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so huck is out, trump is out (what i figured), and now, for me, newt is out. i was vastly disappointed with newt's comments yesterday, coming out in support of an individual mandate, and his smashing of the ryan plan. he's backtracking now, and i think what he meant to do was appeal to those across the aisle, but it's too late for me, and i think this one thing has probably killed his campaign. i don't care for pawlenty, santorum has taken some pretty liberal stances, mitch daniel's is out for being a rino, and ron paul is just a little too far out there sometimes. paul aside (who is just being himself), i feel like not too many republican frontrunners understand that this is not 2008, and that the pendulum has fully swung. they all seem petrified of actually nailing obama's balls to his failed policies, and taking him to task. i don't want an ****, but i do want someone with some backbone to quit playing defensively, and fight for conservative principles. i just wish christie would run, because i haven't seen anyone else actually outargue liberalism with sound conservativism quite like him.

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The campaign season is just baaarely beginning.  Give it a chance.  The debates will start soon and that will separate the men from the boys.  I watched the interview and Newt was getting attacked by the host on a variety of issues and practically accused of being a racist simply because he talked about food stamps before a crowd in Georgia.  

Personally I didnt think he said anything bad about Paul Ryan at all.  He just thinks the plan is too big to be implemented all at once.  I see that as being prudent.  But you know the press is going to make a big deal out of it and try to divide and conquer the candidates.

For the record, here is what Newt says about the individual mandate.

I am completely opposed to the Obamacare mandate on individuals.  I fought it for two and half years at the Center for Health Transformation.  You can see all the things we did to stop it at HealthTransformation.net.  I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.

Newt believes it is unconstitutional for the federal government to impose an individual mandate requiring citizens to buy health insurance.

He is committed to the complete repeal of Obamacare and he supports the lawsuits of various state’s Attorneys General challenging its constitutionality.

In a free society you cannot tell citizens what they should buy and what those things should be.

Newt also believes individuals should be responsible to pay for the care that they receive.

Under the 10th Amendment, states should be free to design a system that works best to achieve that goal.

Here's his plan to change our nation's healthcare:

   1. Make health insurance more affordable and portable by giving Americans the choice of a generous tax credit or the ability to deduct the value of their health insurance up to a certain amount and by allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines, increasing price competition in the industry.

   2. Create more choices in Medicare by giving seniors the option to choose, on a voluntary basis, a more personal system in the private sector with greater options for better care. This would create price competition to lower costs.

   3. Reform Medicaid by giving states more freedom and flexibility to customize their programs to suit their needs with a block-grant program similar to the successful welfare reform of 1996.

   4. Reward quality care by changing the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement models to take into account the quality of the care delivered and incentivizing beneficiaries to seek out facilities that deliver the best care at the lowest costs.

   5. Reward health and wellness by giving health plans, employers, Medicare, and Medicaid more latitude to design benefits to encourage, incentivize, and reward healthy behaviors.

   6. Stop health care fraud by moving from a paper-based system to an electric one. Health care fraud accounts for as much as much as 10 percent of all health care spending, according to the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association. That's more than $200 billion a year. Compare this to the 0.1% fraud rate in the credit card industry thanks to its high-tech information analysis systems.

   7. Stop junk lawsuits that drive up the cost of medicine with medical malpractice reform.

   8. Speed medical breakthroughs to patients by reforming the Food and Drug Administration.

   9. Inform patients and consumers of price and quality so they can make informed choices about how to spend their money on care. Patients have the right to know this information, but finding it is virtually impossible.

  10. Invest in research for health solutions that are urgent national priorities. More brain science research, for example, could lead to Alzheimer's Disease cures and treatments that could save the federal government over $20 trillion over the next forty years.

As I see it, there are no other true conservatives running other than Newt.  And I do think that Newt is the smartest man in the race when it comes to policy.

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i think he's done. right now, i'm either leaning toward bachmann, or herman cain.

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Not a deal-breaker for me.  But I do like the other candidates too.    (Except Ron Paul).

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well, put it this way. i think gingrich might be the next colin powell. i've heard a lot of other anti-conservative statements coming from him too.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
well, put it this way. i think gingrich might be the next colin powell. i've heard a lot of other anti-conservative statements coming from him too.

Really?  Such as what?

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:

Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
well, put it this way. i think gingrich might be the next colin powell. i've heard a lot of other anti-conservative statements coming from him too.

