President 2012: Gingrich, NOT Romney

Let’s talk politics. First let’s get some facts lined up:

FACT: The Liberal media provides millions of dollars of free tailwind and headwind to the candidates that they like/don’t like. In 2008, they got John McCain the GOP nomination because he was the closest thing to a Democrat running on the GOP side, and he was the most beatable candidate.

This time, they’d like nothing better than Huntsman, because he’s basically a Democrat. But they know it’s not going to happen, so they are backing Mitt Romney (a man, who, I might add, could NOT beat John McCain last time!). They are backing him in the primary season. If he gets the nomination, expect that same Liberal media that backed him to POUND him on being a Mormon and on having enacted universal healthcare in Mass. Oh, and they’ll dredge up some other stuff. The tone will change ON A DIME–over night.

Romney is NOT a Conservative. He is a very liberal pol. Any Republican who can (a) win in Mass and (b) pass universal healthcare, isn’t Conservative. Oh, and, by the way, that universal healthcare is costing multiples MORE than he promised and that’s precisely how the Obamacare will go and why it is imperitive to repeal it–we simply don’t have the money. Forget that it’s bad law–we simply don’t have the money. It will break us. We borrow 42 cents of every federal dollar spent. To enact a monolithic entitlement program like that when we are borrowing so much money is as close to national suicide as you’ll ever see. It must go.

The candidates who will figure are now running thusly:
Cain, Romney, Gingrich, Bachmann. Paul is only a factor if he is dumb enough to run as a 3rd party guy and virtually ensure that Obama wins. Huntsman is not realistic. Santorum ditto.

Bachmann may do very well in Iowa and, as a Conservative woman with gravitas, she may be a viable veep candidate. I would applaud that as the Dems have a permanent 15% advantage with women and that is why they attack Palin and Bachmann so rudely and visciously: they are scared stiff of a woman on the GOP side pulling that number down. Their whole “party” rests on that. The other leg of the stool is minorities, and that explains the treatment that Cain and Clarence Thomas get.

Now originally I liked Cain. I LOVED that he was NOT ROMNEY! And that was the point to Cain. But for 2 reasons, I don’t want him nominated. The 999 thing is not the right thing right now. I want a candidate who won’t waste ANY political capital on a radical overhaul. The radical overhaul is REPEAL OBAMACARE. It must be the first and only thing focused on until it is done. So 999 is a distraction that could cost us dearly. It also introduces a national sales tax, and I don’t want Congress with any new taxes to play with. Once enacted, they only go up. The power to tax is the power to destroy!

The Cain scandals are not a bother to me. I believe they are 100% manufactured by Dem operatives. That’s how scared they are about Cain on the GOP side. (See my earlier comments). The best thing I’ve read about it is this–it’s a must-read for every American and you won’t hear these things in the mainstream media–that’s how it works.

The real reason Cain needs to step aside? He recently said on the record that China was seeking nuclear weapons! Even as a school kid, I knew that China had them since the 1960′s. You can’t win the general and be throwing this red meat to the media. He will lose. There is too much at stake.

If he was Joe Biden, he’d get a pass, but he’s the opposite of Joe Biden–every Liberal “journo” wants to nail him, and if it’s that easy, then buh-bye, Herman. I respect you; I like you; but you can’t do that and win. This is too important. I wish you all kinds of well. And thank you for a very important job well done–you exposed the hate machine that is the Democratic/Liberal Media complex, that is for those who look at it objectively and in good faith.

With Cain a disaster, that leaves only Gingrich to thwart the disaster that is Romney. I know, I know, he said some things that were head scratchers. The photo op with Pelosi and the Globaloney Warming comments. I get it. But he is so smart and so dang erudite under pressure that he HAS to be the nominee. He also understands as do NO OTHER CANDIDATES that he is not only trying to convince people to vote for his IDEAS, but that he is fighting a ruthless and dishonest enemy: the press. He routinely goes after the press and calls out their ridiculous Liberal bias! To me, this is now a REQUIREMENT of any Conservative candidate. You MUST fight back against the bias and not only is Newt the one best equipped to do that, he is the ONLY one who seems to understand that it must be done! I’m tired of the Bush’s laying back and allowing their enemies attack them with no fear of pushback. The ideas need to be put out there and Newt will do it.

