Tonight’s republican debate was held in New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” state, and it was well promoted on the internet. However I turned it off as it was coming up on six thirty. I’d seen enough. I went out to the bakery to buy a large coffee. I endeavored to sign the sign up sheet for going to Wall Mart tomorrow but as feared, Sarah had already taken it down. But I ran into Sarah and told her I wanted to go and she said she had some kind of emergency tomorrow morning and might be gone all day or something and will not be able to take us, so it’s Thursday. I need to change my dentist appointment, even if I get the answering service. Even if I have to buy more coffee at the bakery I’ll still not spend as much money there as I will save by shopping at Wall Mart rather than at Stater Brothers. I don’t need cream or filters. ABC news was on and Jeopardy is beginning now but I wanted to get these remarks down tonight while they were still fresh. Here’s another one liner jab at Rick Perry. After Marcus Arelius delivers his 59 point program to reform the Christian religion Rick Perry tried to be funny and he says, “You know, your religious moral outlook reminds me of the road between Dallas and Fort Worth. - - - it’s - - - uh - - ah shucks! I forgot the punch line! But I know it was a real zinger! I seen the thing on a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. “Thank you. Now sit down and take your Valium like a good boy, and as long as there are no further questions I’ll be on my way. “- - - - We had a peanut butter sandwich for snacks tonight.
The US has charged the Iranian government with sponsoring some terrorist who wanted to bomb the Saudi envoy. So - - what’s wrong with that? Apparently the embassies both here and in Saudi Arabia were targeted for bombing. But the Obama administration is soft peddeling the whole thing and doesn’t want to stir up hostilities with Iran. I think it’s that old “constructive engagement” argument. In Israel they released over a thousand Hammas terrorists in exchange for one Israeli hostage. Sounds like they got the bad end of the deal. All the same President Obama would do well to recite all the terrorists he’s bagged to impress Republicans he’s really patriotic.
Governor Christie of New Jersey today came out and endoursed Mitt Romney for President. So now Romney had Tim Pawlente defending his right flank and Christie defending his left. He seems like he’s in good shape. Dr. Levy admits Romney will probably get the nomination but Levy has been one for fawning all over the “flavor of the month” and now has been singing Herman Kane’s phrases. “We’ve never had a Black as vice president before” he says. Well, we’ve never had a Reigelian either. So what. If Tina Turner ran for Vice President we could have both a black and a Reigel sixer.
It’s hard to know where to begin in this disaster of a debate that centered solely on economic policy. Rick Santaurum brought out the “drill baby, drill” slogan to get gas out of Pennsylvania and there insued an argument over whether Pennsylvania or Texas had more natural gas. Why don’t they just take a drill and stick up their butt? There is plenty of gas there. The idea was revived by many to “Repatriate” foreign corporation money at the rate of zero percent tax because “of all of the investment in America it would bring”. And lo and behold there was more talk about “Death Pannels”. There is “a general conspiracy to collapse Medicare and transfer everybody to “Obama care”. And of course there was a plum question I would have loved to have gotten. Someone asked “Since 50% of all Medicare costs are incurred within the last two years or life, what observations would you make from this”. I would have looked at the questioner intently and then smiled and said “Well now, what do you suppose the logical conclusion would be”. But nobody wants to jeapordize Grandma’s health care even if she’s suffering from a million unnecessary medical tests and in a hospital room reaking of ether, rather than being at home in her own room surrounded by her loved ones to live out the last two years of her life. Oh no – you can’t diss Grandma. She could still change her will and cut of off of those millions I’m expecting to inheret. We have to play to the constituency. And of course they want no FHA or Fanny Mae or Freddie Mac or any other involvement of government in housing or Real Estate. They played a clip of Ronald Reagan where he advocated raising some people’s taxes to help others. Rick Perry said, “Well those were different times and everybody knows they keep raising taxes and never come through on the spending cuts”. I would follow up with a question, “What are you referring to and where is one example in history of that?” These people like to repeat their tag lines and cling to their Memes. And there was talk, I believe Gingrich raised the point expressing doubts about this committee that if they don’t cut spending then automatic tax cuts will come into play. Rick Perry sure doesn’t want to cut Defense spending. There was talk about cutting off your head and then your leg. Even when a plan is in place to achieve what these people say they want, they will find fault in it. Michelle Obama talked about our spending 40% more than we take in each year. So I would pose the question to her, “Am I to infer that you would institute a forty percent cut this year and every year in the federal budget?: But on top of that forty percent you would still have to make further cuts to corospond to the reduced tax base coming in. Governor Romney pretty much got the best of Rick Perry when confronted on his Health Care record. Romney says, and I agree that “Medical care is best left to the States- - if they do it at all”. And also the Romney plan in Massachusetts only covered the eight percent of the population that didn’t already have health care and left the other 92% alone. I didn’t know that. Romney says now there are almost no kids without care whereas Rick Perry has a million children in Texas who are not covered. The whole idea of religious tolerance was raised in the debate once more. Romney and Christie believe that such talk about “cults” has no place in a presidential campaign in America. And I agree. Michelle Bachman and Rick Santaurum went after Herman Kane’s “999” tax plan big time. One of them said that “The devil was in the details and nothing is that simple, and we all know that 999 is just an upside down 666. That’s going to come back to bite him in the ass in some regions. And Michelle Bachman talked about charging mothers with small children for milk end medicine just isn’t compassionate. Others rightly raised the notion- - Santaurum did it – that the whole nine percent sales tax thing was problematical because once Washington gets it’s governmental foot in the door, they have a path for raising future taxes in that area. And I agree. That’s one reason why I am against a national sales tax. Romney went after Kane’s China policy commenting that China keeps their currency artificially low thus giving them an unfair advantage in trading without a “trade war” ever having to be declared. Romney said he would take executive action in this area his first day in office bringing up China with the world trade organization. And I agree. Others in the pack continued with the failed “Don’t rock the boat” line. Someone attacked Rich Perry for campaigning for Al Gore and raising governmental spending in Texas and also of going into debt and now bond indebtedness is increased by 137%. There are questions in my mind of how much Obama stimulus money that Perry took and claimed it all was his doing. How much did Perry get from Bush? Finally Romney came under attack for one thing he actually got right. Romney wants to eliminate the capital gains tax for middle income people earning under $200,000 per year. Others said “This is even worse than Obama’s plan” and accused Mitt Romney of “attacking the rich”. Romney responded that it’s the middle income families that have suffered the most in the current economy and so are meriting of the most help. This won’t sit at all well with the tea party. And finally the charge was raised that Harman Kane is personally against any audit of the Federal Reserve. As you know this is a major plank in most people’s platform. I would say that the Federal Reserve should be audited after one hundred years of existence. I think no item of expenditure should be off limits for congressional investigation. All in all I’d say Mitt Romney scored the most points and Harman Kane came out the loser.
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