Politics Plus

As the popularity of Newt Gingrich grows, it’s critically important that we understand that Newt is a Neocon, just how dangerous Neocons are, and what kind of foreign policy we could expect from Newt.  Those of you who have been active long enough to remember PNAC, know what I’m talking about here.  For starters, lets look at Newt’s foreign policy advisors.

When it comes to foreign policy, the Republican frontrunner likes it old-school. Neo-old school.

We’ve had two foreign policy themed debates in the GOP primary now, which have provided ample opportunity to see what a Republican foreign policy would look like in 2013. And in the case of Newt Gingrich, it would probably look like a kind of neocon fantasy land.

Foreign Policy published an excellent rundown of Gingrich’s foreign policy advising team, most of whom “have known Newt for decades, and see themselves as helping a candidate who already boasts a long track record and well-formed intellectual identity when it comes to foreign policy.”

Here’s a taste of World Team Gingrich:

David Wurmser: Gingrich’s Middle East policy adviser was a notorious member of Vice President Cheney’s inner circle that pushed the U.S. into war in Iraq. Once he was questioned during an espionage probe while in the vice president’s office, and he was one of the names driving the initial support for the later disgraced Ahmed Chalabi. Asked by the Daily Telegraph in 2007 if he was a neocon, he offered this: “There’s nothing ‘neo’ about me. I’m a very medieval sort of guy.”

James Woosley: A former director of the CIA, Woolsey recently spoke at a panel hosted by the founder of Judicial Watch focused on President Obama’s “political jihad promoting Islam around the world.” Woolsey is a serious Iran hawk, warning that the way the West is dealing with the nation at the moment “rhymes with what was taking place in the 1930s [with Nazi Germany]”. Woolsey is a Democrat (of the Lieberman school) but he’s helped Republicans running for president before. In 2008, he advised John McCain.

Stephen Yates: Another ex-Cheney national security team member, Yates is known among other things for his work on China. One former U.S. ambassador to China familiar with Yates says he views “China as the solution to ‘enemy deprivation syndrome.’” As Counterpunch explained the theory, “You need some unifying enemy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Not exactly the most productive way to view one of America’s most important trading partner, perhaps… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <TPM>

Quite a rogues gallery, aren’t they?  From the Neocon perspective, war is the solution to all foreign policy problems.  You man not be aware that the Neocons in charge during the Bush Regime intended to attack and conquer seven different nations after Afghanistan.  Here is a clip from October 2007, in which General Wesley Clark lists these countries and explains how he came to know about this Republican scheme.

Clark is a military man, and certainly no bleeding heart, making his testimony exceptionally credible.  Here they are again: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran.

The other six attacks never happened, because Republican incompetency turned Afghanistan and Iraq into quagmires. But the Neocons have not changed their stripes.  If Newt becomes President, this will be our foreign policy in addition to a new cold war.

The latest Republican flavor, Newt Gingrich has his perspectives somewhat skewed.  He seems to think that Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are the majority and that minorities are the elite.  Lets examine the extent of his hypocrisy, as he accuses the left of dividing America.

Think Progress has posted a video of Newt Gingrich calling on President Obama to "repudiate the concept of the 99 and the 1," saying it is "un-American [and] divisive" and promising that, if he is elected, he will be "president of all the American people, not part of the American people, and I will seek to unify the American people, not to divide them against each other."

Yes, of course … because Gingrich would never seek to divide Americans and pit the majority against the minority.

So obviously his remarks at the recent "One Nation Under God" event [Theocons delinked] where he told Religious Right activists that they are the majority in the country who must stand up and take this nation back from the anti-Christian "minority elite" who are ruining it was actually a message designed to "unify the American people"…

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch>

Here’s the video.

There’s no doubt here.  Newt, liar and hypocrite that he is, is projecting his own faults onto the majority.

Republicans keep saying that Democrats want to raise YOUR taxes.  When Democrats proposed taxing corporate jets, Republicans said that’s raising YOUR taxes.  When Democrats proposed ending the Bush Tax Cuts for the rich, for the top 2% only, Republicans claimed that’s raising YOUR taxes.  Ending tax breaks for Big Oil? According to Republicans, that’s raising YOUR taxes too.  But the truth is that, since Obama took office, Democrats have proposed no increases and several cuts in YOUR taxes.  Which party is fighting to raise YOUR* taxes? It’s the Republican Party, of course.

*Assumes that YOU are not a millionaire, billionaire or corporate criminal.

Senate Democrats are pressing ahead on President Barack Obama’s plan to cut in half every worker’s payroll taxes next year — paid for by a 3.25 percent tax surcharge on the very wealthy.

The $248 billion plan would trim Social Security payroll taxes from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent in hopes of propping up the still-weak economy. It also would cut in half the 6.2 percent tax paid by employers on the first $5 million of their payroll.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says Democrats will hold a test vote on the plan later this week.

A 2 percent payroll tax holiday enacted a year ago expires on Dec. 31 and it tops the agenda in the waning days of this congressional term.

Republicans are likely to oppose the plan because it would post a permanent surcharge on income exceeding $1 million… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Boston Globe>

I’m dropping my former objection to this cut, because paying for it means that it will not diminish Social Security funds.  It’s also good for small businesses.

Rachel Maddow explains Republican opposition with former Journalist Bob Herbert.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Republicans don’t want a middle class tax cut.  They govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals.  They fight to cut THEIR taxes.  They fight to raise YOUR taxes.

I will be the first to admit that gerrymandering is not an exclusively Republican demesne, but it cannot be denied that Republicans are the masters at using it to disenfranchise minority voters, since several Republican dominated states are under court order, because their redistricting plans were racist by design.  Now Rick Perry and Texas Republicans are bent out of shape, because the redistricting plan done by the District Court (and a conservative one at that), may give Democrats the four new House seats Texas gets because of population growth.

The U.S. Supreme Court was asked Monday to intervene in a partisan political dispute from Texas and to block the use of a new, judge-drawn map of its congressional districts that could cost Republicans four or more seats in the House of Representatives.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged the high court to act quickly to set aside the map drawn by federal judges and instead to allow the Lone Star State to elect its House members under a map drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature. Perry’s appeal denounced the judges’ map as a “runaway plan that imposes an extreme redistricting scheme” on Texas.

Because of a population surge, Texas is due four more seats in the House, giving it a total of 36 representatives. But it is unclear whether its congressional delegation will be elected in 2012 in districts devised by the GOP or instead under the judge-drawn map. Political experts say the judges’ map gives Democrats a good chance of winning three or more extra seats in Congress.

The state’s attorneys asked the justices to rule soon on its emergency appeal. They said candidates for Congress must file to run between today and Dec. 15, and they need to know where their districts will be located.

The legal dispute concerns the Voting Rights Act and its provisions requiring that minorities have a reasonable chance to elect candidates of their choice… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <LA Times>

On the surface, it seems unfair that all the new seats in a right leaning state should go to Democrats, until you know the rest of the story.

Latino voters, especially in the West, tend to vote for Democrats, due to Republican racism.  The increase in Texas’ Latino population in this census is actually a bit higher that the increase in Texas’ total population.  Therefore it is only natural that the seats occasioned by Latino population growth should give Latino voters, and therefore Democrats an edge.  Conversely the Republican plan gives all four new seats to Republicans.  Absorbing all those Latino voters into Republican districts took a prodigious gerrymandering effort by the GOP.

Of course the fear here is that five fascist SCROTUS Injustices will ignore the Constitution again.