Newt is experienced. He has the Contract with American and the very skill full dampening of the most Liberal part of the Clinton years after the ’94 congress. He understands Congress and how you get things done. He understands the space. He is pleasant and smart and steeped in historical contextual knowledge and what’s more: he can THINK and SPEAK ON HIS FEET!

He is, I believe, realistically Conservative. What does that mean? Well, it means he is smart enough not to waste his time tilting at windmills with stuff like 999 while the healthcare bill alone is holding back GDP by 2-3% per year right now just on fear alone! He knows what needs to be done in what order and he knows what is OBTAINABLE and in what time frame!

We are very close to having the Liberal media, once again, shove a very liberal, lightweight candidate down our throats. We have a very short window left with which to thwart this. Newt is the only choice and he’s a da*n good choice too!

Don’t blow this. Don’t be fooled by radical/unelectable Ron Paul or Cain. Romney is who your enemies want. Gingrich has the added sweetner of being HATED by the Liberals! A Gingrich presidency would rankle them monumentally; right up there with Palin or Bachmann or Cain. They were so scared of Newt in the 90′s that they put him on the cover of Newsweek:

You want to know who the Left fears? Watch who they ATTACK! And NO ONE was more attacked in the 1990′s than Newt.

Addendum: How can I prove the media is pushing Romney and tearing down everyone else? Well, there are many ways. Newbusters.org is a great daily source of objective, verifiable stuff, but it’s even simpler than that. Just go about your business and count up the times you hear a KNOWN Liberal say, “…Oh, Romney has already won” and add that to the number of times you hear: “…Cain CAN’T win” or “…Bachmann can’t win”, or “…Gingrich can’t win”.

They want you to think that it’s over; that Romney has already won; that there are no issues with Romney; that all the other candidates are deeply flawed. Just listen with half an ear and it’s obvious.

Last weekend I worked all weekend clearing trees and raking leaves and had my headphones on Bloomberg Business News and the Liberal bias on Bloomberg was just STAGGERING. It was a joke. It was either bashing Cain or pushing Huntsman the whole weekend. It was a cartoon. But remember, Fox News is biased, even though they can’t give specific examples; even though Shep is a Lib; Greta is a Lib; Juan Williams and Geraldo are Libs. You think there are any Conservatives at MSNBC? hahahaha.

Wabbit Season. Duck Season. A-Rod Season.

Hard to post with Tommy now so you do what you can. Emailing Cincinnati Bill on the game he attended last night at Cincy and the hotdogs I consumed last time there reminded me of a story from another game in Philly: Story: We are leaving Citizen’s bank park in Philly and Kranepooligans and I hit the men’s room before the long drive home. On the way into the men’s room, there was a slight line. A guy put a big tote of hotdogs next to the line by the door and said, “free hotdogs”. I did not take one but I p’d next to many men who had their ****s in one hand and a frank in the other, happily chomping away at the “free”, old, raggety dogs….mmmmm…ambiance.

Chipper Jones has opened the season on A-Rod by being the first fairly credible guy (Canseco has said some ominous things) to speculate that A-Rod may break the record but get ready for the same speculation as to his “legitimacy” as well. I agree. He played in the rampant era of only a few years ago and as far as I’m concerned, once you take HGH, you are forever tainted, because your body fundamentally changes after that. I’m NOT SAYING that I know anything or that he did anything; just that the speculation will be increasing and it has to be entertained on he and really, all others. What they’re doing is superhuman so you wonder. That’s all.

Tony LaRussa is batting the pitcher 8th. Hooray! I agree, Tone. I used to do it in Strat-O-Matic and I used to do it in Earl Weaver Baseball. Of course in Earl Weaver, I was batting Christy Mathewson 8th and Frank Frisch 9th. It makes for an around-the-corner lineup. The first time through, the cleanup hitter is cleanup. Subsequently, there is another good hitter in front of the #3 hitter, who is really your team’s best hitter, power and average considered. Leadoff is over rated. The leadoff hitter is only guaranteed to hit leadoff, ONCE per game.

