Not. He's a man who needs to go off to a think tank, publish papers, and appear on talk shows.
Not run for President. Newt's ideal job description is “gadfly”.
Would he be a better President than Obama? Given current trends, that's not much of a bar to clear. Say what you will about Newt; “dithering” is not his core competency.
Because dithering is his core competency.
One wonders how much additional time the he'll give the mullahs. Perhaps till there's a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv.
By claiming that victory is impossible. This guy has been wrong about just about everything; as S.J. Perelman might say, he's a straw to see which way the wind is blowing away from. The only thing that would make this even more sure would be if Paul Ehrlich had recommended withdrawal as well.
So, New London, Connecticut made a decision to deprive Susette Kelo and others of their property for the immense public benefit of a new Pfizer research facility promising “jobs”.
Now Pfizer is closing up shop; the promised facility was never built, and New London is left with a wasteland and a justly deserved reputation as a city run by idiots, eager to swipe the property of the poor and sell it to the rich.
Of course, the city's selling it's residents property rights for a mess of pottage was immensely harmful to Ms. Kelo and others. The message – that if a corporation isn't willing to pay market rates for property, and is relying on government officials to steal it for them, it's not likely to live up to it's end of the bargain – is likely lost on politicians everywhere.
Hey, New London! The world's not laughing with you, we're laughing at you!
Some Thoughts:
The law of unintended consequences rules. We're having a vote, rushed through, with none of the promised 72 hour review. (that's only 3 days on a 1,000+ page bill). This thing was written by lobbyists; nobody, not Pelosi, not Hoyer, not Obama, knows what the legislative language means at this point. That means that the bill is loaded with stuff nobody wants, other than some lefty nutcases. Sort of like the AIG bonus payments buried in the stimulus bill.
We do know that if you don't buy a Pelosi approved insurance policy, you're going to jail. But don't worry; the cost of the Pelosi approved plan is only about $15,000 annually. No problem in this economy, right?
Abortions will be covered, probably at 100%. The abortion lobby is a key Democratic constituency. Unborn babies don't vote, or, more relevantly, contribute to campaigns. The Stupak fig leaf will be eliminated in House / Senate reconciliation.
The cost estimates – ranging from Pelosi's shade under $900 billion, to Heritage's $2.4 trillion, to Judd Gregg's $3 trillion. Given that no, zero, zip, zilch, nada government entitlement plan has ever come in even close to at or under budget, the $3 trillion is probably only a starting point.
That Betty Sutton would do anything other than what Nancy Pelosi told her to do?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Hellooooo......
When you win, you don't really win! It's a machine malfunction! Good luck to Bill Seebeck on collecting his winnings against a bunch of politically connected casino operators. I'm betting on the snowball's chance in H*** as a more likely outcome.
Just so you know the kind of crooks ethically challenged folks Ohio just got into bed with.
Frankly, I've been against any and all casino initiatives.
Like the lottery, casino gambling s a tax on the stupid and mathematically challenged; in other words, a poor tax. To confirm this, all you had to see was the morons on a bus commercial that was in favor of the issue.
But if we're going to legalize gambling, let's legalize gambling, and let anyone open a casino in an appropriate business district. Whys should someone like Gilbert get a constitutionally recognized monopoly and reap monopoly profits?
Well, except for the fact that it will be easier to shake down a couple of owners for campaign contributions than hundreds...;.
On the plus side, the Borings have acquired a new puppy, Nora, a lab / husky mix (leastaways, that's what they're claiming) from the Humane Society.
Housebreaking is no fun, even with a crate, but she's a fun dog. Very different from Mystique; not much prey drive, not very territorial, more friendly.
Since she'll probably top out at about half Mystique's tonnage, this is not a dog you send down a dark alley to take out the trash.
On the other hand, maybe she'll be coordinated enough to catch a frisbee.
On the name: one of my favorite actresses is Myrna Loy. Myrna just didn't seem to work, so we settled on perhaps Myrna Loy's best known role, that of Nora Charles in the Thin Man series.
Dear Reader,
Been quiet on the TBMD front recently; either too much, or not enough, real life happening. The essentials are that I recently became part of Marx' reserve army of the unemployed, due to a corporate restructure.
After not having to look for work in, oh, about 30 years, it's an interesting time to start from scratch.
There's nothing that sucks the energy out of a man faster or more effectively than the (irrational) perception of sudden uselessness.
Of course, it's the bailout boys. Obama's Director of Corporate Failure, Kenneth R Feinberg, is slashing the top executive's pay at these companies by 90% Y/Y.
Sure, it will play well politically, but the only guarantee is that executive talent will flee these companies to greener pastures. (though one could argue that the only talent left at GM and Chrysler is licking Ron Bloom's boots...)
The “top 25” at these companies may or may not stay on. The critical issue is with executives #26 – 100. Those folks – key to any turnaround effort - are effectively up for grabs.
Even in the John Galt economy, they have options.
Do you?
??? Is it April 1 st?
Okaayyyy, I suppose congratulations are in order.....
But what for? Nine months into his term, and he doesn't have any foreign policy successes, certainly nothing earth shattering.
There are plenty of trouble signs – he's busy papering over Iran's rigged elections, protestor beatings, killings, and show trials to get his prized photo op with Ahmadinejad. He's also done nothing to stop their nuclear weapons program, except threaten to use harsh language.
He's also busy selling out US allies (or, soon to be former US allies) like Poland 1 and the Czech Republic to appease the Russians, Israel to appease the hotheads in Tehran, Damascus, Pakistan, Riyadh, and the people of Honduras to to appease Chavez and Castro.
On the domestic front, he's busy crushing the dollar, exponentially increasing debt and deficits through various stimulus packages and bailouts, and he's about to send healthcare in America to third world, or worse, British, standards.
Oh wait, I think that we've found the common thread here.
1. I don't think that the significance of tossing Poland under the bus on the 70 th anniversary of the Soviet invasion was lost on Putin.
David Letterman is now a legal time bomb for CBS. Because of his hijinks, it's only a matter of time before some female staffer who didn't get a promotion will sue for a “sexually intimidating environment” or some similar complaint.
It might be worse if you were a female staffer who did get a promotion while working for Letterman, since the default assumption – rightly or wrongly-- is now that you've slept your way to the top.
Which is one reason why we're supposed to take sexual harassment laws seriously. Or at least we used to, in the good ol' pre-Clinton days.
Still, I expect that even the WSJ is going a bit overboard when it describes “Cash for Clunkers” as “ One of Washington's all-time dumb ideas”.
There are just too many contenders – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, the NEA, our entire farm price support policy, foreign aid to the Palestinians, etc.
Still, on a small scale, cash for clunkers does epitomize what's wrong with Washingon: it cost a lot of money, resulted in a net loss to the economy of about $1.4 billion, and had no real positive effect on anyone other than those people the government paid to do what they were going to do anyway.
Perversely enough, it's being billed by politicians as a huge success. I'm not sure how many more successes like this we can afford.
The games won't be coming to Chicago.
