“Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney renewed…” Now, listen to me, folks. Mitt Romney “renewed his support yesterday for automatic increases in the federal minimum wage to keep pace with inflation, a position sharply at odds with traditional Republican business allies, conservatives, and party senior lawmakers.” By the way, folks, have you seen the teenage unemployment rate in this country? Well, can you say “25%”? It’s 16%, 18%. It’s way, way up there. The teenage unemployment rate, it’s at record highs.

Whatever it is, it is at a record high, and why do you think that is? In part, it’s the minimum wage. Businesses are having enough trouble as it is in this economy, and then to be told to go out and hire a bunch of people who have no experience and pay them an arbitrary amount of money that has no relationship to the business’s operation or cost structure, is literally absurd. And so the only option the small businessman has is not hiring anybody. You can price it… It’s sort of like raising tax rates and these dummkopfs in Washington think, “Well, you raise the tax rate and these taxpayers just sit out there like a bunch of idiots and they’ll pay it.” And every time tax rates are increased, guess what? Revenue goes down. If you want more of an activity, you cut taxes on it. If you want less of an activity, you raise taxes.

If you want more homes sold, then you allow the interest on a mortgage to be deducted. If you don’t want a lot of homes to be sold, take that deduction away. If you want to spur teenage hiring, lower the minimum wage or get rid of it. If you want to retard teenage hiring — if you want to slow it down, if you want to limit the amount of teenagers to get jobs — raise the cost of hiring them. And that’s what an increase in the minimum wage is. The minimum wage, the stock conservative answer to it is get rid of it. It certainly isn’t to raise it. It certainly isn’t to tie it to the cost of living index.”

31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Matthew 25:31-46

But I think now we have a de facto Only Party. It is comprised of those who will not allow money out of their circle of influence. The wet dream of the Progressives has been to set the have-nots against the haves under the guise of fairness. The dirty secret behind that dream is that the Proggies are panting for the opportunity to be the haves. And for you to be the have-not.

The RNC has told all of us we cannot have Newt (or Cain. Or Palin. Or West.) We have told the RNC they cannot have Mitt. The impasse has drawn a stark contrast that even a blind man can discern. It’s not about being Republican. It’s not about hanging together or separately. Really, when you’re already screwed what’s a few feet of rope and a short drop?

A month ago -when the Republican primary contest began to get ugly- it already seemed intra-party chasms that developed over this cycle would be taking some time to heal. We all still assumed that ‘anybody but Obama’ would get us together in the end, though…yet no longer: there’s simply no dealing with the self-serving syndicate that’s re-written history and gang-raped Newt Gingrich just to stick us with some fake conservative scumbag. The TEA Party movement is on the verge of extinction if we fail to go on the offensive- and I mean now.

Newt Gingrich was part of the Reagan Revolution’s Murderers’ Row. And anybody who was in Washington in the day, much less in the Reagan White House or the 1984 Reagan re-election campaign (and I would make that particular cut of three), knew it….

…. time after time after time in the Reagan years, a number of those times which I had the opportunity to see up close as a young Reagan staffer charged in my duties with being the White House liaison to Gingrich and Kemp’s Conservative Opportunity Society, Newt Gingrich was out there again and again and again for Ronald Reagan and conservative principles. In his own memoirs, The Politics of Diplomacy, James Baker noted of his days as Reagan White House Chief of Staff that he always “worked closely” with the people Baker described as “congressional leaders.” And who were those leaders? Baker runs off a string of names of the older leaders of both House and Senate in the formal positions of power — plus one. That’s right: young Newt Gingrich….

…..But whatever happens, quite unlike the picture Romney is trying to paint of his prime opponent in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich was very much present and accounted for on the Reagan team. To borrow from Reagan’s farewell address to the nation and the men and women who served him, Newt Gingrich wasn’t just marking time. He made a difference. He helped make that City on a Shining Hill stronger. He helped make the City freer.

Quite to the contrary of the Romney message, Newt Gingrich was in fact one of Reagan’s Young Lieutenants.

One of the best.

“If this is what the conservative movement has come to, then count me out. I am not a special pleader for Gingrich. Newt Gingrich and I aren’t friends. We aren’t even acquaintances.

But Levin took issue with those who cite a TV interview from 1988 as evidence that Gingrich broke from former President Ronald Reagan. “Newt Gingrich didn’t trash Ronald Reagan,” Levin said. “He said going forward we need tactical changes from the Reagan era, not changes in principle, not that we shouldn’t promote Reagan.”

Levin then played an audio clip from the interview to prove his point. “Reaganism is a value system which carried 49 states last time [in the 1984 election],” Gingrich said. “It’s fairly inclusive, more than just a personality issue.”

Republicans must remember that Gingrich was the first GOP speaker of the House in almost 50 years, Levin said. “He was fighting Democrats to win the House of Representatives before most of the people trashing him on the Internet were old enough to wipe themselves … before most of the commentators on TV were switching from Democrats to Republicans.”

It’s OK to criticize Gingrich, Levin said. “But don’t count me among those who are going to destroy the man,” he continued. “You can disagree with the man on substance, but don’t turn him into some Marxist, Reagan-hating mental case, because he’s not.”

“I was appalled when the two-year governor of New Jersey, who has done absolutely zero for the conservative movement, gets on TV and regurgitates all the ethical bull crap thrown at Newt Gingrich when he was speaker of the House.”

Levin’s not too happy about recent criticism of Gingrich from former Sen. Bob Dole, either. “Bob Dole was part of the problem,” he said.

He had some choice words for Gingrich’s presidential opponent, Mitt Romney. “What was Mitt Romney doing when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House fighting Democrats? He was running against Ted Kennedy as a self-identified progressive.”

Levin was referring to Romney’s unsuccessful bid to take former Massachusetts Sen. Kennedy’s seat away from him in 1994.

“Newt Gingrich, if he does nothing else, did more for the conservative movement than virtually everyone today who’s criticizing him,” Levin said.

To be sure, Gingrich made some mistakes in the past, Levin acknowledged. “I make no excuses for his personal life, which was a mess,” he said.

“But he has found his faith now, he has found God. Why would we act like Marxist leftists ourselves, like a bunch of frenzied nut jobs trying to turn this man into something he’s not. We would not have taken back the House of Representatives but for Newt Gingrich.”

As for those criticizing Gingrich, “What the hell did they do to take back the House of Representatives?” Levin said.

President Obama during his State of the Union speech Tuesday debuted a new plan aimed at fixing one part of the housing crisis, saying that he would soon send Congress a bill to help some people refinance their mortgages.

Obama said he was sending lawmakers “a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks.”

The president proposed to pay for his plan by taxing banks.

“A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.”

A government program allowing underwater homeowners to refinance their loans would constitute a bailout, essentially forgiving large amounts of debt they currently owe.

CNSNews