Category: 2011

Happy Holidays! The House GOP Sucker Punches the President, Their Own Senate Republican Colleagues, and the American People

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 20, 2011

I’m listening to CNN as the deplorable House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA), talks about the House vote, just made, to force a conference on HR 3630, the payroll tax and unemployment extension proposal. Legislative proposals must pass both the House and the Senate in identical forms to meet constitutional requirements. A conference committee is an often-used method to reach a compromise between competing House and Senate proposals. Regarding HR 3630, Cantor and his Tea Party Congressloons did not accept the Senate version of HR 3630 that sought a two month semi-solution/compromise to the difficulties posed by widely divergent House and Senate HR 3630s. How divergent? The Senate version of HR 3630 was 34 pages. The House? 370 pages. Now that’s divergent. And yes, senators kicked the can down the road. But yes, a kick is better than a stomp that was, with few exceptions, the House version of HR 3630.

Of course, since the House leadership (apparently now putatively led by Cantor, not Boehner, the de facto Speaker) and Tea Partiers desire nothing more than loading up the payroll tax/unemployment benefit legislation with poison pills, they naturally want a conference, not to resolve issues, but to create more delay through intransigence. Also, counterintuitively, and counterproductively, they hope to embarrass the GOP Senate, with whom they now appear to be in open conflict. I worked on Capitol Hill with members of both Houses of Congress for a nearly a quarter century, and I understand this internecine warfare. It’s part of the expanding and contracting of relative strength within parties. It’s used by both sides, yet never so irresponsibly, capriciously, and aggressively as the present GOP House. Conservatives? Revolutionaries.

After reaching agreement on the two-month extension, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and the rest of the bunch left town last Saturday vowing to not discuss anything until the House approves the two-month extension. A few minutes ago, that possibility vanished. So, who knows what’s next? The conference committee, perhaps before January 1st? Well, whenever it convenes, in the end, the House conferees will characteristically shout “Havoc!” and unleash their yapping dogs. In the end, the conference will likely be as useful and unsuccessful as was the vaunted Supercommittee. . . Yadda Yadda Yadda . .

More Insult, More Injury. What really rankles though is Cantor and other GOP Congressloons using against him the President’s encouragement of a year-long extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance. Remember, the Senate just passed the two-month solution with GOP support, including Mitch McConnell who agrees with nothing but unseating President Obama in November 2012. This bipartisan agreement was a major achievement. Today, the House GOP, however, refused to agree, not with Democrats, but with its own Senate minority. In any event, after packing the House proposal with poison pills, and then passing it over the administration’s objections, you are at least morally prohibited from trying to obscure your dishonesty by trying to implicate the president in your plans, as Cantor does now when he says, “even the President wanted a full year solution, so we’re simply doing what the president requested.” That is the very definition of flapdoodle.

The one-year extension Cantor refers to was simply the cherry on the top, not the underlying “cake” of what the President advocated for. He – and then the Senate with a huge plurality – reached a simple solution, for now, not a final solution, forever. The Senate produced what was rational, providing 34 pages of simple language to close the gap for the holidays and thereby keep the payroll tax reduction in place until Congress returns in late January. Then, there’s time to battle. The House, with neither embarrassment nor honesty, and with insincere Tea Party Christmas spirit, handed the President, their own senate colleagues, and the American people their own HR 3630, a 370 page insult, with a cherry of injury atop.

‘Donald Twist – A Billionaire Boy’s Progress’ – Newest Charles Dickens Book

Michael Matheron1 Comment

December 20, 2011

Yesterday, I wrote about a provision in the House version of HR 3630, the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance extension proposal now battling it out with the Senate version of the bill.  The provision, labeled “Ending Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits for Millionaires,” was a poorly cast joke, a poorly thought-out proposal, or both.  No matter.  It’s clearly not a serious proposal and I wondered, if passed into law, to whom would it apply?  Millionaires denied food assistance!  Here’s how it might appear in the mirror image reincarnation of Mr. Dickens . . . and his new novel about a young wastrel, Donald Twist . . .

