27 Reasons Why Newt Gingrich Would Be AReally, Really Bad President

27 Reasons Why Newt Gingrich Would Be A Really, Really Bad President 1. The American Dream Thursday, November 17, 2011 In recent weeks, the poll numbers for Newt Gingrich have absolutely skyrocketed.

Many now believe that he has a legitimate shot at winning the Republican nomination. But the truth is that he would be a really, really bad president. Gingrich is a big time Washington insider who believes in individual health care mandates, who supported the bailouts, who was instrumental in cramming NAFTA down the throats of the American people and who is either soft or wrong on just about every single issue that conservatives care about. His personal life has a history of being a mess, his finances have a history of being a mess and his campaign was such a mess a few months ago that most observers considered his candidacy to be completely dead. He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations for two decades and he has been spotted attending meetings at the Bohemian Grove. He sounds good during a debate, but it really boggles the mind that anyone would consider voting for someone with such a nightmarish track record.

The funny thing is that a lot of Tea Party activists are now jumping on board the Gingrich bandwagon. A couple of years ago, the Tea Party movement was very much anti-establishment and Tea Party activists declared that they were sick and tired of “fake conservatives” and “RINOs”.

Well, other than Mitt Romney, there isn’t anyone left in the Republican field that is more of a “fake conservative” than Gingrich is. Gingrich is a big time “RINO” that represents just about everything that the Tea Party is supposed to be against.

It just seems inconceivable that a big chunk of Republicans would actually be thinking of voting for Gingrich at this point. Yes, four more years of Obama would be a complete and total disaster for America, but so would a Gingrich administration.

The following are 27 reasons why Newt

Gingrich would be a really, really bad president…. #1 In 2008, Newt Gingrich did a television commercial with Nancy Pelosi in which he stated that they both agree that “our country must take action to address climate change”. He now calls making this commercial “a mistake”, but this is yet another example of the lack of sound judgment that Gingrich has shown throughout his entire political career….

Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich Agree on Climate Change http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-NIbZXNRns #2 Newt Gingrich also worked with Nancy Pelosi to promote the idea of 1. a national sales tax on energy. #3 In a 2007 interview with PBS, Gingrich endorsed the idea of a “cap and trade” scheme to limit carbon emissions….

“I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.” #4 During this campaign, Newt Gingrich has loudly denounced Obamacare, but in 2008 he wrote a book entitled “Real Change” in which he endorsed an individual mandate for health insurance. #5 In fact, earlier this year Newt Gingrich stated during an interview on NBC’sMeet the Press that he still believes in an individual mandate. The following is from an exchange between host David Gregory and Gingrich during the show….

MR. GREGORY: All right, let me ask you about another hot-button issue in the Republican primary, of course, and that’s health care. Mitt Romney having to defend his proponent–that he was a proponent of universal health care in Massachusetts, and specifically around this idea of the individual mandate where you make Americans buy insurance if they don’t have it. Now, I know you’ve got big differences with what you call Obamacare. But back in 1993 on this program this is what you said about the individual mandate. Watch.

(Videotape, October 3, 1993)

REP. GINGRICH: I am for people, individuals–exactly like automobile insurance–individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance. And I am prepared to vote for a voucher system which will give individuals, on a sliding scale, a government subsidy so we insure that everyone as individuals have health insurance.

(End videotape) MR. GREGORY: What you advocate there is precisely what President Obama did with his healthcare legislation, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH: No, it’s not precisely what he did. In, in the first place, Obama basically is trying to replace the entire insurance system, creating state exchanges, building a Washington-based model, creating a federal system. I believe all of us–and this is going to be a big debate–I believe all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. I think the idea that…

MR. GREGORY: You agree with Mitt Romney on this point.

REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay–help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I’ve said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond…

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. GINGRICH: …or in some way you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.

MR. GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH: It’s a variation on it. #6 Newt Gingrich has made some very curious statements about Obamacare. For example, he recently made the following statement about the Obamacare law….

“Now there are about 300 pages that are pretty good” #7 The truth is that Newt Gingrich is very, very soft on health care. Just consider the following excerpt about Newt from a recent Washington Post article….

