Two Faces of Newt

28 December 2011 |permalink | email article

If you’re a Republican you may often find it difficult to distinguish between the good Newt Gingrich and his bizarre evil twin. The former House Speaker, Mitt Romney’s major rival for the 2012 GOP nomination, praised the health care that the Massachusetts governor signed into law in 2006—according to a newsletter discovered by the Wall Street Journal. “The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has enormous potential to effect major change in the American health system,” reads “Newt Notes” from Gingrich’s former consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation. Gingrich supported the idea of an individual mandate 1993, and said again in May 2011,” “I’ve said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond…or in some way you indicate that you’re going to be held accountable.” But recently, as discovered by The Huffington Post, a recent entitlement reform proposal by Gingrich argued that the health care mandates lead to “socialized medicine” whether they are adopted at the “federal level, or the state level.” 

Obama 2012 Challenge

In the New Year the president faces several daunting ones including the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to the Gulf Coast which requires a quick decision. The tax bill extension is likely to end it, but not necessarily if the issue is eventually resolved by several alternatives including rerouting 100 miles of the 1,700-mile pipeline which could produce tens of thousands of new jobs.

L.A. Politic

It took almost eight weeks but the new seven-member commission investigating L.A. County’s troubled jails early next month will investigate what’s gone wrong. An FBI investigation of multiple allegations against sheriff deputies ought to be reasoning enough. Sheriff Lee Baca, an elected public official who runs the jails and can’t be fired except by voters, needs to get real and address problems widely attributed to his undersheriff. The commission, encouraged by the Board of Supervisors, must now put pressure on Baca to act. 

What They Said

“I’m not worried about that. Quite frankly, I think the third-party candidates will take more votes away from Barack Obama than from our candidates.”—Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus, anticipating that the party will chose a nominee pretty quickly.

“The dynamics couldn’t be any better for us. I don’t see any scenario where we’re not the nominee.”—A senior Romney strategist to New York Magazine.

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