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Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newt Gingrich. Show all posts

Monday, February 06, 2012

He Said....What??!??

First of all, David, I don’t think you’ll ever find me talking about an age of austerity. I don’t think that’s the right solution. I am a pro-growth Republican. I’m a pro-growth conservative. I think the answer is to grow the economy, not to punish the American people with austerity. 

---Newt Gingrich, 5 February 2012, Meet the Press

What do you suppose he means by this?

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Friday, January 27, 2012

Complete Agreement with...Ann Coulter?

Some folks on the right side of the aisle are pretty nervous after Newt's win in South Carolina. Take Ann Coulter, conservative fire brand, for example. In her recent column entitled, "RE-ELECT OBAMA: VOTE NEWT!" she opens with

To talk with Gingrich supporters is to enter a world where words have no meaning.

Well, that's certainly  true generally of conservatives:)

She goes on to discuss the circular reasoning of Newt's supporters and then explains Mitt's flip flops. This one really jumped out at me.

Romney's one great "flip-flop" is on abortion. (I thought the reason we argued with people about abortion was to try to get them to "flip-flop" on this issue. Sometimes it works!)

I actually laughed out loud at that one. No shit, isn't that the goal of pro life conservatives? Why are they complaining that Mitt's changed his mind?

She concludes with a line that is...dare I say it...Markadelphia like in its nature.

Conservatism is an electable quality. Hotheaded arrogance is neither conservative nor attractive to voters.

Finally. A conservative with which I agree on virtually nothing defining exactly what is wrong with the GOP today. Somewhere along the line, the base has allowed itself to be overtaken by virulent hubris that one normally associates with right wing bloggers. As I've been saying for the past several days, your average Joe Voter has no idea who Saul Alinksy is nor do will they respond well to another white old guy yelling at Barack Obama. If the right wants to win, Mitt is the best chance they have.

But she does raise a deeper point. Is conservatism an electable quality? It is but only in moderation as this is a center right country for the most part. I think the reason why the GOP is having such a tough time with their candidates is not they they don't like any of the above. It's because they are struggling to define who they are. Are they evangelical? Financial old guard? Libertarians? I don't think they know.

The party can't survive if one drops away so they desperately need all three. Yet they seem to be at odds with each other and don't really work and play well together. Some want to be more moderate so they can win but a very large portion want to go farther right. If the president wins re-election in the fall, this struggle will be one of the big reasons why.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Blessed Are The Poor

Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.' (Matthew 25:41-45)

The above is but one example of the many instructions in the Bible on how God wants us to serve the poor. It's not just the New Testament either. Deuteronomy 24:14 tells us: "Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns." Psalm 12:5 says: "Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise, says the LORD, I will protect them from those who malign them."

And Psalm 41:1-2 states: "Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the LORD delivers him in times of trouble. The LORD will protect him and preserve his life; he will bless him in the land and not surrender him to the desire of his foes."

In looking at all of these teachings, I'm wondering if Newt Gingrich has picked up a Bible recently or, quite frankly, has ever read one. Take a look at this.



Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and one around them who works? Are you fucking kidding me? I can't believe that we are still on this crap. What is it about this country and disdain for poor people? They're all lazy, I guess, and they don't teach their kids good values. They're poor for a reason, dammit, and how dare they stink up our country with their poor BO.

Some have suggested that Newt's comment was a dog whistle for bigots (the lazy blacks who don't work). Based on this line from a recent comment, they may be right.

What I am suggesting is that culture matters. And black culture, at this point in history, does not celebrate academic achievement.

I will never understand this mindset. I'd like to try to give folks like this the benefit of the doubt and simply say that they are massively tone deaf but perhaps I'm being too kind. This view, illustrated quite well by Newt Gingrich, is so antiquated that it makes me physically ill. What fucking country do these people live in? They claim to be Christian but what goes through their minds when they read this passage?

If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Newt's Swan Song?

When New Gingrich first appeared on the national scene in the early Nineties I kind of liked him. He was a proponent of space exploration at a time when the nation on the whole was backing away from it, and that endeared him to me. He wasn't your typical nitwit concerned with only mundane political and economic matters: he could see a bigger picture.

But Newt Gingrich's personal life and career have been a long, sad story of deceit and distortion. He presented his first wife with divorce papers when she was in the hospital. He carried on a full-blown affair with an aide during the Clinton impeachment hearings. He engineered the Republican resurgence in the House during the Clinton administration, in part by providing careful advice on how best to smear your opponent in speeches and commercials.

Recently he justified cheating on his second wife by claiming that he was working so hard and so patriotically that he was practically forced to have sex with his aide. I suppose it was patriotism that forced him to help prop up the economy by buying between quarter and half a million dollars worth of jewelry from Tiffany's.

And then this twice-divorced weasel had the gall to convert to Catholicism. I would give almost any other person the benefit of the doubt on this one. But I know that this was just another cynical political ploy for Newt. The man seems to be a psychopath -- very intelligent, but without any shame or empathy for other human beings.

So it's rather ironic that a man who has spent his entire life lying, cheating and smearing should be taken down by telling the truth. According to this CBS News report, when Gingrich appeared on Meet the Press he said:
"I'm against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change," Gingrich told NBC's David Gregory. "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering... I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate."
The reaction from Republican quarters has been scathing. But Newt quickly returned to form, saying:
Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood. I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate. And I'm prepared to stand up, when I make a mistake – and I'm going to on occasion – I want to stand up and share with the American people that was a mistake, because that way we can have an honest conversation.
In essence, Newt is saying, "I screwed up -- I told the truth." He wants a complete do-over, to take back everything he said, as if he could put another quarter in a video game and get three more lives.

Newt is a smart guy. That's why his particular brand of hypocrisy galls me more than most Republicans. When Michele Bachmann says something stupid and mendacious, it's because she doesn't really know what she's talking about.

But when Newt says something stupid and mendacious, he knows full well he's lying. You can see it in his face and his body language. He has that coy little smile, like a ten-year-old kid who thinks he just got away with shoplifting a copy of Playboy.

Why was Newt so uncharacteristically candid and honest on Meet the Press? Perhaps he thought he could attract the political center and the elderly, who have been reacting very negatively to the Ryan plan. Newt needs those voters desperately, because any evangelical family-values Republican could not possibly support this two- and three-timing cheater with a clear conscience.

Why was the Republican reaction to Newt's sudden burst of honesty so vitriolic? They know the Ryan plan for Medicare is a non-starter and will cost them big in the next election if they continue to push it . But like any organized criminal enterprise, the whole thing falls apart if there is no loyalty. As soon as one member of a gang starts spilling the beans, the whole thing falls apart. The Republican Party has been built on a scaffolding of lies for decades now (trickle-down economics, WMDs in Iraq, all regulation and all government is bad).

We can only hope that other Republicans will finally admit what Newt has really been all along, and that he will drop out of the race as precipitously as that other self-promoting, lying hypocrite, Donald Trump.

Friday, December 03, 2010

WTF Has Obama Done?

As John McHypocrite yells at the very officials he said we would listen to on DADT, today's WTF is dedicated to him and his pandering to the homophobes of the base.


OMG! The anti-colonial Kenyan (© Newt Gingrich) is letting the fags run roughshod over us. Hide the kids!