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If Charlie Bass is going to dip into the discredited ideologues of the past to try to outflank Jennifer Horn and the Tea People on the right, does that mean that we should be expecting a visit from Newt Gingirch sometime soon?
And if this is in fact the new strategy, will he have to find another outlet besides the WSJ to revive the Death Tax meme he loves so well?
There was a lot of talk that Bobby Jindal was the Next Big Thing in GOP national politics. Then someone slips him a micky before his big coming out speech, he comes across like a condescending zombie and his campaign boat sinks before it ever leaves the dock.
There are whispers that Sen. Ensign is testing the presidential waters. He gets caught in a ridiculous sex-with-married-staffer scandal, and now he is permanently high-and-dry.
If you haven't yet read The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein, I suggest you do and do it now. Go to the bookstore, get it from the library, but read this book! The current crisis in the financial sector is right out of the right wing Friedman playbook Klein describes. The weird thing is, the powers that be don't even care that their tactics have been outed. They still go on with their plans.
Klein had a piece on HuffPo yesterday about this.
The best summary of how the right plans to use the economic crisis to push through their policy wish list comes from Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On Sunday, Gingrich laid out 18 policy prescriptions for Congress to take in order to "return to a Reagan-Thatcher policy of economic growth through fundamental reforms." In the midst of this economic crisis, he is actually demanding the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which would lead to further deregulation of the financial industry. Gingrich is also calling for reforming the education system to allow "competition" (a.k.a. vouchers), strengthening border enforcement, cutting corporate taxes and his signature move: allowing offshore drilling.
What Gingrich's wish list tells us is that the dumping of private debt into the public coffers is only stage one of the current shock. The second comes when the debt crisis currently being created by this bailout becomes the excuse to privatize social security, lower corporate taxes and cut spending on the poor. A President McCain would embrace these policies willingly. A President Obama would come under huge pressure from the think tanks and the corporate media to abandon his campaign promises and embrace austerity and "free-market stimulus."
Update: Apparently I wasn't far off with my translation (below); Newt also spent some time cheerleading Wayne's World with this exhortation:
"I'd start talking about them [Hodes & Shea-Porter] right now," Gingrich said. "Are they going to be for tax increases? Are they going to be for accepting defeat in the Middle East? Are they going to actually be for real change, or are they only going to be for taking care of the unions? And I would stay on them right now."
It must be gettin' on primary season, because the lizards are starting to show up. Newt finds it fun to bash the first amendment at an event intended to highlight it:
Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.
"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.
Here's my translation of what he really might be getting at:
Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce progressive bloggers' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit candidates and money and get out their message.
"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose the presidency along with both houses of Congress, which I think could happen in the next two Novembers," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.
And I've got news for Newt. We already lost a city due to the corruption, incompetence and venality of your political party. Heckuva job your Contract breakers did on that one, Newtie.
Part of the cost of the pleasure of our primary is suffering fools such as this. To come to the Granite State and proclaim that we must curtail freedom of speech in the guise of terrorist fear-mongering, well, let's just say he's made it that much easier for the Democrats to hold onto the Libertarian vote.
Limiting our freedom of speech is one way to fight terrorism, but I have another: not invading Islamic countries for false reasons. Please, Mr. Gingrich, please run for president. Pretty please?
