Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sunday, Ideological Sunday

(with apologies to Bono for the post title, of course)

The Politico
has an interesting article on one of my favorite conservatives... Newt Gingrich... titled “Gingrich, provocateur, returns.” A few excerpts:
In the three months that Obama has been president, Gingrich has blasted the Democrat on a number of different fronts, from the economy and domestic policy to defense and foreign policy.

Obama’s budget? It “deliberately” reduces charitable deductions in the tax code to wage a “war against churches and charities.” His stimulus plan? An attempt to create a “European socialist model.” At one point during the omnibus spending bill debate, Gingrich said of the Obama administration: “I wonder how dumb they think we are that we wouldn’t notice 8,000 earmarks.”

He doesn’t mince words in his bracing critiques. After North Korea recently tested a missile, Gingrich accused Obama of engaging in “fantasy foreign policy” that could create “enormous trouble” for the United States. As for former Vice President Dick Cheney, Gingrich said he’s “clearly right” that the United States “is running greater risks of getting attacked than we were under President Bush.”

No one, not even the press, is immune from his barbs. The media’s obsession with the president’s new first dog, he said recently, is “fairly stupid.”
[…]
“If anybody doubts that he is the de facto leader of the Republican Party right now, they’re crazy,” said Matt Towery, CEO of the polling firm InsiderAdvantage and a former Gingrich aide. “Newt Gingrich is filling a void that nobody else is stepping up to fill right now.”
[…]
While Gingrich declined to comment for this story, a month into Obama’s presidency, he lifted the curtain on his opposition to the new president in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“We now have more than enough evidence of what this administration thinks of the American people,” Gingrich said before launching into a blistering critique of Obama. “Now, a month ago, I would not have said what I’m about to say, but I’ve watched carefully the first month of the left-wing machine.”

Norquist explained that Gingrich is an obvious choice for who should serve as the GOP’s voice because “he’s got 20 IQ points on some of the alternatives.”
Read the whole thing, as it's said. The article is fairly brief and is a wonderful lead-in to what I really want to talk about today.
I had the opportunity to watch the Speaker in action this past Friday when he gave extensive testimony on pending energy legislation before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. What was most interesting about Speaker Gingrich’s testimony was the fact he followed Algore and former senator John Warner (R-Va), so one had the opportunity to contrast The Goreacle’s bombastic, overly dramatic, “end of the world as we know it” rhetoric with Mr. Gingrich’s cool, fact based, and unruffled testimony… even in the face of an obviously hostile Democrat-controlled committee. There was an exception: former chairman John Dingell (D-Mich) greeted Speaker Gingrich warmly, saying "Nice to see you again, Newt," sounding like he actually meant it. (Newt responded in kind.) But that was the sole exception. The high point of Mr. Gingrich’s appearance was the spirited exchange between resident idiot and committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif) and the Speaker. Mr. Gingrich coolly and systematically dismantled arguments advanced by an obviously agitated Congressman Waxman. It was a thing of beauty to behold.
But we digress. The Speaker’s opening statement before the E&C committee is available on-line, in its entirety. Here are a few excerpts:
But as a former environmental studies professor who lectured on the second Earth Day, and as someone who was named Legislative Conservationist of the Year in 1998 by the Georgia Wildlife Federation, it should be no surprise that I care deeply about and am committed to the protection of our environment.
In this commitment, I echo the conviction of two great American leaders. The first is President Theodore Roosevelt, who said that "the nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets, which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value." The other was then-Governor Ronald Reagan who, upon the occasion of the first Earth Day, affirmed the "absolute necessity of waging all-out war against the debauching of the environment."
It was in this spirit that I read the bill that is being discussed before this committee and it is in this spirit that I report to you today my conclusion that this is the wrong bill.
This bill is wrong for our national security.
This bill is wrong for our economy.
This bill is wrong for government of, by, and for the people.
The framework in which I have analyzed this bill can be captured in a very simple phrase: 2+2=4, which was a prominent rallying cry in the late 1980s when the Solidarity free trade union movement was campaigning in Poland's first free elections.
The core idea behind 2+2=4 is that citizens must tell the truth even when governments lie. 2+2=4 forces you back to reality.
As matter of reality, the United States faces three enormous threats: threats to our national security, a threat of further economic decline, and a threat of government for the government (and not government for the people), which leads to corruption, political favoritism, and the fundamental breakdown of the rule of law. On all three of these bases of reality, this is the wrong bill.
[…]
When you consider President Obama's budget, this proposed legislation has a price tag for the American people of at least $646 billion. We know from news reports that senior Obama administration officials have indicated that $646 billion is a conservative amount and that the overall figure may be as much as three times that amount or $1.9 trillion in new taxes.
This is currently a 648 page bill, or, put another way, $1-3 billion per page. This is quite a costly bill, even for the standards of this Congress. It would be two and a half times the size of the giant stimulus package passed earlier this year. And it would be a tax burden not a spending stimulus so it would deeply burden the American people and the economy.
While our economy is in deep recession and Americans are losing jobs by the thousands each month, this bill would worsen both. Make no mistake about it: This bill amounts to a $1-2 trillion energy tax levied on a struggling economy, which is destructive and wrong. With this glorified $1-2 trillion new energy tax, expect utility bill increases up to $3,128 per year per household. Filling up your gas tank will cost anywhere from 60 percent to 144 percent more, your electricity bill will increase by 77 to 129 percent, and the cost of home heating oil and natural gas could nearly double.
If enacted, this energy tax will increase the electricity bill of every American, increase the cost to drive a car, and increase the cost of doing business. This will punish every retired American, every rural American, and every person who drives to work, uses heating oil, or has electricity in their home. This will kill jobs and lead American jobs and investment being shipped to China and India, two countries that have made it quite clear that they will not levy such an enormous tax on their own economies.
Once again… Speaker Gingrich’s complete statement is here, and it’s VERY good reading. C-SPAN has video of the Speaker’s testimony, if video is more your style. And… in the spirit of bipartisanship (heh)… you could also watch The Goreacle’s testimony, if you’re into self-abuse on a grand scale. And yes, that would be ME, as well. I watched the whole Goreacle testimony in real-time and I’m still suffering from the experience. The things I do to keep an open mind amaze even me sometimes. Be advised: both videos are rather long. But they are MOST enlightening.

