Month: January 2012

Zeke Miller dug up the bill Congressman Gingrich proposed for providing a path for lunar statehood, the "National Space and Aeronautics Policy Act of 1981":

Gingrich appears to have misstated the number of lunar colonists required for a space-based outpost to apply for statehood — the number is 20,000 for self-government in the original bill, not the 13,000 he mentioned yesterday. Statehood requires the population of the least populous state — or greater than Wyoming's 563,626 people in the 2010 Census.

A reader chimes in:

I’m a liberal Democrat, so there isn’t a chance in hell I would vote for Gingrich, or any of the other GOP candidates for that matter. And yet, I find myself admiring at least this one aspect of Newt – unlike his opponents (and, for that matter, nearly every other national candidate of either party over the last generation), he is willing to think outside the box and he does seem to have a love for "big ideas".

There’s certainly something to be said for rebuilding our space initiatives (although this may not be the best moment in time for it), and his willingness to advocate for this says something not just about Gingrich’s romanticism but also his willingness to consider more visionary, long-range projects. I think there’s something admirable about this.

On the other hand – and it’s a big downside – it seems pretty clear that a good deal of this stems from Newt’s egomania. He espouses grand ideas because he’s in love with the notion that he’s the kind of guy who thinks big thoughts. It’s all about him. This is one big narcissistic trip for him. He throws out ideas like this because he believes it makes him seem smarter and more far-seeing than, and superior to, everyone else – not because he really believes in the merits of the ideas. This is dangerous stuff – a President who is a raging egomaniac, whose principal motivation is to make himself fit his own self-image. Personally, I prefer a President with a healthy but under-control ego, whose principal motivation is to serve the country well. I think we have that guy in office already.

The other part of the downside with Newt is that he lacks any sense of discipline. Why would any serious, thoughtful candidate publicly propose a Moon program at this particular juncture, when the economy is still in the toilet, when we desperately need rebuilding of our infrastructure, investment in technology and new forms of energy and when our schools are deteriorating? If we are going to make a significant investment at this time, wouldn’t pretty much everyone prefer addressing some of these more worldly concerns?

To put it mildly, the timing of this comment by Newt is absolutely terrible; he has shot himself in the foot. And this is merely the latest in a series of comments by Newt over the years which indicate that he has a defective filtering device. Again, is this really a character trait we want in our president?

David Frum excuses Romney's caricatures of Obama: 

[E]lections turn on more than facts, promises, and programs — especially this current campaign for the Republican nomination for president. More perhaps than most, this election turns on shared feelings. Many Republican primary voters have been sold a narrative or image of the Obama presidency in which a radical socialist alien president is seeking to wreck and overturn the American way of life and the free enterprise system. That narrative is nuts, but unless you signal that you share the nuttiness, your campaign goes the way of Jon Huntsman's.

Romney, having no interest in martyrdom, has sent his share of such signals. And it is those signals that I doubt he believes. Whatever else Mitt Romney may be, he's certainly no fool. So when he says something foolish, I assume there must be a part of his brain that knows better. What choice does he have?

Elsewhere, Frum explains how he sees the Gingrich-Romney fight. 

A setter hunting dog is pictured during a press preview prior to the fair known as "Jagd und Hund" (Hunt and Dog) at the fairgrounds in Dortmund, western Germany, on January 25, 2012. The hunting and fishing trade fair will open its doors to visitors from January 31 to February 5, 2012. By Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images.

Robert Costa expects Reagan revisionism to factor prominently in the Florida primary: 

Romney’s supporters sense that their candidate must go after Gingrich’s broader campaign themes, not only details of his past. Tonight, look for Romney to mention more than Reagan’s diary, and to come armed with details of Gingrich’s less-than-friendly quotes about Reagan, most from Gingrich’s early days in Congress, including Gingrich’s 1986 potshot, when he said Reagan was “failing” to meet the Soviet threat. If Romney finds a way to instill doubt in viewers’ minds about Gingrich’s lofty Reagan recolllections, his campaign believes that Gingrich could be crippled. 

Gingrich supporters have rushed out this video, in which Nancy Reagan says: 

The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century.  Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.

Kailua Kona, Hawaii, 3 pm

Jonathan Bernstein believes so:

Republicans this cycle had three candidates who made it as far as the televised debates who were plausible nominees because they held mainstream conservative views on public policy and had conventional credentials: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Tim Pawlenty. The latter two were rapidly eliminated, at least in part because party actors turned against them after mediocre or worse debate performances. Were they correct? If Mitt Romney turns out to be a poor general election candidate or, should he be elected, an unreliably conservative president, those party actors may very much regret that they turned to the debates for vetting. If they are foolish enough to give Newt Gingrich the nomination because he proved to be a better debater than Romney, they’ll regret it even more.

