced in a suit over the group's right to keep its donors names secret.   Why Maine?   Because NOM had been a major force in the campaign where voters overturned that state's law that legalized same-sex marriage.

NOM has an official designation as a social welfare organization and thus is entitled to avoid federal disclosure requirements.   But that is a completely false mask, and these memos prove that it is first and foremost a political activism organization.

Thanks to an editorial in the New York Times for this information:

1.  In the memos NOM brags about its "crucial" role in passage of California's Proposition 8.

2.  They describe their use of robo-calls to scare residents in different states away from supporting marriage equality.

3.  They talk of a plan to "expose Obama as a social radical."

It gets worse.   Much worse.

 4.  One memo is quoted:  "The strategic goal of the project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks -- two key Democratic constituencies."

5.  Another stated aim is to manipulate Hispanic voters by making opposition to gay marriage "a key badge of Latino identity."

And this (quoting from the Times editorial):

"These are not the musing of a marginalized group.   The day after the memos became public, National Organization for Marriage's co-founder and chairman emeritus, Robert George, was appointed by John Boehner . . . to a United States commission focused on addressing religious intolerance and extremism around the globe."

"Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have publicly aligned themselves with the group and signed its pledge to work aggressively from the White House against same-sex marriage."

It's time for NOM to be held accountable for the misuse of its privileged status as a social service organization.   Either stop all political activity or lose the protections for non-political groups.

Ralph

Obama in campaign mode

Suddenly, it seems that Barack Obama has found his campaign voice again.

On top of his strong statement yesterday about the pending SCOTUS decision on the Affordable Care Act, today he goes after the Paul Ryan budget plan that has just been passed by the Republican controlled House.

He calls it "nothing but thinly veiled Social Darwinism" in a talk he will give to an Associated Press luncheon today in Washington.

"It's a Trojan Horse. . . . Disguised as [a] deficit reduction plan, it's really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It's nothing but thinly-veiled Social Darwinism. It's antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who's willing to work for it -- a place where prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last -- education and training; research and development -- it's a prescription for decline."

Stressing the theme that prosperity has never trickled down from the success of a wealthy few;  it comes, rather, from the success of a strong middle class.

"That's how a generation who went to college on the GI Bill, including my grandfather, helped build the most prosperous economy the world has ever known.  That's why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so they could buy the cars that they made. That's why studies have shown that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run."

Bravo, Mr. President.

Ralph