The difference between 8th and 9th isn’t going to amount to anything: perhaps a handful of AB’s lost per season. And in later innings, in the NATIONAL LEAGUE (real baseball), you are typically hitting for the pitcher after 6 anyhow. So for 2 or 3 cycles, you are putting a better hitter in front of your lineup meat. What’s wrong with that? Baseball is amazing in the stodginess and slowness to deal with new ideas. It has taken baseball 125 years to start playing the 2nd baseman in the outfield with no one on base. WHY? It makes too much sense? Look at Moneyball. Moneyball threatens so much of the baseball hokum that most just curse it rather than realize that it is sound. You know, it’s funny, because we laugh at ancient civilazations for doing dopey things like blaming the weather on the “gods” and throwing young girls into the volcano to “appease” the “gods”, but really, for many things today there is as much hooey as ever. Look at Al Gore. He won the popular vote for US Pres and he is mad as a hatter with the dopey, anti-West, anti-USA global warming nonsense that has more holes in it than Carlos DelGado’s swing. We are not immune to dopiness, is my point. Good job Tony LaRussa on the pitcher in the 8 hole. Wow. Long way around on that one, eh?

Luis Castillo was a great pickup for the Mets. The more I see of this man, the more I like. This guy has an IDEA out there. This man is a PRO. And maybe I can forget Jose Valentin, who looks like Snidely Whiplash of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. It has passed Valentin by mostly, and it was clear in the playoffs last year. Go Luis.

(Whiplash)

Great piece on some breathtaking “news creation” by the liberal, hate-Bush, hate-America media. Have a look. It is blatant. It is unabashed. It is sad. It is happening all the time. Click here to read

Tommy on Tommy

Here is Tommy getting weighed on the same scale that my mom used to weigh her children. He doesn’t seem to mind but sometimes he squawks. This thing is pretty darned accurate–down to the ounce.

Here is the very first time that Tommy hears ANY Mississippi Delta Blues at all and of cour

The Battle of the Bulge

The 28th Pennsylvania : Their Finest Hour

Going through the Europe files last night and I came to Luxembourg. During December 16 to December 26, 1944 in Luxembourg, in a place called the Ardennes forest, Hitler threw his last roundhouse of the war against a stretch of front that was considered impassable due to the rugged terrain. It was felt that no attack would come at this point so Eisenhower was rotating units here for rest and the front was patrolled fairly thinly. My uncle’s division, the 28th Pennsylvania, was put here after 100+ days of straight combat going all the way back to Normandy in June 1944.

June 6, 1944 D-Day

Click here to watch an actual high school video project on D-Day (who said video games are a waste of time?)

Today was the day that a lot of people got all shot up so that others could be free.  Amazingly, as time goes on, many young people today do not know much about it.  Is that an indictment of our current education system?  Perhaps.  

The guys who did this are the guys from my dad’s generation.  Every one of my uncles and my dad’s friends, it seemed, were in this fight.  Some Europe, either France or Italy.  Some the Pacific.  Some in India in the CBI theatre.  But they were all in it.  This generation is rapidly passing into history every day now and we owe it to them not to forget these deeds.

Oh, and the rumor is not true that CNN has demanded a posthumous apology from Dwight D. Eisenhower and an admission that, “mistakes were made” on D-Day.

To quote a popular song of 1944: “Praise the Lord and pass the amunition and we’ll all stay free…”

–fog 

Cheny is Evil. The Taliban? Misunderstood.

I got to talking politics a little with the woman next to me at work. Somehow it came up where she repeated the oft-chanted, Democratic/Liberal-talking-point, “Cheney is evil”. Now this woman is older (50′s) and is pretty darned smart, so when I heard the talking point come out of her, verbatim, I was fascinated. I asked her if she was joking. “No”, she said she was serious, and kept repeating that “he is just evil”. I said, “well, what has he done that is evil? Can you give me some examples?”

Steinbrenner, that old softie

This is an addendum to the post with Max, the Yankee fan (and CBI Theater Vet) who attended his first game in 1926. It seems that in 1978, he wrote to Steinbrenner and asked if he could shag flies in the outfield at Yankee Stadium for his 62nd birthday. Steinbrenner wrote back in longhand (shown below) and even included a letter on Yankee-stationary from legal that mentions insurance regs and why he couldn’t actually do it.