In 2005, he sat down with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton to make common cause over health care. He said he and Clinton “have the same instinct” on health care and praised the notion of a health-care “transfer of finances” from rich to poor. “I risk sounding not quite as right wing as I should,” Gingrich said at the time. “I’ve spent enough of my life fighting,” he added. #8 Newt Gingrich voted for higher taxes on numerous occasions. While he was Speaker of the House, the amount of taxes collected by the federal government from the American people increased from $1.001 trillion to $1.511 trillion. Would the amount of taxes extracted from us

increase by another 50 percent during a Gingrich presidency? #9 In 2008, Newt Gingrich stated that he would have voted for the TARP bailout if he was still a member of Congress. #10 In 2003, Newt Gingrich boldly promoted George W. Bush’s prescription drug bill. Because of that bill, the federal government is now facing an additional 17 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. #11 Newt Gingrich is a big time Washington insider that is often paid huge sums of money for doing next to nothing. Gingrich has said that he was paid $300,000 for “work” that he did for Freddie Mac, but according to Bloomberg he actually earnedsomewhere between $1.6 million and $1.8 million between 1999 and 2008.

So what did he do for Freddie Mac? Gingrich claims that he warned Freddie Mac about the housing bubble, but the report by Bloomberg disputes this….

None of the former Freddie Mac officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Gingrich raised the issue of the housing bubble or was critical of Freddie Mac’s business model.

It turns out that much of the “work” that Gingrich was expected to do never actually got done….

Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with his work in 2006 say Gingrich was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.

He was expected to provide written material that could be circulated among free-market conservatives in Congress and in outside organizations, said two former company executives familiar with Gingrich’s role at the firm. He didn’t produce a white paper or any other document the firm could use on its behalf, they said. #12 Newt Gingrich has also had a very “cozy” relationship with the ethanol industry. The following is from a recent NewAmerican article….

The cozy relationship Gingrich has with the ethanol industry led to his consulting business winning more than $300,000 in fees from the ethanol lobby after he left Congress. The Wall Street Journal noted April 27, 2011 that “Professor Gingrich says his ethanol support is grounded in his lifetime of studying history and intellectual problems, but what about that $312,500 from the ethanol lobby?… We’ve never suggested Mr. Gingrich has been bought off, though of course there wouldn’t be an ethanol lobby to hire Mr. Gingrich if there weren’t politicians like Mr. Gingrich willing to prop it up with taxpayer dollars, tariffs and mandates.” #13 Newt Gingrich is a firm believer in the job-killing “free trade” agenda of the globalists.

Newt Gingrich voted for NAFTA and he is a staunch supporter of the WTO. He once made the following statement on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives….

“What we’re being told is that free trade with Mexico would devastate the U.S. economy.

With its low wages, Mexico would unleash a flood of cheap imports into our markets.

There would be a mass exodus of U.S. factory jobs, as hordes of American companies fled across the border…. All this is scare talk.” #14 Newt Gingrich is pro-amnesty for illegal aliens. He has made statements on numerous occasions where he has advocated a “pathway to citizenship” for the millions of illegal immigrants that have been living in this country for an extended period of time. #15 In 1995, Newt Gingrich actually promoted the idea that the War Powers Actshould be repealed. #16 Newt Gingrich seems very confused when it comes to abortion. Just consider the following statements….

A- “I believe most Americans are pro-choice and anti-abortion.”

B- “I think that abortion should not be legal, and I think that how you would implement that I’m not sure.”

C- “As with any public policy, the more strongly public opinion is swayed in defense of unborn life, the more our laws should and will change as a result.” #17 The following is how author Dick Williams described Newt’s attitude toward pro-life issues when he became Speaker of the House in 1995….

Gingrich is opposed to abortion but does not believe the nation is ready to enact a constitutional ban. In the first three months of 1995, while the Contract With America was being debated, he angered some Republican congressmen by detouring them from anti-abortion amendments to bills and by putting aside their arguments that a welfare reform package might lead to an increase in abortions. #18 Newt Gingrich supported the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that put a significant number of new restrictions on gun owners. #19 Several of the Republican candidates are suggesting that the Department of Education should be shut down, but back in 1979 Newt Gingrich voted for the creation of the Department of Education under President Jimmy Carter. #20 News Gingrich has said that he believes that we should have Singapore-style drug tests for Americans. #21 How can we trust Newt Gingrich to manage America’s finances when he has done such a horrible job managing his own finances. According to Politico, Gingrich once owed a debt to Tiffany Jewelry that was somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000. Politico tried to find out if this debt was still active but Gingrich was not willing to talk about it….

