John Boehner Strikes Note of Compromise

On Meet the Press on Sunday, John Boehner indicated that both he and the President agree that the one year payroll tax cut extension must be passed, Boehner was asked about the pipeline and whether the President “has had time to evaluate it” and Boehner aptly said that the President has had at least a year and final government approval for the project was given last August.  Boehner said that the elections “would take care of themselves” and that the House republicans had no political axe to grind to influence that outcome.  He reminded David Gregory that it was last summer when “The President moved the goal posts at the last minute” when it came to that “grand bargain” debt reduction plan   I guess these tea party Republicans don’t want that pipeline as badly as Romney and all the rest say they do because they’re screwing themselves.  Of course one lie was told about this Alberta to Texas pipeline that is a blatent lie according to Randy.  They kept saying that “If this pipeline isn’t built then Canada will just sell the oil to China.  Well it’s going to China BECAUSE of this pipeline and this is WHY it’s even being built.  They wanted to run this pipeline through the pristine mountains and forests of British Columbia, but BC objected too strongly.  Now I hear they will enlarge the Panama Canal to make way for these oil tankers on their trek to China.

What a difference a week makes when it comes to Newt Gingrich.  Last week the media was ready to crown Newt as the Republican nominee.  The last polls I have actually seen on the matter show a sideward blip right at 33% but those in the know say that in one week Newt has crashed and burned and is now at 18% in the Iowa poll with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney ahead of him.  Mitt is on a bit of a roll himself lately, long anticipated.  He’s campaigning harder and has even appeared on a FOX Sunday interview.  He has bagged three endoursments in the past few days.  The Des Monies Register has come out for him in an editorial read by many Iowans.  The South Carolina governor, Nicky somebody- - has come out for Romney and just today Bob Dole endorsed Romney.  Also Romney is campaigning harder and has become a bit more strident.  Michelle Bachman is also gunning for Newt.  Michelle Bachman was praised all around for her performance at the Thursday debate and nailing Newt on the 1.6 million from Freddy Mac.  Michelle Bachman was also on Meet the Press and David Gregory kept pressing her on whether her “facts were always right”.  But as far as I can tell, Michelle’s facts ARE all correct.  People have tried to introduce some sexist element in all this but if I were Bachman I wouldn’t even go there.  Bachman also toned down the flame throwing when it came to Iran and Nukes.  Actually she fielded that question from Gregory almost identically to the way I would have.  She stressed the point that it’s a dangerous situation and left it at that.  Ron Paul has some personal vendetta against Newt because of some 1996 House contest where Newt was instrumental in getting another highly funded candidate to “primary” him, but Ron Paul won.  This piling on against Gingrich occurred on the Friday Chris Matthews show when notably Chris himself wasn’t there.  The piling on continued through the Mc Laughlin group.

In terms of Romney – Randy Rhodes points out that he did one of these “leveraged buy outs” where a private person buys out a publicly owned company.  Normally when I hear the word “leveraged” used in business, it has to do with buying on margin where if you’re on a fifty percent margin, you double your profits as well as doubling the risk.  But according to Randy what Romney does is that he has a company appraised and then borrows to the hilt for what that company is worth.  Then he begins firing everyone in sight and sticking the company with the debt obligation.  Romney collects his multi-million dollar Management fee and a lot of other profit besides for his “chop shop” operations.   In my prophecy book I spoke of Calvary Christians being orange trees that are great at producing other orange trees cut actually Oranges is another question altogether.  Romney is great at using his God given wealth to aggrandize himself and his pocket book, but not so hot on serving either America or furthering sound capital goods production or commerce.

I would like to defend Romney on this capital gains tax business.  Basically if you don’t “get it” by now- - Romney is basically AGAINST a capital gains tax cut or elimination, hopefully for the reasons I have, elaborated on previously.  But what Mitt Romney says is that there may be some retired people who want to sell the family farm at a profit and would like to secure a nest egg, but they can’t do that if they have to pay all these government taxes.  I could assure you for those families it will work out to a whole lot more than $173.00 per year.  They say that if anybody other than Gingrich wins in Iowa it will help Romney, whether Bachman wins, or Paul wins, or per chance Perry wins.  The great unspoken Truth that remains is that Romney is a Mormon and certain Republican fundamentalists will never bring themselves to voting for him.  Romney’s wife has multiple sclurosis, and he is sticking by her and not divorcing her.  As the Register points out Romney has demonstrated a steadiness and “sobriety” that none of the other candidates have.  They say that Newt was never serious because he never had a real campaign organization.  And for all Newt’s money raising skills, he somehow has raised little for his own campaign.  If he really believed in his OWN candidicy, he would put his OWN money into the campaign and he hasn’t done that.  Well dinner awaits but first I want to buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke one first.

Randy Rhodes called last week a week of “lasts”.  It was the last week we had anything to fear from Newt Gingrich.  It was probably the last week I would see Dr. Levy this calendar year.  Perhaps he was just too cowed by my letter extolling the achievements of President Obama.  Well, gasoline prices are now down to $3.25 nation wide but it’s still around $3.45 in California.  Last night at ten thirty the President was informed of the passing of Kim Jung Il.  It’s always good theater to be President when a communist leader dies.   And it was the week the Iraq war came to an end as the last troops left Iraq on Sunday night.  It’s hard for Republicans to say anything about these images, not that they don’t try.  We all know about John Mc Cain’s speech last week.  Mitt Romney is persisting with the lie that Bush believed there were “weapons of mass destruction”.  In fact that Bush KNEW for a fact that Iraq didn’t, but still went ahead with the war.  Also the lie persists that Saddam Hussein would not let UN inspectors in.  But even Pat Buchannon nailed it last Saturday when he said “We had Saddam Hussein in a box and he wasn’t able to do anything.  Therefore the Iraq war was unnecessary”.  Of course there were five heads of Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae who were indicted by the Attorney General last week.  In the eyes of the right I don’t know if they see this as a good or bad thing.  Freddy Mac itself was given a clean bill of health.  Freddy Mac and Fanny May’s job was to insure loans.   But various forces stacked the odds hopelessly against them from the git go.  This anti red-lining bill was blamed for the fact that poor people got loans, though this is a mistaken notion.  And finally we have the increasing stream of positive stories about the recovery of this economy.  Christmas sales are already up between three and four percent and this figure is predicted to rise higher.  And new factory orders are up as companies anticipate the need for inventory because of projected future sales.  We already pointed out private debt was down.  And in John Boehner’s Ohio, the unemployment rate just dropped a half of a percent, which is the sharpest monthly drop there in twenty years.  Also working in the President’s favor is that he is now out there presenting his case and defending his record.  Now there is just a roomer that Newt Gingrich in the tradition of Sen Lieberman, will run as a third party candidate in some “Never say die” stance, not believing that he has really lost.  People warn us never to underestimate the sheer vanity of the man.  It might be well to remember that the President is at 44% approval rating but Congress merits a mere eleven percent.  So to put it in “W” terms- so the President has more “political capital” to work with.