Newt Gingrich Is SUPER Dumb When It Comes To Palestine

Newt Gingrich is basically an unspeakable horror of a person who should just go home and think about what he's done.

The presidential hopeful remarked today, in a statement which has sparked outrage among Palestinian leaders, that the Palestinian people were "invented," citing their former inclusion in the Ottoman Empire as proof that the region has never been a country and didn't really need to be: 

"Remember, there was no Palestine as a state – (it was) part of the Ottoman Empire. I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places," Gingrich said, according to a video excerpt posted online. 

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, demanded Gingrich "review history." 

"From the beginning, our people have been determined to stay on their land," Fayyad said in comments carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. "This, certainly, is denying historical truths."

You go, Salam! Because Newt Gingrich does need to review history. While the boundaries of the region known has Palestine have shifted over the centuries, the region was defined as "Palestine" in 1920 by the British Mandate for Palestine and has since declared independence officially from Israel in 1988. Two-thirds of the world's nations recognize the Palestinian people's right to govern themselves. You know how I bothered to learn this? By looking on the fucking Wikipedia page. It's that easy.

Maybe Newt should recall a certain other invented people: Americans. Before 1776, we didn't exist either. We became independent because we chose the path of self-determination. So have the Palestinians.

Also, Newt Gingrich can suck it.

Who's REALLY Being Divisive, Newt?

Newt Gingrich attempted to "evict an idea whose time has come" recently by calling on President Barack Obama to denounce the "concept of the 99 and 1".

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.

Watch (courtesy Think Progress):



Of course, Newt's repudiation has NOTHING to do with the fact that he is quite clearly a member of the 1%.  Recall that cool half million dollar tab he had running with Tiffany's?

Without addressing, of course, the fallacy in the statement that Occupy Wall Street is engaging in class warfare (you can't, after all, start a war that has already been declared on YOU), I think it's important that we stop and really recall how ludicrous his assertion is that this is pitting Americans against each other.

Divisive?  Maybe Newt should recall a few details from his own checkered past!  Including, for instance, his unpublicized financing of anti-gay groups determined to pit straight Americans against gay ones:

ThinkProgress previously reported on $200,000 that Gingrich funneled from an anonymous donor to the anti-marriage equality group Iowa for Freedom, which was also being funded by AFA Action, the political arm of the virulently anti-gay American Family Association. The Associated Press revealed yesterday that one of the cogs in Gingrich’s vast network of business enterprises and front groups, ReAL Action, provided $125,000 to AFA Action. The Des Moines Register reported this morning that ReAL Action also contributed $25,000 to yet another Iowa anti-LGBT group, the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.

The American Family Association is, of course, an officially Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate group.

In fact, his anti-gay policies were denounced as divisive by activist Nick Espinosa, who glitterbombed Gingrich at a Minnesota anti-gay group's event last spring:

"Feel the rainbow, Newt. Stop the hate. Stop anti-gay politics. It's dividing our country and it's not fixing our economy," the protester said, as he yanked out a box and dumped the sparkles on Gingrich, who sat next to wife, Callista.

So what part of the OWS movement do you think really troubles him more: our "dividing" of this country?  Or the fact that we want to get rid of tax cuts that benefit him (and his Tiffany's tab)?

Newt: Arrest Barney Frank! Frank: Oh No You Didn't!

In the face of the popular uprising known as #OccupyWallStreet, various legislators and political leaders are attempting to either cast their lot with the demonstrators or demonize the movement, with Nancy Pelosi and Eric Cantor notably coming to verbal blows over what the Occupation means for the political landscape in America.  Republican candidates for president are no exception, with Newt Gingrich making plain his viewpoint on the matter.

In last night's Republican debate, Newt wasted no time in trashing leftist activists as vandals and then went further, suggesting that Wall Street isn't the problem, but legislators guilty of financial malfeasance.  He lays the blame squarely on Fed Chairman Bernanke, former Senator Chris Dodd, and Congressman Barney Frank.  Then he went on to suggest that they should be jailed for their actions.  Watch:



 Now, you wouldn't expect Barney Frank, a firebrand by any definition of the word, to take this lying down, and he didn't.  He responds today:

Frank said Gingrich’s anger over his and Dodd’s role in the financial meltdown was absurd given that Republicans were in charge of the House and — excerpt for a brief period — Senate, from 1995 to 2007.He noted that he worked on reform legislation on mortgage in his first year as chair in 2007. 

 Barney ain't havin' it.

“It’s interesting, the charge is failure to stop Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay from deregulating,” he said. “This notion we caused the problem that started while they were in charge even by Gingrich’s standards is very odd.” 

Added Frank: “I wish I knew that he was willing to listen to my advice, I would have given him some: I would have told him not to impeach Clinton, I would have told his successors not to go to war with Iraq, and I would have told DeLay not to go on the dance show.”

Frank went on to speculate as to why Gingrich would make such a ridiculous suggestion:

“He’s been having a bad year, you know — this self-styled intellectual leader of the free world struggling to stay ahead of Michele Bachmann in the polls is unsettling him so he talks even sillier than he sometimes does,” he said.

