“Defeating Barack Obama becomes, in fact, a duty of national security. Because the fact is, he is incapable of defending the United States.”
- On President’s Day, Newt Gingrich told a crowd of 4,000 at Oral Roberts University that we must defeat President Obama because he won’t keep us safe. Or something like that.
I imagine that Osama Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the underwear bomber) and Muammar Gaddafi would have something to say about that, Newt. Just sayin’....
“I think that the election [in Florida] will be substantially closer than the two polls that came out this morning. When you add the two conservatives together we clearly beat Romney. I think Romney's got a very real challenge trying to get a majority at the convention.”
“We discovered last night that Mitt Romney has picked up Charlie Crist’s campaign manager. I thought that told you everything you need to know about this primary. As governor of Massachusetts [Romney] was pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, pro-tax increase and pro- gun control. Now that makes you a moderate in Massachusetts but it makes you pretty liberal in a Republican primary. That’s probably why he hired Charlie Crist’s staff.”
David Gregory talks to Newt Gingrich on ‘Meet the Press” yesterday about Gingrich’s lobbying activities for mortgage giants, Fannie and Freddie:
“You are running against the establishment, you're trying to run as an outsider. You talk about housing in Florida. You were a consultant, or, depending on your point of view, a lobbyist for one of the mortgage giants. I'm wondering how you think you win that inside-outside game, given your history.”
A Gingrich now on the offensive, responds to Gregory, denying any lobbying activity ever. So there.
“David, wait a second, David. David, you know better than that. I was not a lobbyist, I was never a lobbyist, I never did any lobbying. Don't try to mix these things up. The fact is I was an adviser strategically and if you look at the only thing ever published by Freddie Mac, I said you need more regulations. If you look at the only article ever written about my talking to the Congress, it was in the New York Times in July of 2008, and I said do not give them any money.
Now I opposed giving money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I think they should both be broken up into four or five much smaller companies and I've long felt that. And so I think that to jump from one to the other is simply wrong. In Florida, my case is going to be very simple. You have a clear establishment candidate in Mitt Romney. Look where his money comes from, look at his background, look what he did in Massachusetts. And you have somebody whose entire career has been a Reagan populist conservative going all the way back to the 1970s.
I think that's a pretty clear contrast, and I think Floridians would like somebody who speaks for them to Washington, not somebody who speaks to the establishment to them.”
Watch the video of Gingrich denying the lobbyist claim:
Media Matters weighs in on Gingrich’s "I was not a lobbyist" claim:
The holes in Gingrich's "I was not a lobbyist" argument have been demonstrated several times over. Politifact gave the claim a "Half-True" rating, noting that it's depressingly easy and common for "consultants" who provide "strategic advice" (which is how Gingrich's campaign explained his relationship with Freddie Mac) to essentially function as lobbyists without having to register as such. The Washington Postcalled Gingrich's denials of being a lobbyist "clearly misleading," laying out all the known details of Gingrich's dealings with the mortgage giant.
Newt Gingrich just can’t stop using that old canard, the Southern dog whistle, that code for the term “welfare queens” (which don’t even exist in reality). Here’s Newt when asked what he would say to the NAACP if given the opportunity:
“More people are on food stamps today because of Obama's policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. ... And so I'm prepared if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”
Really, Newt, really?
Give me a freaking break. Calling President Obama the “food stamp president” and insinuating that black people are all on food stamps, i.e., too lazy to get jobs thus live off food stamps, for Christ’s sake, is old, racist, and not based in truth. [Gingrich’s association with truth is always tenuous, but this is to the point of utterly ridiculous.]
Yes, enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has increased during the Obama administration, but as experts continually point out, and which Gingrich continually ignores, this is because of the near depression caused by the policies of Bush and company, a deep, deep recession which continues today, necessitating assistance to many more people than would be the case during better times.
Watch Fox News amplify Gingrich’s message:
So did President George W. Bush preside over the highest number of food stamp recipients in history? Thus far, yes. 11 Alive in Atlanta [emphasis mine] fact-checked Gingrich:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition service tracks month-to-month figures dating back to January 2001. The numbers show that the total of food stamp recipients rose to 14.2 million during President Obama's administration.
The highest in history so far is President George W. Bush. The number of food stamp recipients grew to nearly 14.7 million while he was in office. But, that's eight years in office, compared to President Obama who has not finished his first term.
It's possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.
One out of seven Americans is currently getting food stamps, according to the Department of Agriculture.