When asked by POLITICO whether Gingrich has settled this debt, and why he owed

between a quarter-million and a half-million dollars to a jeweler, Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s spokesman, declined to comment.

“No comment,” he said in an email. #22 How can we trust Newt Gingrich to run America when he can’t even run his own campaign?

A few months ago, the senior staff of his campaign resigned en masse. It is literally a miracle that the Gingrich campaign has lasted as long as it has. #23 For someone that preaches against debt, he sure seems to be able to rack it up. Back in July, it was reported that the Gingrich campaign was a million dollars in debt. #24 Newt Gingrich was once fined $300,000 by the House Ethics Committee. An article in Esquire detailed why he received such a large fine….

His bitterness only deepened when the House Ethics Committee started investigating GOPAC’s donations to his college class and caught him trying to hide his tracks by raising money through a charity for inner-city kids called the Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Foundation. Another charity of his called Earning by Learning actually spent half its money supporting a former Gingrich staffer who was writing his biography.

Gingrich even gave out the 800 number for videotapes on the House floor. The Ethics Committee found him guilty of laundering donations through charities, submitting “inaccurate, incomplete, and unreliable” testimony, and making “an effort to have the material appear to be nonpartisan on its face, yet serve as a partisan, political message for the purpose of building the Republican party.” Seven years after he had destroyed Jim Wright for a lesser offense, the committee punished Gingrich with the highest fine ever imposed on a Speaker of the House, $300,000. #25 Newt Gingrich has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1990. This alone should immediately disqualify him from consideration for the Republican nomination.

Former Congressman John R. Rarick once said the following about the Council on Foreign Relations….

The CFR, dedicated to one-world government, financed by a number of the largest taxexempt foundations, and wielding such power and influence over our lives in the areas of finance, business, labor, military, education and mass communication media, should be familiar to every American concerned with good government and with preserving and defending the U.S. Constitution and our free-enterprise system. Yet, the nation’s right to know machinery – the news media – usually so aggressive in exposures to inform our people, remain conspicuously silent when it comes to the CFR, its members and their activities.

The CFR is the establishment. Not only does it have influence and power in key decisionmaking positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also finances and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high-level decisions for converting the United States from a sovereign constitutional republic into a servile member of a one-world dictatorship.

#26 Newt Gingrich has been spotted attending meetings at the Bohemian Grove. I wonder what all of those evangelical voters that Newt is courting would think if they learned of the pagan rituals and mock child sacrifices that take place there every year? #27 Many Republican voters are deeply troubled by the fact that Newt Gingrich has actually cheated on two different wives and is now married to a third wife. The following is how a recent CBS News article described his marital history….

When he was speaker of the House, Gingrich had an affair with Callista Bisek, then a young committee staff aide, while married to his second wife, Marianne Gingrich. He divorced Marianne in 1999. Eighteen years earlier, he proposed to Marianne while he was still married to his first wife, Jackie Battley, who has said that Gingrich told her he wanted a divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery.

When his second wife asked him how he could give speeches on family values while he was cheating on her, Gingrich is reported to have said the following….

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say.”

Newt Gingrich doesn’t just have skeletons in his closet – he has a whole family of skeletons in his closet.

Hopefully the American people will realize that Newt Gingrich would be an absolute disaster as president.

This country is rapidly running out of time, and the 2012 election represents one of the last chances that we have to turn this nation around.

If America elects Newt Gingrich, we will stay on the same road that Clinton, Bush and Obama have been marching us down.

We simply cannot afford that.

Please choose wisely in 2012 America.

Gingrich Said to Be Paid By Freddie Mac to Court Republicans

By Clea Benson and Kristin Jensen (Updates with comment from Gingrich spokesman and Gingrich debate remarks critical of Freddie Mac associates, starting in fourth paragraph. For more campaign news, go to ELECT.) Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said during a Nov. 9 debate that he earned a $300,000 fee to advise Freddie Mac as a “historian” who warned that the mortgage company’s business model was “insane.”

Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with the consulting work Gingrich was hired to perform for the company in 2006 tell a different story. They say the former House speaker was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.

If Gingrich concluded that the company’s business model was at risk and that the housing market was a “bubble,” as he said during the debate, he didn’t share those concerns with Richard Syron, Freddie Mac’s chief executive officer at the time, a person familiar with the company’s internal discussions said.

R.C. Hammond, a Gingrich campaign spokesman, said the former officials were providing “incomplete information” about the work his boss performed for the company. Hammond said he couldn’t provide a copy of Gingrich’s contract or describe details about the hours Gingrich worked or services he performed because of a confidentiality clause.

