Newt Gingrich on the issues

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Gingrich the historian doesn't know the founders grew marijuana

Gingrich thinks that George Washington & Thomas Jefferson would be "more violent than the current government" in stopping so-called sovereign individuals from growing plants in their yard.


"I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana, and their techniques of dealing with it would have been rather more violent than the current government." -- Newt Gingrich, 1/4/2012

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9mYwrVI8aE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2bf9Yb23jQ[/ame]

 

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Newt Gingrich was mentored by Henry Kissinger

Mentioned in two New York Times articles from 1995.


The Schooling of Gingrich, The Foreign Policy Novice - 7/18/1995

Newt Gingrich created a storm the other day by saying the United States should recognize Taiwan as a free and independent country.

The Chinese ominously declared that they would not sit idly by in the face of such threats to world peace.

He also heard from Henry A. Kissinger, who has become Mr. Gingrich's favorite foreign policy mentor and happened to be in Beijing at the time. Mr. Kissinger called to lecture the Speaker of the House sternly on the need to uphold the delicate one-China policy -- which the former Secretary of State himself had invented long ago -- and to keep quiet.

Not to worry. The Speaker didn't really mean it.

Liberties; The Loss of the Dodo - 7/20/1995

The precocious darling keeps tugging at our sleeve, asking us to watch him learn about foreign policy. After causing a furor by blurting that the U.S. should recognize Taiwan's independence, he made it clear in an interview with The Times's Elaine Sciolino that he didn't know what he was talking about. He just wanted attention. With dog-ate-my-homework panache, he explained that he had been imitating a scene in the Allen Drury novel "Advise and Consent" when the American President bluffs the Russians by telling them he's going to recognize Red China. (Actually, it was the Vice President.) He said he was "still learning" about complicated foreign stuff and that nice Dr. Kissinger -- who gave him a stern lecture about the Taiwan slip -- was going to teach him.
[...]

Mr. Gingrich got to the top through sophisticated and ruthless infighting. But the revolutionary is suddenly the acolyte of the establishment, agog at being coached by intellectual party animal Henry Kissinger.

This weekend he will join the happy campers at Bohemian Grove, the exclusive men's club in northern California that has, over the years, offered power tents and "camp valets" to such Republicans as Mr. Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, David Rockefeller and George Shultz. The camp is a saturnalia of juvenilia, with a lot of old white rich guys running around naked and in sheets, costumed as Druids. They drink dawn-to-dusk gin fizzes, relieve themselves on redwoods and put on theatricals where they dress up like women.

 

[mrjarrell]

Apparently the Newt wants to fire people for not being conservative enough, if they work for the government. Can't wait to see the lawsuits should that particular bit of stupidity come to pass.

Gingrich Suggests Illegally Firing Federal Employees Over Liberal Views | TPM2012

 

[rambone]

The arms dealer bribery scandal & criminal FBI investigation of Gingrich (1995)

In the late 90's Newt was the subject of a 2-year criminal investigation by the FBI for accepting bribes from an international arms dealer in exchange for using his power to help lift the Iraq arms embargo.

The investigation was called off because it was getting too "politically sensitive."

The FBI document: The FBI Gingrich Investigation

​

Newt Gingrich, Marianne and the Arms Dealer: A Buried FBI Investigation

On October 5, Sarkis Soghanalian, once the world’s largest private arms dealer, died at 82. He had sold weapons to scores of dictators including Saddam Hussein, and he took many secrets with him to his grave. But one secret he did not take involves Newt Gingrich when he was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. DCBureau has learned that Gingrich was at the center of a U.S. Justice Department criminal investigation in the late 1990s for a scheme to shake down the arms dealer for a $10 million bribe in exchange for Gingrich using his influence as Speaker to get the Iraq arms embargo lifted so Soghanalian could collect $54 million from Saddam Hussein’s regime for weapons he had delivered during the Iran-Iraq War. Soghanalian was an FBI informant and was responsible for launching one of the most sensitive and secret investigations in FBI history involving the former Speaker and his second wife. According to Marianne Gingrich, it took the direct intervention of then FBI Director Louis J. Freeh to “get the investigation called off.”

That May 1995 phone call from Bennett to Soghanalian resulted in a two-year FBI investigation so sensitive that details have never before been made public. The goal of the investigation, according to a Justice Department official, “…was to see if Gingrich, through his then wife, was involved in an attempt by political associates to solicit bribes.” One of the team of FBI agents involved in the case says, “The investigation was called off before we were permitted to finish making a case.” Another agent says it was just “too politically sensitive. We got so close and when the target was in sight, we were stopped by Washington.”