Whaddya mean, no more gruel!!!

Iraq – The Beginning of the End of Memory

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 15, 2011

“Those who control the present, control the past
and those who control the past control the future.”
-George Orwell

  [I saw his round mouth’s crimson deepen as it fell],
Like a Sun, in his last deep hour;
Watched the magnificent recession of farewell,
Clouding, half gleam, half glower,
And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek.
And in his eyes
The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak,
In different skies.
–Wilfred Owen (1893-2018)

Nothing could have been less noticeable than the whimper with which the United States claimed it had ended its nearly 10-year Iraq war and occupation. Short of our own Civil War that now is carried forward in the Congress, almost nothing in our history needs more national soul-searching. About Iraq, we hear little but a whimper. 

Few expected celebrations. No ticker-tape rained down from the New York City’s Canyon of Heroes. None is expected to; the Pentagon has not been ordered to plan one. The troops themselves and their long-suffering loved ones fell into each other’s arms, though, as in all wars’ ends before. Now quickly follows an unspoken, “Where next”? “When”?

Have we learned enough of this war’s genesis to come away with anything resembling wisdom at our exodus? What did we learn from Vietnam?  Little but the value of deploying overwhelming force on a battlefield of our own choosing under our own cold war rules.  Like the British we fought in our professional way, the world outside of our own strategic box did not always cooperate. Unlike Vietnam, a victory retreat in overfilled helos barely able to gain airspeed enough to leave the roof of the Green Zone HQ was not broadcast for all to see.

In fact, some expressed disdain at our departure. Absent Ron Paul, GOP presidential candidates were uniformly opposed to ending our occupation. 

From the non-stop media, virtually nothing is said of the beginning, the craven dishonesty throughout the Bush administration, their bullying of national security agencies, the dismissal and criminalizing of dissent. No mention of the media’s early supplication that continues today.  

The silence is resounding. The GOP presidential candidates far and wide decry the decision to leave. The assumption throughout our national meditation on this war, if anything at all, revolves around what we accomplished there as we move on from a thoroughly disjointed country and its downtrodden people, hundreds of thousands fewer that when we arrived. And the lifelong physical and emotional injuries will starve Iraq’s spirit for multiple decades to come.

Worst Ever Source of Praise for Newt Gingrich

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 13, 2011

Last night, former V.P. Dick Chen*y spoke with CNN’s Erin Burnett about Newt Gingrich:   

. . . former Vice President Dick Cheney said he knew Gingrich well and had positive reviews of his political prowess. . . We hadn’t had the House since the 1940s. And initially, none of us believed it, but he was persistent. And he was tenacious. He kept it up and kept it up and kept it up. And finally by ’94, he’s the newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives with a Republican majority.” Uh huh. . . and how’d that go?

Aside from the fact that Dick Chen*y’s opinion on anything carries with it, shall we say, baggage, reminding the public about Newt’s speakership is not the very best choice if accolade is intended. Recall that in January 1997 (two years into Newt’s speakership) news coverage across the nation resembled this January 22nd Washington Post article:

House Reprimands, Penalizes Speaker

By John E. Yang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 22 1997; Page A01

The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House’s 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.

The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said. Exactly one month before yesterday’s vote, Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.

“Newt has done some things that have embarrassed House Republicans and embarrassed the House,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.). “If [the voters] see more of that, they will question our judgment.”

House Democrats are likely to continue to press other ethics charges against Gingrich and the Internal Revenue Service is looking into matters related to the case that came to an end yesterday.

The 395 to 28 vote closes a tumultuous chapter that began Sept. 7, 1994, when former representative Ben Jones (D-Ga.), then running against Gingrich, filed an ethics complaint against the then-GOP whip. The complaint took on greater significance when the Republicans took control of the House for the first time in four decades, propelling Gingrich into the speaker’s chair. [For the entire article]

I just love the laugh line: “The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said.”  LOL!

