Newt Gingrich's Really Bad Ideas

I am well pleased, my darlings. The Republicons have their little panties all in a bunch over their election losses in Illinois and Louisiana. Even they can recognize a bit of reality when it bends them over and proceeds to give them some good, old-fashioned prison love.

Reality declined to provide Vasoline upon request.

But Newt Gingrich has come thundering in on his big white charger and thinks he can save the day. I hope he came bearing lubricant, because with ideas like these, the Republicons shall need it:

Gingrich argues that House Republicans need to call an emergency meeting to decide what they are going to be for this election year, not just who they are going to be against.

Here’s what policies Gingrich thinks Republicans need to support: a gas tax holiday, a redirection of oil from filling the national petroleum reserve into the market to lower gas prices, a comprehensive energy package, a suspension of earmarks through at least 2009, an overhaul of the Census Bureau and the Federal Aviation Administration, a declaration of English as the nation’s official language, a commitment to get conservative judges on the bench, and new legislation supporting workers’ rights to a secret ballot to decide whether they want to join a union.

Gingrich concludes with an ominous warning, “No Republicans should kid themselves. It’s time to face up to a stark choice. Without change we could face a catastrophic election this fall.”

First things first: where the fuck is the change, Newt? I see no change. All I see is a shift back to the old warhorses of pandering to big business, pandering to dumbasses who have been trained not to think for themselves, xenophobia, and catastrophically stupid "solutions" to looming catastrophes.

Let's parse here. No, I'm not providing any Vasoline, and no, this won't hurt me worse than it hurts you, Newt. In fact, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy this. I'm a sadist that way.

The gas tax holiday has been annihilated by economists and thinking Americans everywhere. I won't even bother to debunk it myself, except to say: if this is your idea of "change," then I think you'd best get ready for a slaughter. The Dems will be firing up the grill. Republicon: it's what's for dinner.

Moving on, then. Let's talk about redirecting oil from the reserve into the market. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Al Gore got the crap kicked out of him for proposing it back in 2000, and even George W. "I'm a Treasure Trove of Dumb Ideas" Bush realized it was a silly thing to do. For once, and it kills me to admit this, he was right, as AP H. Josef Herbert knows:

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has 700 million barrels of crude oil, equal to 58 days of U.S. oil imports, in cavernous salt domes on the Gulf Coast. Created after the Arab oil embargo in the early 1970s, it serves as a cushion that, by law, can be used only to counter a "severe energy supply disruption." The law forbids drawing on the reserve to influence prices. While oil prices have soared to more than $100 a barrel, there has been no shortage of either crude oil or gasoline.

58 fucking days, dumbass. Count them. Fifty-eight. And, just like with the fairy tale of the gas tax holiday, prices would leap right back up as people started using more gas.

As for your "comprehensive energy package," would this by any chance sound like what Bush proposed back in 2000 and has been dry-humping ever since, namely, "let's all drill in Alaska and tell those damned A-rabs to stop charging us so much!"

Good luck with that.

And good fucking luck suspending earmarks. McCain was all about suspending the earmarks, wasn't he? What's he got to say about it now?

"It's the process I object to," he said. "I'm sure that I can give you a list of projects the Mafia funds, and they would probably be good projects. But I can't give you a justification for the Mafia. I can't give you a justification for the corruption that's been bred which has sent members of Congress to the federal prison," he said.

I'm sure the Republicans who turned the earmark process into their personal favor factory in the 1990s are going to be so eager to campaign for McCain now. You know, after being compared to the Cosa Nostra and all.

On top of that, McCain has gone from a position against spending to a position against the technical process by which spending is achieved. That's going to really bowl them over on the stump. McCain wants to make himself the grand poohbah deciding what spending is OK and what spending isn't. The problem is that when he is put to the wall, he can't come up with more than a scattered few projects that are verboten. And he doesn't dare touch that sacred cow, the military budget, which is responsible for about 100 times the wasteful spending as earmarks.

Heh heh heh whoops. Maybe earmarks aren't such a good campaign strategy after all.

Onward, ho. Maybe you'll have better luck with the rest of your items... or not. I mean, for fuck's sake, an overhaul of the Census Bureau? Since when has the fucking Census Bureau become such a burning concern of the American people? The FAA, I get, we all want to be able to step into an airplane without wondering if an FAA air traffic controller is going to run it into another airplane because of ancient equipment, not to mention there needs to be some housecleaning after Bush let his little appointees shit all over it, but the Census Bureau? Are you fucking kidding me? That's supposed to persuade people to vote Republicon? "We'll fix the Census Bureau!"

Oh my fucking gods, I can't believe how dim Republicons are.

Which brings me rather neatly to English as the official language. I think there's maybe 5 Bubbas left who give two tugs on a dead dog's dick whether it's official or not. With an endless war in Iraq, a fuckhead in office, a tanking economy - and did I mention the fuckhead in office? - the American people have far weightier issues on their minds than whether English needs to be promoted from defacto to official.

I can't see the following pitch going over well on the stump: "My economic policies are disasterous, I'm implying you're a raving idiot by pretending that you'll fall for shit like this gas tax holiday, I want to get rid of the earmarks that fund your hospitals, ferries, and other necessities of life, and I don't have a single solution for you on Iraq other than 'stay the course!' but by damn, I'll make English official, and that's the most important thing!"

Yeah, no.

Conservative judges are the well-beaten dead horse you fuckers whip out every election year, and let's just say that as far as "change" goes, that doesn't send shockwaves, now does it? Let's dispense with that tired nonsense.

Now, let's let Alex Keyssar from the Huffington Post take on your deceptive-as-shit "secret ballots for unions!" faux-populist drivel:

Current law provides for a formal secret-ballot election, supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, even if a majority of workers have signed union cards. Under the new legislation, such elections would be held only if workers requested them. If not, the board could certify the union based on the signed cards of a majority of workers; once the union was certified, employers would be obliged (as they are now) to negotiate a contract in good faith.

Critics, including employers' associations and conservative politicians, have denounced this procedural shift as a deprivation of workers' "basic American right" to a secret-ballot election. One business columnist, asserting that the "secret ballot is the very cornerstone of our democracy," claimed that the bill would violate "the American way." Senator Orrin Hatch declared the legislation to be "inconsistent with our nation's history in promoting private ballot elections for the disenfranchised members of society."

My goodness. Employers' associations are against union certification based on signed cards? Then it must be evil! For your good buddy Big Business.

When it comes to union vs. employer, when employers start screeching, I have a pretty good indication right there that what the union's pushing benefits the worker. So you can just stop blowing smoke up our arses on that one, Newt.

Alex has given your "protect secret ballots!" red herring a thorough boiling. So what have you got left?

...

That's right. You have exactly what the Republicons have offered Americans for decades: not a godsdamned fucking thing.

You'd better lay in a good supply of tissue for the fall, Newt. You're all going to need it after the ass-reaming you'll get from voters.