 

[buckstopshere]

Gingrich thinks that George Washington & Thomas Jefferson would be "more violent than the current government" in stopping so-called sovereign individuals from growing plants in their yard.


"I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana, and their techniques of dealing with it would have been rather more violent than the current government." -- Newt Gingrich, 1/4/2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2bf9Yb23jQ

What's he smoking?

 

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JBS Presents: Newt Gingrich, Building A New World Order

Worth the watch if you still think Gingrich is a conservative.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq4lde9wghI[/ame]

 

[sepe]

What's he smoking?

Newt is probably smoking the same thing he use to smoke in the past. You know, the same thing he thinks should have a death penalty attached to it as punishment. Newt has admitted to smoking pot and was even an early proponent for medicinal marijuana but as we all know, now believes pot smokers and drug dealers should receive the death penalty. I'd hope he gets that passed and takes Rush and Glenn Beck to the front of the line with him...then it gets repealed.

 

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Newt Gingrich called for internet censorship (2006)

I wouldn't trust Gingrich to veto SOPA, PIPA, or PCIPA, given his advocacy of internet censorship in the past.

In 2006, Gingrich backed censoring the web

"We need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until we actually literally lose a city, which I think could literally happen in the next decade if we're unfortunate," Mr. Gingrich said during a speech in New Hampshire, according to a story I wrote at the time for The New York Sun. "We now should be impaneling people to look seriously at a level of supervision that we would never dream of if it weren't for the scale of the threat."

 

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Newt Gingrich: A Crime Against Conservatism [1-hour long exposé]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyeB36ctO5I[/ame]

 

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Newt & Hillary pushed for Federalization of Health Care Records (2005)

In 2005, Newt joined Hillary Clinton to announce the push for the 21st Century Health Information Act of 2005. It would put patient health records in Federal databases. Yay.



Newt Gingrich - Slideshows and Picture Stories (slide 19)

Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton listen to former Speaker Gingrich during a media conference on Capitol Hill on May 11, 2005, in Washington, D.C. Kennedy, Tim Murphy and Gingrich held the news conference to announce a bill that would transform the healthcare system by creating digital health information networks. In 2003 Gingrich founded the Center for Health Transformation to develop a new healthcare system. He supported the Medicare Prescription Drug Act and advocated with Hillary Clinton on healthcare information technology.

 

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Newt Gingrich is sponsored by a human micro-chipping company (2011)

Newt Gingrich is sponsored by PositiveID aka Verichip, a company that specializes in human microchipping. The company threw a fundraiser for him and Newt gave the keynote speech. The company's CEO advocates chipping every infant at birth. The company also unethically chipped 200 Alzheimer's patients without their consent.

This is not the kind of company that I would like the President to be beholden to, especially a guy like Newt who is such an avid lobbyist and seller of his political influence to corporations.

Remember When Newt Gingrich Was Sponsored By a Human Chip-Implant Company?

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich once spoke at an Alzheimer's conference sponsored by PositiveID (PSID), the human microchip implant company that came under fire for injecting 200 Alzheimer's patients with wireless chips in Florida without properly obtaining their consent.

The issue of whether Americans should receive subcutaneous wireless RFID chip implants that can link to their electronic medical records emerged again in Wisconsin this week, where former governor and Bush Administration secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson is considering a run for Senate. Thompson was a former board member of VeriChip, the company that renamed itself PositiveID, and once appeared on CNBC with PositiveID CEO Scott Silverman to advocate that everyone receive a chip from birth:

Interview with the PostiveID CEO:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiLixwNkur8[/ame]
"It occurs to me, I've got them in my dogs, why wouldn't I have them in small children too?"

 

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Gingrich advocated building a mirror system in space (1984)

I found an op-ed that said Newt Gingrich advocated building a system of mirrors in space. I did some research and PolitiFact verified it as true. Gingrich wrote about this in his 1984 book, [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Window-Opportunity-Blueprint-Newt-Gingrich/dp/0812594169/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323483482&sr=8-1"]Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future[/ame].

How bold of Gingrich! And undoubtedly expensive!

If you notice, even David Brooks, the op-ed author and outspoken liberal, says that Newt Gingrich loves government even more than he does! Zing!



