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View Full Version : Read with Skepticism: Claims about Newt Gingrich




nayjevin
04-14-2009, 01:25 AM
Unfortunately, this site does not list adequate source material for these claims. Can any of them be verified BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT and be effective to expose him for what he is?

I encourage mostly positive action, but in my opinion Newt's value is inflated, and it seems he is positioning himself to use Ron Paul talking points for a run for prez in 2012 - just look at the 'FairTax' cheerleading in the news.

Can we 'kick him in the shins' abit with 1 or 2 100% verifiable facts?

What are the most effective facts to tell people who are wearing Newt colored glasses?

http://www.realchange.org/gingrich.htm

Here are claims from the link that I think are most effective:


Family Values? Pressing Wife for Divorce in the Hospital:

"He walked out in the spring of 1980.... By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, "Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?" When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery." - Jackie, his first wife.

Dead-Beat Dad:

The hospital visit wasn't the end of it, either. Jackie had to take Newt to court to get him to contribute for bills, as utilities were about to be cut off.

Draft Dodger:

Though he relentlessly pushes military spending and talks like a bigtime hawk, Gingrich avoided the Vietnam War through a combination of student and family deferments. (He married one of his teachers at age 19.)

House Banking Scandal: Newt Bounced 22 Checks

Remember the House Banking scandal, where so many congressmen wrote rubber checks on government money? Newt hopes you don't, because he bounced 22 himself, which almost cost him reelection in 1992. His vote for the secret House pay raise, and the chauffeur who drove him around Washington in a Lincoln Town Car, didn't help.

The 1995 Murdoch Deal

You probably heard something about Newt's book scandal. He was offered first $2.5 million, then $4.5 million by Harper Collins, a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Fox TV network and newspapers and TV stations around the world. Murdoch has been having problems with a complaint by NBC that Fox is a foreign owned TV network, which is against US law. In the past, Harper Collins has offered million dollar book contracts to several conservative politicians in countries where Murdoch was having regulatory trouble, including England (Margaret Thatcher, Jeffrey Archer) and China (Deng Xiaoping's daughter). A week after the initial offer, Newt met with Rupert Murdoch - and Murdoch's legislative lobbyist - to discuss politics, including the NBC complaint. As facts about the deal were made public, and even Republicans criticized him, Gingrich decided to give up the $4.5 million advance for a still-lucrative deal based on royalties.

Gingrich's story kept changing through the controversy. First, Newt's spokesman said that Murdoch knew nothing about Gingrich and the book deal. On Friday January 13, Newt's spokesman admitted that Murdoch actually met Newt on a park bench the week before the deal was made, but didn't talk about it. He also said he knew nothing about Murdoch's lobbyist being at their meeting. The next day, he admitted the lobbyist was there, but claimed he didn't say so because no one asked.

Newt also said repeatedly that the book wasn't his idea; that a literary agent named Lynn Chu had sought him out and proposed it. After Ms. Chu said that Gingrich's associate Jeff Eisenach called her first on Newt's behalf, Eisenach and Newt's spokesman admitted that was true.


The 1984 Book Deal Murdoch's book deal wasn't the first lucrative and controversial book deal Newt engineered. In 1983 he established a limited partnership in Atlanta called COS Limited, which pulled together about two dozen of his biggest campaign contributors to finance his book.

The former administrator of his congressional offices in Georgia, Dolores Adamson, resigned over the deal. "The manuscript was put together in the district office using office equipment," she said. "He would just come in and say 'This is what I want to do.' I would say, 'This is not ethical," but after a while he didn't listen." That office equipment, of course, was paid for by US taxpayers including you.


Corporate reward: $2,500/month to Newt's wife

According to the Wall Street Journal, a company hired Marianne Gingrich (Newt's wife) for $2,500 a month plus commissions in September 1994 after he announced support for a free trade zone in Israel that they are trying to build. Her "job" for Israel Export Development Co. is to find tenants for the trade zone. Gingrich's spokesman said that since her job did not involve working with the US government, there was no conflict of interest.

Who Owns Him?

- Rupert Murdoch (see book deal above (http://www.realchange.org/gingrich.htm#book))
- Georgia's Richards family, owners of Southwire Corporate ($1.3 billion/year)
The Richards lent and donated money and office space to Gingrich from his earliest days in politics. They have given over $100,000, and Gingrich was the first recipient of donations from Southwire's PAC. By coincidence, Gingrich has changed from an environmentalist critic of Southwire to a staunch anti-environmentalist during that time. People with ties to Southwire were instrumental in two earlier lucrative book deals of Gingrich's in 1977 and 1984; the latter was investigated for ethical violations. Can these facts be verified with credible, even undeniable sources?

nayjevin
04-14-2009, 04:29 AM
Gingrich: Free Speech Should Be Curtailed To Fight Terrorism
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | November 29, 2006

http://www.nysun.com/national/gingrich-free-speech-should-be-curtailed-to-fight/44302/


Speaking at an award dinner billed as a tribute to crusaders for the First Amendment, Mr. Gingrich, who is considering a run for the White House in 2008, painted an ominous picture of the dangers facing America.

"This is a serious, long-term war," the former speaker said, according an audio excerpt of his remarks made available yesterday by his office. "Either before we lose a city or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people."

John of Des Moines
04-14-2009, 05:10 AM
Newt = CFR member. Enough said.

nayjevin
04-14-2009, 05:47 AM
Newt = CFR member. Enough said.

Problem is that's not enough for supporters of Newt. Need something easily documentable, short and sweet, that will convince even those who don't believe in any CFR conspiracy, however valid that may be.

Your average Newthead will put on the blinders if that's all you tell them.

I'm looking for hard evidence that any of these statements are true. Thanks.

IPSecure
04-14-2009, 06:48 AM
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=188356

NMCB3
04-14-2009, 07:27 AM
Newt is crap.

nayjevin
04-14-2009, 08:43 PM
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=188356

good stuff, thanks!

nayjevin
04-15-2009, 08:29 AM
bump

krazy kaju
04-15-2009, 08:32 AM
Why would we be attacking Newt when we could be uniting with others against taxes and using positive rhetoric to convince them that we need to end wasteful government programs, get out of policing the war, and vote for Ron Paul?

nayjevin
04-15-2009, 07:09 PM
Why would we be attacking Newt when we could be uniting with others against taxes and using positive rhetoric to convince them that we need to end wasteful government programs, get out of policing the war, and vote for Ron Paul?

because of those reasons covered in the OP. If you knew me at all, you would know that in most cases I agree with you. The truth about Newt, however, must be exposed.