CBI: The Forgotten Theatre

CBI stands for China, India Burma.  It was “the forgotten theater” of WWII.  Today, I had the pleasure of having lunch with a +90 year old CBI vet and his wife.  They had attended my talk at their home (where I work) re my Mickey Mantle statue and they were so into it all, that they insisted that I have lunch.  I picked a Saturday so that work would not interfere.

These older guys are just amazing and if you listen, you will hear some great stories.  Max told me today how he escaped completely doing basic training!  Imagine that! No rockhead DI screaming in his face.  No 20 mile hikes in full pack.  He went to the hospital with a fever and didn’t catch up with his unit until they shipped out.

China India Burma is called “the forgotten theater” because it wasn’t Europe and it wasn’t the Pacific.  But these men did brave and important work in that theater and people need to remember that. 

Max told me that his first baseball game was a 1926 Yankee game~!  Astounding.  He lived at 161st and Grand Concourse so he LIVED at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds across the Harlem River in Manhattan.  (When you’re passing Yankee Stadium going south on the Harlem River Drive, just before you come truly abrest of Yankee Stadium across the River, look to your right at the cluster of red brick buildings–THAT is where the Polo Grounds stood.  THAT was baseball ground zero from 1902 to 1925 or so, when it shifted across the river for that Ruth fellow) .

Max was at the Polo Grounds the day that the man was shot in the upper deck by the stray bullet fired into the air from a nearby apartment (yes, the bullets do come down and they can be lethal).  He saw Hubble and Dean hook up.  He saw John J. McGraw manage.  He saw Ruth and Gerhig and Earl Combes and Bob Muesel and Lazzeri.  He even went to Ebbet’s Field–one time.  He’s telling me he was at the game that Hubble went 16 innings in and I’m telling him, “Max, I read about that game!  You were AT that game?”  

When it was all over, he showed me his handwritten George M. Steinbrenner letter from 30 years ago, when he was 60.  He had written to Big Stein to ask if he could shag balls in the outfield.  Steinbrenner answered the thing in PEN!  And included a typewritten letter from legal that said that because of insurance implications, they couldn’t allow it.  Big Stein even referred to the “lousy start” that the ’78 Yanks were off to.  That’s the start that ended up in “The Boston Masacre”.  I wouldn’t bet against that letter ending up at Christie’s someday.  

Here’s the emblem of the CBI Theatre.  Now you know:

Click here to learn a little more

–fog

What Exit, Liberty?

 

Mrs. Pinetar and I went to Princeton, NJ today just to look around and shop and see what there was to see. It’s a unique and historic American town (and it’s in New Jersey–no “exit” jokes, please~) I liked this marker placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Of 400 Lightning Strikes a Year

Factoid from the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: There are on average, 400 folks hit by lightning each year in the USA. Of that, only 10% die and several could be saved by CPR. Of the survivors, 60 to 80% have some lasting, physical damage. The rest walk away.

The biggest culprit for indoor lightning strikes and injury is people being on a hard wired telephone (cordless doesn’t count) .

Tips for not getting zapped:

 

Removing all metal objects from your person is recommended.
Don’t stand in a crowd of people. – “Spread out”
If you feel a tingling sensation, your hair stands on end or you hear
‘buzzing’ from nearby rocks, fences, etc., move immediately.
Lightning may be about to strike!
Immediately crouch down, get on the balls of your feet
and cover your ears.
Do not lie down or place your hands on the ground.

***
One time, a friend and I were playing tennis at the high school. A big June thunderstorm was coming in and we were leaving and as I was trotting under the “H” metal goalpost of the varsity football field, I HEARD the pipes BUZZING and clicking. This noise stopped the INSTANT that a big bolt of lightning hit down behind the school, about a quarter to a half mile away.

My friend didn’t believe me that the pipes were buzzing and I KNOW I heard it. No chance–it was real. It actually annoyed me that he didn’t believe me, but, oh well, what are you going to do? It is a wild story. Then I googled up the phenomenon surrounding lightning strikes and you know what? People near strikes and some of those who get hit sometimes report the buzzing. In fact, a couple accounts I read said that even ROCKS were buzzing. At least I’m not nuts.

But when I think of how close I was to getting hit, I think “zoinks”. Lightning is not playing. –Fog