Really?  Such as what?

well, maybe the next colin powell is a bit of a stretch, but he's just gone against the party line on multiple occassions, and the left uses that to bludgeon the republicans with. very much in the same way colin powell's anti-party remarks were once treated. "this is the voice of reason in the republican party," they say. all the way back in the 90's he was in support of an individual mandate. he even supported hillary clinton's plan for healthcare (in 07-08), which included an individual mandate.

here's a decent article by cbs: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/03/opinion/main20038674.shtml

look, we're at a point as conservatives where we have to make a choice. we often think of conservative v. liberalism, and republican v. democrat as synonymous, but even the republican party is devided between the inside the beltway, establishment republicans (aka the big government dem-lites) and the bottom up tea party type true conservatives. the establishment republicans know that it pays it to play. these are many of the guys who see obama as unbeatable (go figure,  right?) and are basically begging (boring and unexciting) mitch daniels to run, in order to bring some excitement to the race. and anyone who doesn't tow the conservative line, is just as bad as a democrat right now.

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:

Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
well, put it this way. i think gingrich might be the next colin powell. i've heard a lot of other anti-conservative statements coming from him too.

Really?  Such as what?

He recognizes the anthropogenic input to climate change.

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So whats wrong with some one not towing the party line.  Isn't that a good thing?

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O boo....hiss.  Lol!  Both he and Pelosi say in the beginning of that video that they dont agree on much.  You can be conservative and still care for pollution and climate control.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
So whats wrong with some one not towing the party line.  Isn't that a good thing?

you're free to have your own ideas, but you can't say things kind of off the cuff, in a way that will be used and twisted by the media to bash your fellow republicans.

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
You can be conservative and still care for pollution and climate control.

pollution, sure. climate CONTROL? seriously? that's just the left's latest scam to grab power.


anyway dennis, here's why i have a problem with mitch daniels. i heard on the radio today clips from a speech of his, and took notes. here's what he said. "the concept of a sticking issue has to be taken off the table" and that "we have to be extremely flexible and bend over backwards for those that disagree with us."

translation, he's a liberal appeaser. and this is why the obama regime let slip out that, "sppt, that mitch daniels is the one we're REALLY afraid of!" wink wink.

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Because, you know, science amounts to nothing.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
Because, you know, science amounts to nothing.

science, or hype? you mean the kind of science where skeptical scientists findings have been omitted from being included in the UN report on climate change that they were working on? you mean the science that's been embellished just a tad over the years (the whole cambridge college leak thing)? what about the science from the 70s, saying that we were headed for another ice age? that science may be more accurate though, seeing as the earth has scientifically been cooling over the last decade. this isn't a science issue, it's a political issue. and crap and trade is just a mechanism for control. you control carbon, and you control every aspect of modern human existence. not only that, but it will result in the largest transfer of wealth in human history, from the developed world, to the developing world. and nations like china would say that's just crazy anyway, and continue to grow. meanwhile, food prices are skyrocketing, because we're burning 40% of our corn crops for fuel, that also pollutes the air. hybrid cars, also pollute the air, not just through gas emissions, from through the additional electricity they need from our coal fired power plants. nuclear plants are also out, because i guess they're dangerous if you build them directly over fault lines. who would've thought, right? those huge and expensive wind turbines? they only produce power 30% of the time, and are bird no fly zones. solar? didn't spain try that one? how did that work out?

do you understand how much money there is to be made from all this clean energy technology? for crying out loud, al gore bought carbon credits from his own carbon credit company, to pay for the carbon emissions that he's incurred! what a racket! look at the freaking subsidies all these "clean energy" companies are getting, with promises of more.

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I've never heard that argument from a credible source.  Actually, I have heard much the opposite.  Put your science where your mouth is, find me some peer reviewed articles depicting either a) there is no such thing as climate change or b) that we are actually cooling.  I don't give a rats ass whats on jimbob.wordpress.com or any other bloggers site.  I want QAQC.  Credible peer review or bust.  Also, don't confuse weather patterns with climate, they are not the same thing.  The people at East Angola (it wasn't Cambridge!) were cleared of wrong doing by several judiciary panels.

As for the rest of your post, well yes climate change is rather damn inconvenient, but that isn't going to change the fact that it exists!  As so long as we continue to breath there will be an anthropogenic CO2 input, the point was never to quit contributing CO2, but rather to reduce it (and other, worse gasses) as much as possible.  Wind energy can help contribute towards using less oil, coal, or radioactive material to generate electricity.  I think personal solar will be a huge part of the solution (contrary to myth, they can still generate during cloudy weather, just not as well as in clear), but there would still be periodic need for other types of "traditional" energy.  As for cars, once the tech is fully there one could charge their electric car off home solar panels as well as anything else.  These are just some things that would go a long way to reducing the volume of CO2 produced.

And as a minor correction, hybrid cars produce their own electricity when you hit the breaks.  They don't have anywhere for you to plug them in at.

In the end I think making this shift would be good for Americas economy.  There would be some areas, like WV and Penn, that would hurt due to reduced coal production, however if we continue to produce solar panels and other "cleaner" energy sources domestically we could at least partially restore our manufacturing sector.  We would also help reduce our import/export ratio by importing less foreign oil.