Republican leadership slowly appears to be realizing that their asses are in hot water, and they're quick to make baseless and outrageous allegations regarding blame in the economic collapse of recent years to punt their culpability.  America isn't particularly fooled; the majority of Americans now support tax hikes for the richest 1%, to include 53% of Republican voters.

Gingrich and his cronies have been protecting Wall Street interests for decades, is it any surprise that he desperately wants you to be angry at someone else?

Newt's Tweeters Is Followed By A Bunch Of Fakes

Newt Gingrich has led, thus far, a troubled Presidential campaign highlighted by glitter-bombing and mass staffer resignations, but he wants you to know he's still a winner!  The proof?  He's got more Twitter followers than any of the other candidates!

"And it says, 'now it's true that Gingrich has 1.3 million followers and (Michele) Bachmann only has 59,000, but she's getting more new people every week.' It turned out I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined, but it didn't count because if it counted I'd still be a candidate; since I can't be a candidate that can't count. So we've been a little bit like a sailing ship in the middle of a hurricane in which we are sailing straight into the teeth of the media, and that slowed us down."
Er.  Except he really doesn't-- because most of his followers are fake accounts created by his campaign.


"Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them. As you might guess, Newt is most decidedly one of the people to which these agencies cater.

"About 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by various 'follow agencies,' another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich. If you simply scroll through his list of followers you'll see that most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated. Pathetic, isn't it?"

Pathetic indeed.  Sure, I'm always scrounging to get more Twitter followers to hawk my schlock, but I would never pay for them.  That may just be because Newt has the budget for that and I don't... maybe I should form a PAC...

Newt Gingrich Thinks The Supreme Court Should Just Go Away

Newt Gingrich stopped off in Iowa this week and got RULL CRAZEEE by providing baseless reasons for a even crazier sentiment: stripping the Supreme Court of its power.

Right.

He states the Constitution of the United States does not give the Supreme Court final say in matters constitutional, and that Congress should have the ability to control what cases the highest court in the land are able to hear:

"In the American system, if you read the Constitution correctly — this is why I wrote 'A Nation Like No Other' — if you read the Federalist Papers correctly, the fact is the Congress can pass a law and can limit the Court’s jurisdiction. It’s written directly in the Constitution. The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton promises, I think it’s Number 78, that the judiciary branch is the weakest of the three branches.

"There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution. There’s the court which is the Supreme of the judicial branch, but it’s not supreme over the legislative and executive branch. We now have this entire national elite that wants us to believe that any five lawyers are a Constitutional convention. That is profoundly un-American and profoundly wrong."

Yes, Newt.  Article III of the Constitution does indeed state that there is a Supreme Court of the United States.  Furthermore?  While Congress has the power to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, you can't simply block it from hearing cases you fear won't go your way.  Any fifth grader can tell you that the system of checks and balances is there for a freaking reason, and your sad excuse of an attack on that hallowed document is really not going to get you the Republican nomination.

Asshat.

Newt Loves Marriage SOOOOO Much!

The advent of marriage equality has brought a round of doom-saying and condemnation from the usual crowd of jokers, but none tickles me so much as thrice-married serial adulterer Newt Gingrich rising up to protect traditional marriage from homosexual interlopers.

Gingrich seems to want clear divisions on marriage, stating that it rightfully belongs to "one man and one woman" and the rise of same-sex marriage in New York showed the nation "drifting toward a terrible muddle."

"He said he thinks the nation should be defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

"In February, the Obama administration decided it would no longer defend the 15-year-old law.

"'I think the president should be, frankly, enforcing that act, 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,' he said."

It almost seems like all the people who defend marriage from us turrible gayz are the ones who want to abuse marriage the most by trickin' it up and getting divorces.  Hmmm.  Would you say that conservatives hate fidelity?

Newt Relaunches Campaign

Newt Gingrich relaunched his troubled campaign on Sunday, telling a group of Jewish Republicans in California that he knows "full well the rigors of campaigning for public office," restarting a bid for the presidency marked with a guerilla-style glitter bomb and a mass exodus of campaign staffers now referred to as the "Newtiny."

He promised a reversal of changes wrought by President Obama, criticizing the President's recent stance towards Israel advocating for a return to pre-1967 borders.

"I will endure the challenges. I will carry the message of American renewal to every part of this great land, no matter what it takes," he said. "And with the help of every American who wants to change Washington, we will prevail."

Gingrich will have an opportunity to spread his message today during a nationally televised debate of seven Repub hopefuls.

[TheRawStory]

Gingrich Campaign Suffers Mass Resignations

Seems things aren't going quite to plan in Newt's house as many of the top staffers of his campaign resigned in a meeting on Thursday, citing disagreements on the direction his campaign is taking.

The mass exodus is a staggering blow to Gingrich's resources, as the outgoing staffers include Rick Tyler, his longtime spokesman, Rob Johnson, his campaign manager, and a host of other key personnel vital to the campaign effort. 

Tyler and company disagreed with Newt's decision to forgo traditional grassroots organizing in favor of campaigning via social networking and televised debates, top sources say.