It should come as no surprise, Gentle Reader, that I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Gingrich's positions... while I think Algore is a prat, and a dangerous prat, too. Gore wields a lot of influence, God only knows why. Maybe it's that Nobel thing. Or perhaps it's his Oscar, which I think would carry more weight with mainstream Obama voters. An inconvenient truth, if ever there was one.

Finally... Mr. Gingrich's website... American Solutions... is also worth a visit if you have some time to kill. Good Stuff be there.

12 comments:

  1. Thanks for these links and the wonderful excerpt, Buck.

    Reading Gingrich is so satisfying. YES.

    Reading (or listening to) Gore is ALWAYS disturbing. (I can't believe I ever voted for the guy!) I learned last night that he is a member of The Club of Rome, something I'd never heard of before, which explains him very well:

    The Club of Rome is a global think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues. It was founded in April 1968 and raised considerable public attention in 1972 with its report Limits to Growth. In 1993, it published followup called The First Global Revolution. According to this book, "It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together in the vacuum; such a motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose....The common enemy of humanity is man....democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead.", and "In searching for a new enemy to unite us we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill."

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  2. Great piece! I couldn't make it through Algore's testimony. You could practically hear some of the Committee members drooling. Inconvenient, definitely; truth? Not so much.

    That Club of Rome thing explains a lot.

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  3. Bec: I'd never heard of the Club of Rome before, either. Thanks for the link. It doesn't surprise me that Gore would be a member... not at ALL.

    Moogie: Drooling, indeed. That twit Jay Inslee from Washington has just GOT to be drooler-in-chief, going so far as to urge The Goreacle to "thank Tipper for her efforts, as well!" Great God...

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  4. Thanks for this post on Speaker Gingrich, Buck. I also love the guy, and wish his time had come to make a serious run for the presidency, but I just think he has too much baggage and sadly won't ever be in a position to be a contender.

    I promise I will watch the Gingrich testimony, but Algore? Hmmmm.... not so sure. *ugh*

    One more thing. We bought a copy of Newt's Reagan video, "Rendezvous With Destiny" and I highly recommend it. Very well done. It can be ordered through citizensunited.org Sure makes one homesick for the "old days" when we had a great president.

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  5. Good stuff, Buck.

    Gingrich needs to make it up to me for appearing in that "bench" commercial with Speaker Nan. But I'll give this new material a thorough read, and Newt a fair hearing.