Genius Gingrich’s Anti-Palestinian Stance Unintentionally Buttresses Native American Claims to the United States

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 12, 2011

Newt’s claim a few days ago that “Palestinians are an invented people” has caused a bit of a furor, on all sides. The Perfesser was attacked roundly for it by Mitt Romney at last night’s debate. Gingo didn’t back down, but instead extended his swing towards Israel in the dispute to end all disputes. In fact, though, if one “extends” Gingo’s logic to what we call our own country, well, according to Gingo Logic, we better pack our bags . . .

So, here’s Newt Gingrich, an untenured and unmoored history perfesser, at the  GOP Presidential Debate, December 10, 2011:“I think sometimes it is helpful to have a president of the United States with the courage to tell the truth, just as was Ronald Reagan who went around his entire national security apparatus to call the Soviet Union an evil empire and who overruled his entire State Department in order to say, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Reagan believed the power of truth restated the world and reframed the world. I am a Reaganite, I’m proud to be a Reaganite. I will tell the truth, even if it’s at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid.”

That’s pure Gingo, speaking about his superior brand of courage. His courage to “tell the truth.”  In this case, his truth-telling was about the Palestinians, as in “Palestinians are an invented people.” That’s the wildly irresponsible statement he made a few days before during a Jewish Channel interview. Last night at the circus called the GOP Presidential debate in Iowa, he added to his assertion, “The fact is, the Palestinian claim to a right of return is based on a historically false story,” and “Palestinian’ did not become a common term until after 1977.” 

Well, this is classic Gingrich. The self-praising historian. Here he conflates two statements to cater to an Iowa GOP voter who is primarily an evangelical or Millennial Christian. They believe in Israel. Israel, the land of Jesus, is their foundational history and theology: so “Palestinians” do not exist, except as a terrorist force seeking to claim Israel. The real historical scholars, of course, differ in their conceptions of both “Palestine” and “Israel.” Their differences are valid. The history of the eastern Mediterranean is wide and deep. Much must be inferred from scattered and often unreliable ancient histories as politically motivated then as they are today. 

As for Gingo’s “history,” he has great audacity when he presents the history of that area to be his history. He is such an oversized personality, thanks primarily to his wrongdoing, that he gets very little push-back among his GOP panelists. Bachmann, the exception in all things, made a good run at him, but ultimately, she’s Bachmann who no one takes seriously at this point in the race. So, after brushing off a raid by Romney, Gingo was able to emerge a virtually non-contested winner in a one-sided history contest.

Gingo’s history conforms to many scholarly influences. As an example, Dr. Yohai Sela, Assistant researcher at The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies – Tel Aviv University, wrote this: “The word Palestine has no meaning in the Arabic language, neither do the words Jordan and Lebanon – all are taken from the Hebrew language.” Indeed, let’s accept that as true. Does Gingrich claim the same about our Jordanians and the Lebanese as he does about the “invented people” of Palestine. For God’s sake, Aristotle wrote of Palestine in the 4th Century B.C.E.!  So, Newt is speaking of “Palestine” as the original Jewish state. The consequences of that belief, however, would seem to lead to the equal claim that both Jordanians and Lebanese are “invented” people too. So then, are Jordan and Lebanon the property of Israel as well? Aren’t they too “invented” countries? Those questions arise as a logical result of Gingo’s incontrovertible “history.”

Thanks Gingo, You’ll Love Scotland! Moreover, by analogy, Gingo unwittingly provides Native Americans a valid legal claim on the territory called the United States. He simply just says anything without consideration of the general consequences of a particular statement.

