Newt #12 -- Saints and Sinners

It's been almost a week since my last "Newt" post, and I'll make this one brief.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, but I wonder if Newt can pull this one off.

He has spent much of the past two years courting religious conservatives, which is what a smart and calculating politician would do in his position. The messy affairs and divorces do not endear him to evangelicals -- except he's now presenting himself as the repentant bad boy who has been "forgiven" by God. And, as I've suggested before, there's nothing that appeals to them quite as much as a repentant sinner who claims to have found the Lord.

And that's exactly what Newt has done. Maybe he's sincere. Maybe I'm just cynical. But it is so exactly what one would do in his position from political calculation, and he is such a known (and confessed) manipulator who thinks he's above ordinary moral obligations, that it is hard not to assume that is what is motivating his pious campaign now.

So -- all that is background to the news today that -- all the while that he's been trolling these religious aisles for support -- his largest financial donor is none other than Sheldon Adelson, the multi-billionaire chairman of the Las Vegas Sands casino, who has contributed $7 million to Newt's coffers.

The Sands is currently under investigation by the Justice Department for bribery allegations in another major casino they own in the hot gambling spot of Chinese Macau. While he was visiting there last year, the local anti-vice squad raided Adelson's hotel room; and, according The Center for Public Integrity, "arrested more than 100 alleged prostitutes and pimps on charges of running a sex ring out of the resort."

Will the evangelical base care? Will they see this as part of the same pattern of Newt giving speeches on family values and, at the same time, cheating on wife #2 with a staff member, whom he now wants us to accept as the First Lady? Will evangelicals see through these patterns and realize that they're being conned by a conniving, amoral politician?

Let's hope so.

Ralph

How do you like this one?

From MoveOn.org:

According to The New York Times, last year General Electric (GE) made over $14.2 billion in profit, but paid NO federal tax. None.

In fact, thanks to the millions GE spent lobbying Congress, we American taxpayers actually owed GE $3.2 billion in tax credits.

Now GE is slashing health benefits and retirement benefits for new employees among non-union workers and is expected to push unions to accept similar cutbacks, while its CEO, Jeff Immelt, gets a 100% pay raise. . . .

And if the American people got back just the $3.2 billion GE took in tax credits, it would pay for the programs that House Republicans want to gut, like community health centers providing care to over three million low-income people and food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children. We'd even have enough left to save the jobs of over 21,000 teachers across the country.

The American deficit is being weighed down by hundreds of billions spent on bailing out major corporations. The tea party's plan is to make working families pay through devastating cuts, instead of making corporations with billions in profits pay their fair share.

Fed up? So am I. We've not only have to take the House back in 2012, not only from the Repubs but from the conservative Dems too.

Ralph

Tortured Logic #2

I can see that the lead-up to the Republican primary is going to be a field day for tortured logic. So I'm starting a numbered thread here -- and the first one goes retroactively to Newt for his saying it's Obama's fault that he (Newt) flipflopped about Libya (see Newt #11, Sat. 3/26). The second dubious honor goes to Rick Santorum.

Back in 2003, when Sartorum was a senator from Pennsylvania, he's the one who voiced his concern about the Supreme Court's overturning the Texas sodomy law, saying that the state should be able to regulate sexual behavior, including homosexuality, just as it does adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and zoophilia (bestiality). In a later comment, he referred to the latter as "man on dog" sex -- which led to no end of late night comedian jokes. Yes, that Santorum. He's maybe running for president.

So, here's his looney statement:

Abortion is the cause of Social Security's problems.

And here's his tortured logic: Social Security is in financial trouble because there aren't enough workers to support the retirees. And why is that? Because of our "abortion culture." We just don't make enough people to support our old folks. We need more people.

But, Rick . . . unless people have jobs, they don't pay into Social Security. Just making more people won't solve the problem of Social Security if they can't find jobs. So you had better solve that problem first -- got any ideas? I mean, other than your fixation on the flat tax, which of course shifts more of the tax burden onto the lower income groups (why else would Republicans be the ones pushing it?) and IMHO simply makes it all worse. Got any other ideas?

Ralph

Outrage !! -- on a different subject

Mother Jones magazine's blog today details the latest outrage from House Republicans:

HR 3 is a bill making its way through the House that has 221 co-sponsors and that Speaker John Boehner has made a top priority, with expected easy passage. The bill extends the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. What HR 3 does is to require assistance from the IRS in enforcing that ban by writing it into many places in the tax code. In other words:

HR 3 would turn IRS audit agents into "abortion cops."

For example, if a person claimed a tax deduction for medical expenses either to pay for an abortion or to pay for health insurance that covers abortions; and, if that person's IRS return is audited, the IRS would be required to determine whether such an abortion met those criteria of exception in the Hyde amendment.

The burden of proof would lie with the taxpayer to prove that her abortion was the result of rape, incest, or to save her life -- or that her insurance policy did not cover abortions, even if she hadn't had an abortion.

This is an outrageous extension of an already outrageous control over a woman's reproductive choices by moralizers who are determined to impose their interpretation of when life begins on everyone else -- and science be damned. The Hyde amendment already puts this restriction on Medicaid paying for abortions, or any federal health insurance for employees. Now with HR 3,

it would be extended to forbid anyone taking a tax deduction for medical expenses paid privately for an abortion -- or even to pay insurance premiums if the policy covers abortion.

This opinion of the law has been given by Tax Analysts, a non-partisan, non-profit tax policy group. A former long-time IRS official agreed.

NARAL ProChoice American issues this statement:

"This bill gets more outrageous and insulting by the day. Not only would a woman have to describe her sexual assault to the police, but she could then be forced to relive that horrifying experience with an agent from the IRS," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "The 221 members of Congress who signed their names to this egregious bill must explain to their constituents why they want to give the IRS authority to audit rape survivors."

If you would like to sign the petition sponsored by my phone company, the social-activist company, CREDO, go to this web site:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/no_abortion_audits/

Ralph