The Gingrich Tragedy, David Brooks, 12/8/2011

In the first place, Gingrich loves government more than I do. He has no Hayekian modesty to restrain his faith in statist endeavor. For example, he has called for “a massive new program to build a permanent lunar colony to exploit the Moon’s resources.” He has suggested that “a mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the highways.”

I’m for national greatness conservatism, but this is a little too great.

PolitiFact: Newt Gingrich "has suggested" building "a mirror system in space" could improve the Earth’s habitability -- TRUE!

In the book, Gingrich proposes (among many other ideas) "five simple steps to a bold future" in space, most unusually a lottery in which randomly selected taxpayers would win a spot on a space shuttle flight. But the floating mirror idea isn’t on this list. Instead, it’s included in Gingrich's recap of a June 1979, NASA-sponsored new concepts symposium in Woods Hole, Mass., "where 30 experts brainstormed a range of pioneering options for NASA worthy of Lewis and Clark."

Here’s how Gingrich summarized the idea:

"The climate group at the Woods Hole conference suggested that a large array of mirrors could affect the earth’s climate by increasing the amount of sunlight received by particular areas, citing recent feasibility studies exploring the possibilities of preventing frosts in Florida or enabling farmers in high altitudes to plant their wheat earlier.

"A mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the highways. Ambient light covering entire areas could reduce the current danger of criminals lurking in the darkness. Mirrors could be arranged to light given metropolitan areas only during particular periods, so there would be darkness late at night for sleeping."

 

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Gingrich wants a permanent Moon base & mining colony; manned mission to Mars

He suggested a manned mission to Mars and a "permanent" Moon base at the NBC Florida debate (1/23/2012).

I guess this qualifies as one of the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSE's) that Newt favors so much.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2wkBucLej8[/ame]



Mitt Romney has repeatedly called him out on this issue.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YDTjJbw_Wk[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEPS_psMMgc[/ame]

 

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Newt Gingrich (Rockefeller-supporter) name-drops Goldwater to sound conservative

Newt Gingrich says he went to a Barry Goldwater organizing session in 1964, in order to pander to the audience and make himself sound more conservative. In reality Newt Gingrich was a State Chairman for Goldwater's progressive Big Government opponent, Nelson Rockefeller.


1988:

I think this party, in that sense, is very different party than it was, say, from the fights of the years of the Rockefeller/Goldwater process. A period which, by the way, I was a Rockefeller State Chairman from the south.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJQsLFhuyOY[/ame]

2012:

"I went to a Goldwater organizing session in 1964. I met with Ronald Reagan for the first time in 1974. I worked with Jack Kemp, and Art Laffer and others to develop supply side economics in the late '70s. I helped Governor Reagan become President Reagan. I helped pass the Reagan economic program and worked with the National Security Council on issues including the collapse of the Soviet Empire," Newt Gingrich said at tonight's debate.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKRVBtChmgg[/ame]

 

[sepe]

I missed the debate but one has to think that if he is using debates as a stage to push his moon base ideas, he HAS to still be smoking a lot of weed. How can anyone seriously support him and think about voting for him? I'm starting to think we're surrounded by window licking morons.

 

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Gingrich "proud" of supporting Medicare Part D; a "stronger Medicare program"

In last night's (1/23/2012) Florida NBC debate, Newt Gingrich was called out for lobbying for Medicare expansion, and he went ahead and openly admitted that he is proud of publicly supporting Medicare Part D, but denied that he was a lobbyist.

MITT ROMNEY: ... that you came and lobbied them with regards to Medicare Part D, at the same time...

NEWT GINGRICH: Now, wait. Whoa, whoa.

MITT ROMNEY: ... your center was taking in contributions...

NEWT GINGRICH: You just jumped a long way over here, friend.

MITT ROMNEY: Well, another -- another area of influence-peddling.

(4 seconds pass)

NEWT GINGRICH: No, not -- now, let me be very clear, because I understand your technique, which you used on McCain, you used on Huckabee, you've used consistently, OK? It's unfortunate, and it's not going to work very well, because the American people see through it.

I have always publicly favored a stronger Medicare program. I wrote a book in 2002 called "Saving Lives and Saving Money." I publicly favored Medicare Part D for a practical reason, and that reason is simple. The U.S. government was not prepared to give people anything -- insulin, for example -- but they would pay for kidney dialysis. They weren't prepared to give people Lipitor, but they'd pay for open-heart surgery. That is a terrible way to run Medicare.