For example, I grew up on Long Island, that huge finger pointing away from New York City. Well, in the same way that Professor Sela claims the word “Palestine” is of Jewish origin, the word Manna-hatta, Massapequa (as in today’s Massapequa Parkway), and Montauk Point (Long Island’s easternmost point) have no meaning in English. Twenty-four of our states claim their names from Native peoples’ languages, among them Ohio, Alabama, Massachusetts, Illinois, and the very next GOP primary state, Iowa. So, a la Gingo (and Professor Sela), have we an English language meaning for an Alabaman, Wisconsinite, or an Iowan?

The Native peoples of our country were forcibly pushed off what was collectively their land thousands of years before. Through Gingo’s exacting history and his oft-claimed political and philosophical consistency, it follows, “Americans are an invented people.” We better get our bags packed. 

Four Guesses Why Newt Gingrich Constantly Promotes “Six Sigma” Management Techniques During His Presidential Campaign

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 12, 2011

Running a close second to Newt’s kindergartners-as-janitors theme is the Six Sigma process. Newt’s constant recommendation of it to one and all as “the” approved way to improve business and governmental productivity and reliability is out-of-the-box thinking for him, but not in the usual way. With this Six Sigma enchantment, the man who promotes himself as a futurist behaves more like an archaeologist in the Death Valley of Management.

A 2007 Bloomberg Businessweek article well described Six Sigma So Yesterday? describing the quite old-fashioned method it employs. It’s not been abandoned, but Six Sigma shows all the signs of age and impending exile, soon thereafter to be among the rocks left behind in the management process past. In fact, in origin, it was not very innovative at all.  Its techniques existed with different names, and not much else, throughout business history. For an anecdotal example, here’s me. I worked nearly 25 years on Capitol Hill and, previously, with for profit, nongovernmental companies as well. In all, various private and public organization management teams marched us through every technique from the Peter Principle to 60 Second Management to Management By Objectives (MBO).  Once implemented, all were basically the same. All were found wanting.

Why? The poor morale of the workforce that pre-existed these efforts made employee “buy in” difficult. Additionally, these techniques were, in principle and effect, simply a retread of an old tire. Nothing new there. But for a new name, each replicated much the same concepts as the last one: a search for higher productivity and error-free results through close manipulation of the workforce. Innovation, in effect, was quashed by these efforts at control. Customer service suffered from time spent meeting non-customer needs of management “monitors.” Morale, consequently, declined. Products suffered. Clients and customers noticed. Adios 30 Second Management. Rewind.

This, of course, will occur as they implement another similar “best new thing.” There is a large industry that develops “new” management techniques that differ little, if at all, from the last development;  devises new names for the technique and the many processes within the technique; and engages consultants and business professors to promote the “newness” of the product.

Surely, Gingo The Magnificent, understands this. Remember, he’s a self-styled futurist, completely. He once “futurized” the placement of huge mirrors in synchronous earth orbit to light up our highways. That’s not insane, mind you, that’s “futurism.” So, Gingo’s smart enough, barely, to understand that Six Sigma is just another flawed management system among all other management systems that promised more than they could have possibly produced, employees being human beings and all. 

The Future Is Generally What Happened Yesterday or What Pays Well Tomorrow. So, then, why the Gingo Six Sigma seal of approval? He never misses an opportunity to promote it. Well, here’s my four guesses why:

1.  Six Sigma relies upon a Six Sigma training industry to produce consultants, trainers (“Master Black Belts,” “Black Belts,” “Green Belts,” and other Six Sig corporate pugilists), and trainers of trainers (perhaps called “Sensai”?) for companies interested in the process. Key word for Gingo? “Consultants.” My guess? He thinks Six Sigma might yield a variety of nice consulting gigs and training opportunities if he doesn’t attain the presidency (through no fault of his own, of course). With the Six Sigma believers, he’s pre-approved himself and his businesses to provide services to Fortune 100 companies. After all, it’s not unprecedented to mix business and running for the leader of the so-called free world. From the ‘git go he’s used his campaign as a book signing tour. Why not shill for Six Sigma?