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  6. Yes, I agree -- I never understood the commercial he made with Pelosi. Really strange....

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  7. Buck, yep Gingrich is the real deal and I hope he can shake all the old baggage and make a run for CINC. As for the OwlGore, I think I would take waterboarding over watching or listening to him for any length of time.

    As for the bill they were speaking to, this is how it all starts. Go back to my prevous two posts regarding the picture of North Korea without any lights on, this is the start right here. Once this new bill is approved and the law of the land they will start taxing "non-Green" energy sources right out of existance. What other "Clean" souces are out there? We can't replace that kind of power generation from Wind power or solar combined (unless you put a great big turbine over the top of the U.S. Capital building and harness all this hot-air). Those that survive will fall easily into the government hands and then the same kind of person you hate at the DMV counter or on the Unemployment Office (and I just had a brush with those folks too, let me tell ya) will be 'managing' power generation and scheduling. Can you say rolling brownout!!!

    We have three years and 9 months of this to go and I have little hope for the shape of the country to come. Or if we can recover from what has been started, which might be is really going on, get the government program alive because they never go away.

    BT: Jimmy T sends.

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  8. Sharon: I agree with you, in that I think Newt has all the "right stuff" to make a great... not just good... president. But he has way too much baggage, both personal and political, to make a run at the presidency. Being the astute guy he is, he knows it, too. I think it would be the *personal* baggage that would kill him, and that's a damned shame.

    Morgan: That ad with Nan perplexed me, too. Newt's walking a tightrope where this whole climate change thing is concerned.

    Jimmy: The flaw in your argument, as I see it, is this: NO company pays taxes... we, the consumers do. These tax increases would be passed right thru to you and me; the companies would survive. We the people, OTOH, would take the heavy hit. That's one of Gingrich's (and most others opposed to cap'n'trade) point. The Democrats are proposing some sort of rebate scheme to offset the tax increase, but they're just moving money around in a shell game while increasing the federal bureaucracy about three-fold, or worse. An ill wind, indeed.

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  9. My hippie liberal lawyer brother once met Al Gore at some Dem function. He was quite impressed with Gore and let me know that Gore was a much smarter and friendlier person than Bush. I didn't bother to argue with my brother 'cause he is about as smart and friendly as Mr. Gore.

    Sometimes I think that it was the younger generations who voted for Obama - They (and we) will be paying for that in lots of ways.

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  10. Somewhere I have some pictures of my liberal daughter meeting Algore and Tipper and she looks like she is meeting the God of America.

    I gagged at that one, until I saw her pictures with Al Franken, Martin Sheen and Janet Reno. I did NOT raise her to hang out with people like that!!!

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  11. Buck, to counter you, I see that happening, the passing on of the great tax increases on to the consumer. So, what do we do out here? Well the ones on the fringes stop using it when it is no longer free (yeah, that will happen under democrat rule, the "Poor" and the Seniors will get a limited free ride) and those in the middle will cut back their usage to keep their costs inline. The "Greenies" will see this as not as less usage but "smart usage" and force the closure of even more power generators. Eventually there will be so few power producers that are not government run that they will loose their market share because the Government Power is cheaper (no taxes in that power). Then we have ONLY Government Power and they will charge what they want but more importantly, they will manage each power plant into the ground. Not having any one trained in the skill of engineering power generation because it was all government employees (where you really don't have to know anything) or they moved to China or Russia where they don't give a crap about being "Green" and the result will be LIGHTS OUT.

    Round about way. Just look at what is happening with GM right now. And that is with the Government involved only a little bit!!! Wait until it owns it outright.

    BT: Jimmy T Sends.

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  12. Lou sez: "I didn't bother to argue with my brother 'cause he is about as smart and friendly as Mr. Gore. "

    Hmmm. I read a LOT into THAT... and I think you meant it the way I *think* you did. As for the younger generation going for The One? Agreed. That was part of O's strategy... be "hip," be "cool" and all that. There's a sucker born every minute... or, in this case, an entire generation of suckers.

    Sharon: OMG... I feel your pain!! I kinda lived it, too, back in the day. I used to be a moonbat, and it pained my father GREATLY. He lived to see me come around, tho. So I think there's hope for your daughter.

    Jimmy: T'is a bleak picture you paint. But I just don't see all that happening. At least I *hope* it doesn't. Your point about GM IS well-taken, even though I believe it's apples and oranges.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.