"Tyler as well as Rob Johnson, Gingrich’s campaign manager, Dave Carney and Katon Dawson, senior strategists to the effort, media consultant Sam Dawson, Iowa strategist Craig Schoenfeld, South Carolina operative Walter Whetsell and Georgia-based adviser Scott Rials have all stepped aside. Much of Gingrich’s early state operation was also headed for the exits, according to a one senior campaign source.

"In the immediate aftermath of the departures, which several sources said came at a meeting Thursday in Gingrich’s Washington office, Gingrich released a statement via Facebook pledging to continue in the race.

"'I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring,' Gingrich wrote. 'The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles.'"

Oh, goody.

[WashingtonPost]

The New "Maverick": Newt Is "Not A Washington Figure"

Really, Newt?

Despite his run as Speaker of the House, his writings on Washington politics, his network of political organizations founded by him-- no!  Newt Gingrich is just an everyday guy.

"'I'm not a Washington figure, despite the years I've been here,' the former House speaker told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Monday. 'I’m essentially an American whose ties are across the country and whose interest is in how you change Washington and not how you make Washington happy.'"

Uh-huh.

What evidence does he have to support this?  Essentially, the media hates him, and since the media clearly is run by the Washington elite?  Ta-da!

"In his 36^th Monitor breakfast appearance, the former Speaker dismissed critics who have called his campaign dead-on-arrival, commented drily about the press’s predilection for 'gotcha questions,' and highlighted his policy victories while serving in Congress."

Also in Newt-News:  Upon reports that Newt Gingrich has racked up close to a cool half mil in debt at Tiffany's, the candidate stated that it was none of our goddamn business what he spends his money on, thankyouverymuch.  Never mind, of course, that he is running his campaign on the tenet of fiscal responsibility.

"The revolving charge account was discovered this week from financial disclosure forms for 2005 and 2006 while Gingrich's wife, Callista was an employee for the House Agriculture Committee on Capitol Hill. The former Georgia Congressman said it was an interest free account, paid off automatically.

"'We paid no interest on it; there was no problem with it. It's a normal way of doing business,' Gingrich said. 'Everything else is totally paid for, my home is paid for, my cars are paid for, we don't have a second house, we don't do elaborate things.'"

So, essentially, Newt is an every day guy!  You know.  That covers his third wife in diamonds on credit.  Because sure, Iowa voters get to do that all the fucking time.  I know I certainly never leave the house in ANYTHING less than $10,000 worth of Tiffany jewelry.

I Hate To Post About Newt Twice In One Day... But...

Newt continued trying to do damage control on the whole Paul Ryan budget kerfuffle with a unique tactic:  If you quote anything he said on Sunday, you are lying.

What?


"After he said this, Republicans and conservative pundits got very mad at him, because they are all working super-hard at making killing Medicare seem necessary and even popular. So Newt had to completely contradict himself, which isn't that unusual for him, and declare that he wants to marry Paul Ryan.

"Now that Gingrich totally 100% supports Paul Ryan, it is dishonest and unfair to point out that three days ago he did not support Paul Ryan. 'Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood,' Gingrich said, amazingly."

It's clear we must vote for him to be President, if only because HE HAS MAGIC TIME CHANGING POWERS, making anything he said and then regretted AUTOMATICALLY NOT EVER EXIST.

[Salon]

Newt Gingrich Attacked With Glitter Bomb

Newt and his wife Callista were at a book signing before the annual Minnesota Family Council dinner when a young man named Nick Espinosa reached into a box he was carrying, shouted "Feel the rainbow, Newt!" and tossed glitter all over the aspiring presidential candidate.

"The glitter culprit is Nick Espinosa, a 24 year old unemployed non profit worker turned social activist from Minneapolis, Minn.  Espinosa worked with a non-profit helping unemployed people for two years before being laid off due to budget cuts.  His encounter with Newt on Tuesday was in protest to Gingrich’s stance on gay marriage.

"'Today, I invited Newt to feel the rainbow because he decided to bring his anti-gay politics to my state,' Espinosa told ABC News Tuesday night.  'Newt has a long history of anti-gay politics and has chosen to focus on divisive social issues instead of working to fix our economy.  I don’t think a free will adulterer like Newt has any ground to stand up while telling others who they can and can’t love.'"

Poor Newt!  Glitter is truly the herpes of the craft world.  Watch below:



[ABCNews]

Next Up: Newt

Huck and Donnie T have fallen out, but the GOP melee to the nomination is far from over.  With the backing out of two candidates that you just love to hate, looks like the next one in the spotlight is everyone's favorite adulterer-turned-defender of traditional marriage:  Newt Gingrich!

This past Sunday Newt was caught on camera on Meet the Press calling the Ryan budget "radical" and "right-wing social engineering."  Naturally, he's now backtracking like it's an Olympic sport.

"We're in a phase here where, if you are a conservative, you better expect gotcha press and they took dramatically out of context what I said and tried to make it dramatically a fight between me and Paul Ryan."

Because, naturally, it's all the fault of the liberal media elite.

Even GOP voters aren't fooled, however.  Check out this video of an Iowa GOP voter gettin' cranky and telling Newt to back out before he makes an even bigger ass of himself.