I am proud of the fact -- and I'll say this in Florida -- I'm proud of the fact that I publicly, openly advocated Medicare Part D. It has saved lives. It's run on a free enterprise model. It also included health savings accounts and it include Medicare alternatives, which gave people choices.

And I did it publicly, and it is not correct, Mitt -- I'm just saying this flatly, because you've been walking around this state saying things that are untrue -- it is not correct to describe public citizenship, having public advocacy as lobbying. Every citizen has the right to do that.

MITT ROMNEY: They sure do.

NEWT GINGRICH: And what I did on behalf of Medicare...

MITT ROMNEY: They sure do.

NEWT GINGRICH: ... I did out in the open, publicly, and that is my right as a citizen.

NBC MODERATOR BRIAN WILLIAMS: Gentlemen...

MITT ROMNEY: Here's why it's a problem, Mr. Speaker. Here's why it's a problem. And that is, if you're getting paid by health companies, if your entities are getting paid by health companies that could benefit from a piece of legislation, and you then meet with Republican congressmen and encourage them to support that legislation, you can call it whatever you'd like. I call it influence-peddling.

It is not right. It is not right. You have a conflict. You are -- you are being paid by companies at the same time you're encouraging people to pass legislation which is in their favor.

Dispute Over Gingrich’s Role In Medicare Part D

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSqGk765jT0[/ame]​

Medicare Part D is an entitlement expansion that forces the taxpayers to fund prescription drugs for seniors. It was passed in 2003 under a Republican-controlled Congress and Senate and signed by President George W. Bush. It is an economic disaster and was called "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s" by David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General. It stands as an unfunded liability to the tune of $15.5 Trillion.

For perspective of how big of an entitlement this is, Bruce Bartlett said the entire Social Security system ties up 1.3% of GDP, and Medicare Part D ties up 1.2% of GDP.

The 81% Tax Increase: To pay for government's promises on Social Security and Medicare - Bruce Bartlett (2009)

To summarize, we see that taxpayers are on the hook for Social Security and Medicare by these amounts: Social Security, 1.3% of GDP; Medicare part A, 2.8% of GDP; Medicare part B, 2.8% of GDP; and Medicare part D, 1.2% of GDP. This adds up to 8.1% of GDP. Thus federal income taxes for every taxpayer would have to rise by roughly 81% to pay all of the benefits promised by these programs under current law over and above the payroll tax.

Since many taxpayers have just paid their income taxes for 2008 they may have their federal returns close at hand. They all should look up the total amount they paid and multiply that figure by 1.81 to find out what they should be paying right now to finance Social Security and Medicare.

To put it another way, the total unfunded indebtedness of Social Security and Medicare comes to $106.4 trillion. That is how much larger the nation's capital stock would have to be today, all of it owned by the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, to generate enough income to pay all the benefits that have been promised over and above future payroll taxes. But the nation's total private net worth is only $51.5 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. In effect, we have promised the elderly benefits equal to more than twice the nation's total wealth on top of the payroll tax.

Happy Birthday, Medicare Part D! Now Die! Die! Die! - Reason.com (2010)

The prescription drug plan is about the worst giveaway you could imagine, just a pure, unadulterated sop to a bunch of politically connected voters. When the plan was first being discussed, seniors were paying a whopping 3.2 percent of their income on pills annually - less than they did on entertainment. As Bartlett points out, George Bush and the House Republicans (including Speaker-elect John Boehner and budget whiz Paul Ryan) who voted overwhelmingly for it didn't even bother to pretend they were going to pay for it with tax hikes or spending cuts. Just an awful plundering of the young and relatively poor to give booty to the old and relatively flush.

 

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Newt's pro-Medicare article (2003)



Conservatives Should Vote "Yes" On Medicare, by Newt Gingrich
Wall Street Journal, 11/20/2003

Every conservative member of Congress should vote for this Medicare bill. It is the most important reorganization of our nation's healthcare system since the original Medicare Bill of 1965 and the largest and most positive change in direction for the health system in 60 years for people over 65.

In a bold and unexpected move, the new Medicare bill includes a decisive shift to health savings accounts, which will allow every American to accumulate tax-free health dollars. HSAs allow account-owners to build savings and earn tax-free interest on their HSA contributions. HSA account owners can use their savings for tax-free spending on qualified health expenses, including health insurance premiums and deductibles, prescription drugs, and long-term care services including long-term care insurance.

If you are a fiscal conservative who cares about balancing the federal budget, there may be no more important vote in your career than one in support of this bill.

 

[mrjarrell]

Surely the voters can do better.