2.  Six Sigma thinking, despite its quickly approaching shelf life, appeals to the GOP establishment, the group Gingo needs to help blunt Romney’s appeal to that self-same group.

3.  Gingo enjoys toying with his audiences and debate contestants by confusing them with arcane or absurd references. Six Sigma was a term virtually unknown to the GOP base before Gingo added it to the lingo. Most of his supporters don’t understand what he’s talking about, and he never explains Six Sigma. He plays off his reputation among undereducated supporters who nearly always accept what he says without question. Gingo also understands they will be unlikely to Google “Six Sigma” when they arrive home. Among his misbegotten strengths among the GOP base is this perceived braininess. (It’s funny, though, since the base was produced from the seed of extreme anti-intellectualism.)

4.   Gingrich never does anything unless he can gain financially from it. Period. Paragraph. He must be realizing a financial gain here too, now, not exclusively in the future. Is there a monied Six Sigma industry block out there with campaign cash to spend? That’s another likely guess. Gingo’s preening and pandering to them.

More Gingo Lingo – The Master of the Distinction Without a Difference & Last Night’s GOP Debate on the ‘Obamacare’ Individual Mandate

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 11, 2011

Well, how about that. Here’s a moment of truth from Michelle Bachmann. During last night’s GOP debate, she asserted:

Bachmann: But you have to take a look. You – when you take a look at Newt Gingrich, for 20 years, he’s been advocating for the individual mandate. That’s longer than President Obama.”

Newt was, of course, a bit miffed by that: “Well, Michele, you know, a lot of what you say just isn’t true, period. I have never– I have– I oppose cap and trade, I testified against it, the same day that Al Gore testified for it. I helped defeat it in the Senate through American solutions. It is simply untrue. I fought against Obamacare at every step of the way. I did it with– the Center for Health Transformation was actively opposed, we actively campaigned against it. . . You know, I think it’s important for you, and the– this is a fair game, and everybody gets to– to– to pick fights. It’s important that you be accurate when you say these things. Those are not true.”

Undaunted, Mrs. Bachmann continued: “Well, you’d have to go vack to 1993 when Newt first advocated fot the individual mandate in health care, and in May of this year, he was still advocating for the individual mandate in health care.

Then, after Mitt Romney and Rick Perry had their say, Gingo returned to Bachmann’s contentions:

“Yeah, I– I just wanna make one point that’s historical. In 1993, in fighting Hillary Care, virtually every conservative saw the mandate as a less-dangerous future than what Hillary was trying to do. The Heritage Foundation was a major advocate of it. After Hillary Care disappeared it became more and more obvious that mandates have all sorts of problems built into them. People gradually tried to find other techniques. I frankly was floundering, trying to find a way to make sure that people who could afford it were paying their hospital bills while still leaving an out so libertarians to not buy insurance. And that’s what we’re wrestling with. It’s now clear that

the mandate, I think, is clearly unconstitutional. But it started as a conservative effort to stop Hillary Care in the 1990s.”

The Persistence of (transcript) Memory. Mrs. B is correct in her underlying assertion: Gingo did support an individual mandate in 2003. Here the relevant portion of his May 11, 2011 interview on Meet the Press:

MR. GREGORY: All right, let me ask you about another hot-button issue in the Republican primary, of course, and that’s health care. Mitt Romney having to defend his proponent–that he was a proponent of universal health care in Massachusetts, and specifically around this idea of the individual mandate where you make Americans buy insurance if they don’t have it. Now, I know you’ve got big difference with what you call Obamacare. But back in 1993 on this program this is what you said about the individual mandate. Watch. (Videotape, October 3, 1993) REP. GINGRICH: I am for people, individuals–exactly like automobile insurance–individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance. And I am prepared to vote for a voucher system which will give individuals, on a sliding scale, a government subsidy so we insure that everyone as individuals have health insurance. What you advocate there is precisely what President Obama did with his healthcare legislation, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH: No, it’s not precisely what he did. In, in the first place, Obama basically is trying to replace the entire insurance system, creating state exchanges, building a Washington-based model, creating a federal system. I believe all of us–and this is going to be a big debate–I believe all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. I think the idea that…”

MR. GREGORY: You agree with Mitt Romney on this point.

REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay–help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I’ve said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond…”

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. GINGRICH: …or in some way you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.

MR. GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH: It’s a variation on it.

MR. GREGORY: OK.

REP. GINGRICH: But it’s a system…

MR. GREGORY: And so you won’t use that issue against Mitt Romney.

REP. GINGRICH: No. But it’s a system which allows people to have a range of choices which are designed by the economy. But I think setting the precedent–you know, there are an amazing number of people who think that they ought to be given health care. And, and so a large number of the uninsured earn $75,000 or more a year, don’t buy any health insurance because they want to buy a second house or a better car or go on vacation. And then you and I and everybody else ends up picking up for them. I don’t think having a free rider system in health is any more appropriate than having a free rider system in any other part of our society.”

GingoLingo: The Distinction Without A Difference. A distinction without a difference is a “logical fallacy and rhetorical ploy that involves drawing a conclusion on the assumption that different terms identify significantly different concepts when they do not.” That’s both an excellent definition and a portrait of Newt Gingrich, who is among its exemplars.

Here’s another definition, especially applicable to Gingo: “This fallacy consists in attempting to defend an action or point of view as different from some other one with which it is allegedly confused, by means of a very careful distinction of language, when in reality the action or position defended is not different in substance from the one from which it is linguistically distinguished.” [Italics indicate Gingo’s strength].

There’s nothing new about the technique that characterizes Gingrich’s extreme form of mendacity. It’s called “a distinction without a difference.” It’s often seen among politicians, yet Gingo has exceeded the best of them, and with him, this technique is part of a mendacious personality; most other politicos knowingly use it as a ploy, they do not always believe in the truth of it. Gingo does.

Also, one often sees this among academics, people trained in the art of drawing distinctions in their very narrow areas of study. These distinctions have meaning to their peers who also work in similar narrow areas. These cases are distinctions with a difference and are not dishonest ploys as they are among politicians, especially Newt Gingrich. As what he claims to be, a trained academic, Gingo may have sharpened his skills during this kind of training where distinctions with a difference are the flour and butter used in cooking up a new concept among one’s peers. Doctoral committees reinforce this as well. But Gingo arrived in this life with a gene for mendacity. The honing of that skill in his dubious academic career only mildly improved the skill that existed in utero.

Attacking the Fallacy Because many people are unaware that their attempted distinctions are not true differences, the first step that you might take is to try to point out to them the futility of their efforts. If your verbal opponent takes issue with your assessment, which is likely, you might ask for an explanation of just how the alleged distinction differs in meaning. If you are unconvinced by this explanation, you may be inclined to settle for the absurd example method? Consider the following example: “I wasn’t copying; I was just looking at her paper to jog my memory.” Such an example should clearly illustrate how very different words can function in very similar ways.

I think that history’s judgment will tend towards Gingo as a savant, of sorts. If one can be a savant of mendacity, Gingo’s precisely that. He is, at best, slightly above average for Lake Wobegon. Yet, he’s not “responsible” – none of us are – for innate intelligence. As a savant of mendacity, though, he does make the absolute most of what he has and is of Olympian stature when compared with all the others. Nixon may now sleep soundly and, finally, peacefully.

Another Planet Discovered Within the Universe of Reasons Why We Might Not Survive a Gingrich Presidency

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 11, 2011

At last night’s debate, Gingo got into a pis*ing match with Mitt Romney over Israel/Palestine policy. Who is more macho. Who has courage? Who is timid. Gingrich’s utterly unearned sense of his own bravery, his own singular judgment, in the face of complex international issues is literally frightening. We’ve known this for a long time, but he’s rarely given us a better example of unrestrained, and ultimately galactically irresponsible hubris.
 