The figures also show the rise in food stamps began before Obama took office, and accelerated as the nation plunged into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.
The economic downturn began in December 2007. In the 12 months before Obama was sworn in, 4.4 million were added to the rolls, triple the 1.4 million added in 2007.
So, who gets food stamps?
The most recent Department of Agriculture report on the general characteristics of the SNAP (food stamp) program's beneficiaries says that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010:
-- 47% of beneficiaries were children under age 18.
-- 8% were age 60 or older.
-- 41% lived in a household with earnings from a job - the so-called "working poor."
-- The average household received a monthly benefit of $287.
-- 36% were white (non-Hispanic), 22% were African American (non-Hispanic) and 10% were Hispanic.
Oh, and by the way, Newt and Fox liars, the state with the highest number of Americans eligible for and receiving food stamps is Nevada. [Nevada, where if I had to venture a guess, I’d say that there might be maybe fifteen whole black people living in the entire state of Nevada.]
Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-IN), a prominent supporter of the food stamp program:
“People now see that it’s necessary to have a strong food stamp program.”
“I will go to the NAACP convention, and explain to the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps.”
- In New Hampshire yesterday, Newt Gingrich let-the-freak-banner-fly in a blatantly racist statement. Someone should tell Newt that the majority of food stamp recipients aren’t black.
“This is a man whose staff created the PAC, his millionaire friends fund the PAC, he pretends he has nothing to do with the PAC -- it's baloney. He's not telling the American people the truth.”
- Newt Gingrich to CBS (The Early Show this morning) on Mitt Romney’s denials re his knowledge of the Super PAC that’s been running negative ads attacking Gingrich.
Adding.....neither of them can claim to be truthful.
“I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain that I would be glad to then listen to him. I’ll bet you $10, not $10,000, that he won’t take the offer.”
- Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke with TPM about the possibility of Newt Gingrich as the GOP’s nominee, and didn’t hide Democratic delight at the idea of running against Newt Gingrich:
“I like Barney Frank’s quote the best, where he said ‘I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican party.’ That quote I think spoke for a lot of us.
One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
“I would like to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift.
That’s a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope that members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it.”
Pelosi To Newt: I Don't Need Secret Documents To Embarrass You
When it comes to the Newt Gingrich v Nancy Pelosi war of words that erupted today, Pelosi’s office told Brian Beutler that Pelosi wasn’t talking about dinging Gingrich with some secret cache of documents, but rather the ethics report from the 1990s that’s already available online.
“Leader Pelosi was clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware,” Pelosi’s spokesperson said.
“I'm clearly the more conservative candidate, by any rational standard. And, and I had a 90% American Conservative Union standing for twenty years. I helped Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp develop supply-side (trickle down) economics. I helped lead the effort to defeat communism in the Congress. I helped, uh, as Speaker of the House balance the federal budget for four straight years. Reform welfare as an entitlement. The first tax cuts in sixteen years. I mean…take whatever your list of what conservatism is, and I've done that stuff.”
“If you’re serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we’re going to have drugs in this country. Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They’ve been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.”
- Newt Gingrich endorses Singapore’s policy of executing people for possession of drugs.
“I think that we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user. It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid. Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.
It has always struck me that if you’re serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting–I don’t think actually locking up users is a very good thing. I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long-term policy.”
The drug testing should include anyone who receives federal subsidies. Oil companies ($24 billion), defense contractors ($12 billion), the financial sector (trillions!) — all of them. Let’s drug test the entire management team of each company from the CEO to the board and all the way down the line. If anyone fails the test, take away their federal aid, just like Newt Gingrich says.
“I repudiate, and I call on the President to repudiate, the concept of the 99 and the 1. It is un-American, it is divisive, it is historically false…You are not going to get job creation when you engage in class warfare because you have to attack the very people you hope will create jobs.”
- GOP presidential frontrunner, Newt Gingrich, refuses, and asks that President Obama refuse, to recognize the fact that there is a tremendous disparity between the haves and the have-nots in this country in terms of income inequality, thus he paints it as “class warfare”. Gingrich is, of course, a member of the 1 percent.
FACT: The U.S. is number 1 in the world in terms of income inequality, a factor which affects all quality of life issues. Watch:
“I think the president should be, frankly, enforcing that act [DOMA], and I think we are drifting toward a terrible muddle which I think is going to be very, very difficult and painful to work our way out of.”
People who marry because they love each other are going to be the cause of a “terrible muddle”.
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