"It's pretty simple: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and it's a perfect example of what I mean by the rise of paganism. The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization," – Newt Gingrich. Add it to the Annals Of Chutzpah as well.

Seventy-one covers of Adele's hit song mashed into one:

A ton of response from the in-tray. One reader:

The question pretty much answers itself in most cases – nothing.  I think the more interesting question is, "To what extent have the 1% benefited disproportionately from public funds on infrastructure, education, and public safety?"  I think the answer to that is generally "a lot."  I am very much like you.  I pay probably half my income in taxes of one form or another, including a sizeable chunk of federal income and payroll taxes.  It pisses me off that someone like Romney can pay only 13.9% despite clearly disproportionate benefit.  What I want is equity, not redistribution, and I think the majority of Americans would agree.

Another writes:

The trouble with Romney isn't that he's wealthy.  The trouble is that he's rich for a living, the way some people are famous for being famous.  His existing wealth allows him to accumulate – not generate – more wealth on an open-ended basis.

Another snarks:

Wilkinson is exactly right: the 1 percent get their money just like everyone else.  I mean, who among us hasn’t inherited enormous wealth from their rich daddy, or lobbied to get special tax treatment for their income, or taken advantage of foreign tax shelters?

Another:

When I hear people trying to justify the rapidly growing disparity between rich and poor, I'm reminded of the great line from The Family Guy: "I am Republican, the party that helps those who have the means to help themselves." 

The problem with this wealth discrepancy isn't that someone has so much more money than another.  It is that so much more money equates to so much more power than somebody else.  And with greater power comes a greater need to protect that power, which leads to greater corruption. The corruption has become so evident.  The playing field is now seriously tilted.  The tax laws become more complex, which serves the rich. Investments become more complex, again serving the rich.  Regulations are removed to help the wealth grow their riches while individual rights are reduced in the name of "national security".  Corporations are people who can receive massive public subsidies and bailouts, while actual people don't have access to these things.

A growing disparity is a sign of a disease running below, not a sign of good health.

Another:

I have to comment on the post from Wilkinson. I am somewhere in that 30% – an in-house counsel at a corporation, making more money than most people who work there. However, I make a fraction of what our CEO and CFO make (as in 10%) because of this: We were bought by private equity a number of years ago. The owners bought us with leveraged funds. And then, our company took out a loan from our owners at 15%. In 2008. On the open market, we could have gotten a loan for 7-8%. Why would our CFO and CEO allow them to do this? Because their bonuses and salary increased 4 times. So no, the 1% don't make their money the way I do. I go to work every day, work long hours, check my blackberry constantly when I'm not there and get a 4% raise.

Another:

Reading your quote from Wilkinson helped me to finally mentally structure an internal struggle for years. I'm a small business owner/operator and business-minded liberal, meaning that I understand the need for regulation as a way of forcing the market to play reasonably fairly and I feel strongly that paying taxes is a privilege (if I'm making enough for my tax bill to be high, then I'm doing pretty well). However, the way we tax is arbitrary – we tax based upon results, not what went into those results. I can make $1 million on $10 million of sales, working hard to innovate, serve my customers, and pay my suppliers on time while a day-trader can make four trades to achieve the same revenue and not work another day in 2012. On December 31st, we end up with the same revenue, but I pay a higher effective tax rate. That seems insane to me.

The challenge is that my fellow liberals fail to recognize the difference in aggregate between these types of wealth. The gut-level assumption seems to suggest that capitalists are all motivated entirely by greed, are not contributing to society, and are screwing the middle class.

Many of the 1% folks I know come from working class backgrounds, investing a lot of time and energy in their educations and, in many cases, taking bold risks as entrepreneurs. They've done the right things – created jobs, paid their taxes, contributed to their communities in time/talent/treasure, and have realized that they're incredibly fortunate. They are angry that they're being lumped together with those who have contributed very little to society. They don't mind paying taxes, even a little more (many voted for Obama), but the demonization of their success is wearing on them.

It's a classic, but I suspect his clout is not exactly Sarah Palin's any more. My favorite line:

Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I’m not certain he knew either.

That's the Dole we love. A dose of dry humor with the arsenic. Pity the establishment he seems to represent no longer exists.