Here’s what he said: “I think sometimes it is helpful to have a president of the United States with the courage to tell the truth, just as was Ronald Reagan who went around his entire national security apparatus to call the Soviet Union an evil empire and who overruled his entire State Department in order to say, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Reagan believed the power of truth restated the world and reframed the world. I am a Reaganite, I’m proud to be a Reaganite. I will tell the truth, even if it’s at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid.” The perfectly opposite example of this is Newt Gingrich.

In 1985, he told Jane Mayer of The Wall Street Journal that he still believed that “Vietnam was the right battlefield at the right time.” Why didn’t he go? “Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over,” he allowed. But, recovering, he added, “Part of the question I had to ask myself was what difference I would have made.”

That wasn’t an appropriate question. He like all those who went to Vietnam had a role to play, an unfortunate role. Gingo would have been the same, he’d have served a role, and “made a difference.” To use the question about whether he’d have made a difference is not a question one asks when called upon to serve one’s country. It’s dissembling. It’s like a card game with a player who has exceptional sleight of hand. A principled way to avoid service is well known: conscientious objection. Gingo’s way was self-serving; dishonesty masquerading as honesty.

GOP Payroll Tax Holiday Proposal Re-Invents Insult with its Millionaires’ Unemployment Provision

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 11, 2011

Oppression is more easily endured than insult. 
Junius 

Indeed. Here’s an example of the GOP’s expertise with the insult as well as its talent for underestimating its country’s anger about its social and economic situation. This example arises from the House bill, HR 3630, the ‘Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011’ (the payroll tax holiday being now in combat with its Senate version).  Passed by the House on December 13, 2011, it included a proposal that ought to be an unforgettable marker for the topsy turvy times we live in. Among the sneers at the poor and middle class that the GOP has tossed as casually as lint from a sport coat, the provision below may rank among the more craven insults to pass for serious legislative language. Listed, laughably, among “Offsets,” it’s surreal:

SEC. 5301. ENDING UNEMPLOYMENT AND SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM BENEFITS FOR MILLIONAIRES.

(b)  Ending Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits for Millionaires-

(1) IN GENERAL- Section 6 of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2015) is amended by adding at the end the following:

`(r) Disqualification for Receipt of Assets of at Least $1,000,000- Any household in which a member receives income or assets with a fair market value of at least $1,000,000 shall, immediately on the receipt of the assets, become ineligible for further participation in the program until the date on which the household meets the income eligibility and allowable financial resources standards under section 5.’.

(2) CONFORMING AMENDMENTS- Section 5(a) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2014(a)) is amended in the second sentence by striking `sections 6(b), 6(d)(2), and 6(g)’ and inserting `subsections (b), (d)(2), (g), and (r) of section 6′. 

Note, this provision follows section (a) of the new Title 26 (IRS) Section 5395 that would be created if the House had its way in the apparently upcoming House-Senate conference. Section (a) imposes an additional tax on “excess income,” also insulting to working Americans and the unemployed.

Perhaps the GOP ought to be more careful and less arrogantly confident. The American people are more carefully listening now. In reading through quotations related to “insult,” Cordell Hull, FDR’s Secretary of State, said it well:

“Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river.”

The American poor and middle class today form a churning river of humanity; a river both deep and wide, approaching flood level.

Callista Gingrich’s Guide to Staying on Top of Newt Gingrich

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

December 9, 2011

Newt’s marital high jinks have long fascinated us. Not the divorces as divorces, marriage is complicated, divorce is common. Common as well is the way in which Newt went about those divorces via consistent and sneaky infidelity. His M.O., though, is uncommon in another way. He’s uncommonly cruel. The evidence is strong that he presented his first wife, Jackie Battely, with divorce demands at her hospital bedside almost immediately after her uterine cancer surgery. His second wife, Marianne Ginther, was put on divorce notice eight months after she revealed she may have a condition that might lead to multiple sclerosis.

