Newt Gingrich showing off his iPhone 4
Tonight in the ornate Johnson Chapel located on the equally ornate Amherst College campus in the left leaning town of Amherst, Newt Gingrich entertained a crowd of almost 700, mostly students, but a smattering of older folks as well.
Huge crowd in Johnson Chapel, Callista Gingrich front row
He started out by holding up his iPhone 4 calling it, "the most powerful public health device in America today." Furthermore he insisted smart phones should be given to school children everywhere as an access pathway to education.
Like an enthusiastic science professor he went on to extol the virtues of 3D printing and regenerative medicine to revolutionize health care, although he's concerned the FDA slows down innovation and prevents products from making it to the market.
Plenty of questions
He championed the Google driverless car, pointing out the army is using the technology for supply trucks which reduces the cost in lives should a convoy come under attack. Although he asserts we lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, costing taxpayers trillions of dollars and inflicting thousands of casualties among our troops.
But his views on energy would lead to a brief firefight with two young ladies later in the question period. Gingrich championed fracking and horizontal drilling as a means of increasing dramatically the production of domestic oil.
In North Dakota oil production increased thirty fold and wages went up 50% as a byproduct of the energy boom, where even McDonald's employees make $15/hour.
Gingrich aimed his most vitriolic criticism squarely at our nation's seat of power: "Washington has no interest in fixing things"; or "The Senate as an institution has been decaying for 20 years." He pointed out he was in D.C. a few days ago and there was a dusting of snow which resulted in the Federal Government shutting down sending all their employees home (even though the White House lawn was still green).
"How do you think that makes the taxpayers in Buffalo, New York feel when they trudge to work through a typical snowstorm"?
Newt leaves the stage
He closed by recapping his faith in new technology and new ways of doing things: 3D printing, driverless cars, online learning. "The challenge for your generation is to make them real."