No Details “I can’t give you any of the details,” Hammond said in a telephone interview. “It’s written into his contract with them.”

Gingrich’s role as a consultant for Freddie Mac was raised in the debate as Republicans, including House Financial Services Committee Vice Chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican, are criticizing the $181 billion in taxpayer funds the company and its sister firm, Fannie Mae, have received since they were seized by the U.S. government in September 2008.

Gingrich has been sharply critical of housing industry loan practices and Democrats who he said “created the environment” for the meltdown. In an Oct. 11 Republican presidential debate, Gingrich said, “You ought to start with Barney Frank,” the Massachusetts congressman who serves as the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, when talking about people to put in jail.

‘Look at the Lobbyists’ “Go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at Freddie Mac,” Gingrich said in the debate, sponsored by Bloomberg News and the Washington Post.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide liquidity to the housing market by purchasing mortgages and packaging them into securities, with guaranteed returns.

In 2006, before subprime mortgage losses pushed the two firms toward insolvency, the companies were facing calls for stricter regulation and smaller portfolios as the Treasury Department warned about potential financial market instability if they failed to hedge their assets against interest rate shifts and other risks. The companies, which were private but had implicit government backing, also were reeling from a series of accounting scandals.

Although Freddie Mac had developed strong supporters in the Democratic caucus, the firm started a new campaign to win over allies in Republican circles. Hollis McLoughlin, a former Treasury Department chief of staff in President George H.W. Bush’s administration, was brought in to head the effort.

Republican New Hires McLoughlin hired Gingrich and several other Republicans, including former Representative Vin Weber and political message expert Frank Luntz, to assist the cause.

A statement posted on the campaign website after the debate said Gingrich was hired to provide “strategic advice.”

The former lawmaker told the company it could win over conservatives by stressing “the historical success of public-private partnerships in achieving public goods at a minimum of taxpayer

money and bureaucracy.”

Gingrich already had ties to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In 1995, the then-House speaker and U.S. representative from Georgia, traveled to Atlanta to help open a Fannie Mae office promoting home ownership for low- and moderateincome families.

In a press release issued at the time, Gingrich said, “Fannie Mae is an excellent example of a former government institution fulfilling its mandate while functioning in the market economy.”

In 1999, the company hired Gingrich to provide advice on issues including lender dissatisfaction, according to news reports at the time.

Identifying Supporters Amid the growing number of Republican experts on Freddie Mac’s payroll in 2006, Gingrich was expected to identify potentially supportive party members on Capitol Hill. He wasn’t on retainer to lobby lawmakers.

Freddie Mac officials expected Gingrich to provide written material that could be circulated among conservatives on Capitol Hill and in outside organizations, said two former company executives familiar with Gingrich’s role at the firm.

And executives looked to him to help them find innovative ways to address the problems confronting Freddie Mac, said an official familiar with the company’s internal dynamics.

The former speaker attended brainstorming sessions with Freddie Mac’s management. He didn’t produce a white paper or any other document the firm could use on its behalf.

On April 3, 2007, Gingrich traveled to Freddie Mac’s McLean, Virginia, headquarters to speak before 40 or 50 people who had donated to the company’s political action committee, a fund used to make donations to federal candidates.

No Bubble Talk Gingrich spoke about the state of the presidential campaign, the major issues, and who might win the party nominations, said a person who

attended the event. Afterward, he attended a private lunch with about a dozen top executives of the firm.

None of the former Freddie Mac officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Gingrich raised the issue of the housing bubble or was critical of Freddie Mac’s business model.

During the Nov. 9 debate sponsored by CNBC, Gingrich was asked what he did to earn the $300,000 consultant’s fee with Freddie Mac. “I offered them advice on precisely what they didn’t do,” he said. “My advice as a historian, when they walked in and said to me, ‘We are now making loans to people who have no credit history and have no record of paying back anything, but that’s what the government wants us to do.’ As I said to them at the time, this is a bubble. This is insane. This is impossible.” With assistance from Lisa Lerer and Lorraine Woellert in Washington. Editors: Jeanne Cummings, Mark McQuillan.

The Real Newt Gingrich Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02HX5v5Thpk The Real Newt Gingrich Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmCU9Nbksw The Real Newt Gingrich Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exs41FdfqpY The Real Newt Gingrich Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk_0Ot9z3xg