Enter Callista Bisek, now the reigning Mrs. Gingrich. She must have worries. Like Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife had worries. At least Gingo doesn’t have the power to execute at a whim or he’d likely be into double figures in the spouse department.

On last night’s Hardball with Chris Matthews show Callista’s name came up, and a short but very interesting discussion emerged about her very hands-on role in Gingo’s campaign . . .

Initially, Chris discussed Newt Gingrich and his rise in the polls. How did that happen? Did Gingo plan, as Nixon did, to make his run at exactly the right moment, or was he just the “last man standing”? Well, I say, who knows and who cares.

Somehow or other a conversation with Politico’s Mike Allen revealed Callista Gingrich and her allegedly overly influential role in Gingo’s campaign. Mr. Allen has credibility here: he wrote (with Evan Thomas) an e-book about the early days of the 2012 GOP presidential race, Playbook 2012: The Right Fights Back.  Here’s the Callista exchange. Have a read. We’ll talk afterward:

Politico’s Mike Allen:  “As you know Chris, one of the reasons that all of those aides left was that they didn’t like working under the thumb of Callista Gingrich. She wouldn’t let him stay overnight in Iowa. Chris, she wouldn’t let him stay on the road for a couple of nights, when you know that’s how you run for President. So they left largely because of that, and what did he do? He empowered her. Callista Gingrich is now much bigger in the campaign. In an interview, Newt Gingrich told us that she is involved in every key email chain from the campaign. Now, Chris, you worked in politics. can you imagine having the candidate’s spouse on every email?”
Chris Matthews: “No, I can’t.”  [Classic Chris, he then quickly moves to the next topic]

There Is Method to Her Sanity. To me, the story underneath Mike Allen’s analysis is much more understandable than he presents it, as simple meddling: “they didn’t like working under the thumb of Callista Gingrich.” You know. Those damned women!

One really doesn’t need to search very far for a more likely reason for Callista’s Newt-related behavior. Of course, it’s Newt himself. In Callista’s life, he’s two men, the public Newt and the private Newt. The former may excite her. The latter may frighten her. Here’s some of Mike Allen’s evidence for the latter: “She wouldn’t let him stay overnight in Iowa. Chris, she wouldn’t let him stay on the road for a couple of nights . . .” That lack of supervision, Mr. Allen, is precisely how Newt gets into trouble, with his politics, with his wives. Callista understands this quite well. She was closely, shall we say, “aligned” with Gingo from the mid-1990s, through still-married Gingo’s beyond hypocritical impeachment crusade against Bill Clinton, and then, likely exhausted, she emerged in 2000 as the (dubious) “prize winner” following Gingo’s second divorce.

Moreover, she also knows all about the first divorce. From these other unlucky Mrs. G’s, Callista has surely learned at least three history lessons about how to protect her status as “Mrs. Gingrich”:

1. Do not get sick! In 1981, Newt told his first wife, Jackie Battley, that he was dumping her, after she had been hospitalized with cancer.”

2. Do not talk about getting sick! Never reveal that you may have a possible progressive health condition, like Multiple Sclerosis, or other serious medical challenges. “Wife number two, Marianne Ginther Gingrich reported that Gingo ditched her eight months after finding out she had multiple sclerosis, saying the ex-speaker of the House told her on Mother’s Day 1999 that he wanted a divorce, after learning she had a neurological condition that could lead to MS.

3. Never, ever, allow New:t

(A) To stay overnight in Iowa,
(B) to stay on the road for a couple of nights, or

(C) to spend any time in any place for any purpose without direct spousal supervision.

With that in mind, I think it quite easy to understand Callista’s closeness to the campaign and to the campaigner. She’s protecting herself. Like the third Mrs. Henry VIII. But for its propinquity to Newt Gingrich, hers is not a bad life, and she’s got a book on the New York Times bestseller list too! But, recall, Henry had six wives. Be vigilant, Callista!