Newt Gingrich: Establishment Conservative

[howardroark]

Key excerpt:

The Republican Answer?
After more than a decade out of the spotlight, Newt Gingrich is once again making headlines as a conservative author and basking in media speculation of his possibility as a presidential candidate. He is busy promoting his conservatively themed books and documentaries while touting firm belief in limited government and personal freedoms. Gingrich’s rhetoric brings back memories of his old days as a staunch proponent of cutting taxes, balancing the budget, reducing bureaucratic regulations, and strengthening national defense.

Just as in those days, Newt Gingrich now positions himself as a conservative. But does his definition of conservative mean loyalty to the Constitution, or loyalty to the establishment? “Understanding the real Newt Gingrich … is essential,” said John F. McManus, president of the John Birch Society and producer of the new DVD The Real Newt Gingrich. “Americans must realize that they are being persuaded to follow false leaders, to put confidence in men who don’t deserve our confidence.” Both Gingrich’s congressional track record and his present activities prove him no better than the current White House occupant.

Gingrich Resumé
Newt Gingrich served in Congress from 1979 until 1999. His first Freedom Index score (when it was known as the “Conservative Index”) was 84, but it nose-dived from there. He achieved his lowest scores as Speaker of the House. Gingrich consistently lost points for his propensity to support unconstitutional legislation.

1. Education — Gingrich backed federal education funding from his earliest days in office, though the Constitution gives absolutely no authority over education to any branch of the federal government. He helped garner support to create President Jimmy Carter’s Department of Education in 1979. Since then educational spending has soared while educational standards have plummeted. Things got worse when he was Speaker. In 1996, then-Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour bragged that “education spending went up under the Republican Congress as much as it went up under the Democratic Congress.” That is a bit of an understatement since Gingrich’s Republican Congress increased education funding by $3.5 billion in 1996, the largest single increase in history.

2. Foreign Aid — Gingrich voted numerous times throughout his 20 years in Congress to increase and expand unconstitutional foreign aid and trade. He supported both subsidized trade with the Soviets and federally funded loans to foreign governments through the Export-Import Bank. Between 1994 and 1995, Gingrich voted for $44.8 billion in foreign aid. He also helped push through federally funded loan guarantees to China. Today, that murderous communist regime is the largest holder of U.S. debt in the world.

3. NAFTA and GATT — In 1993, Gingrich proved himself invaluable to Clinton and the Democrats in Congress when he garnered enough Republican support to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the precursor for development of an eventual North American Union, following the same trajectory that has occurred in Europe with the emergence of the EU. (See the October 15, 2007 “North American Union” issue of The New American, especially “NAFTA: It’s Not Just About Trade” by Gary Benoit.) The next year he followed suit by supporting the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). As Minority Whip, he could have postponed the lame-duck vote on GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) that subjected Americans to the WTO. Gingrich’s Benedict Arnold act helped to hand over the power to regulate foreign commerce, a power reserved in the Constitution to Congress alone, to an internationally controlled body, making America’s economic interests entirely at the mercy of the WTO.

Gingrich knew GATT sounded the death knell for American sovereignty. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee prior to the lame-duck session, he said, “We need to be honest about the fact that we are transferring from the United States at a practical level significant authority to a new organization.... This is not just another trade agreement. This is adopting something which twice, once in the 1940s and once in the 1950s, the U.S. Congress rejected.... It is a very big transfer of power.”

4. Contract With America — Another con-game Gingrich played was the much-acclaimed “Contract With America,” the Republican Party’s supposed answer to big government. It turned out to be a public relations smokescreen to cover various unconstitutional measures that Congress planned to pass under Gingrich’s leadership. The Contract included a “balanced budget amendment,” which amounted to a Republican excuse to continue spending while claiming to fight for fiscal conservatism. If the government only spent money on constitutional programs, the deficit would take care of itself.

Other areas of the Contract With America dealt with measures to reduce welfare programs and relieve tax burdens on families and businesses. That sounds good until one considers that the Constitution prohibits welfare programs and taxes that the Contract proposed only to reduce. If Gingrich had been loyal to his oath of office, he would have worked not to trim but to purge them. Ironically, but hardly surprisingly, federal spending in all the areas addressed by the 1994 Contract rose in subsequent years. Edward H. Crane, president of the Cato Institute, observed that “the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract With America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%.” Crane also pointed out, “Over the past three years the Republican-controlled Congress has approved discretionary spending that exceeded Bill Clinton’s requests by more than $30 billion.”

Another of the problems with the Contract was that it called for stronger federal crime-fighting measures, despite the Constitution’s prohibition on federal involvement in police matters outside of piracy and treason. Countries that do not have such strict constitutional safeguards on federal police end up with Gestapos, KGBs, and Departments of Homeland Security.

5. School Prayer Amendment — The proposed balanced budget amendment was not Gingrich’s only attempt to change the Constitution. He also pushed hard for a school prayer amendment to allow America’s children to pray in schools. It was just another shameless publicity stunt, for Gingrich knows the main obstacle to prayer in schools is not a faulty Constitution but an overambitious Supreme Court. Had he truly wanted to release the federal stranglehold on prayer in schools, Gingrich could have employed Congress’ constitutionally authorized power to restrict the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction of the issue.

6. Clinton’s GOP (Grand Old Pal) — In 1995, Time magazine named Newt Gingrich “Man of the Year,” characterizing him as a states’ rights conservative and the Republican answer to Bill Clinton. The ironic thing about Time magazine’s 1995 claim is that in June of that year, Gingrich and Clinton both agreed at a debate in Clare-mont, New Hampshire, that they were “not far apart” in their views. Later Clinton publicly thanked Gingrich for his support of the President’s pet projects in areas such as welfare, education, labor, the environment, and foreign affairs. He made special mention of Gingrich’s support of the $30 billion Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that shackled gun owners with new restrictions, federalized a number of crimes, and handed the feds police powers that the Constitution reserves to the states.

On numerous occasions, Gingrich showed himself a friend to Clinton’s military policies, with a flagrant disregard for the constitutional mandate that Congress alone may declare war. He made a formal appeal to the House of Representatives in 1995 to “increase the power of President Clinton” by repealing the War Powers Act. He praised Clinton’s unconstitutional use of the U.S. military to inflict a communist regime on Haiti in 1994, the same year he voted for an extra $1.2 billion for United Nations “peacekeeping” missions. He also urged the President to expand U.S. military presence in Bosnia the following year.

This partial resumé does not include Gingrich’s support of abortion and anti-family measures, federal welfare, a presidential line item veto, the National Endowment for the Arts, confiscation of private property, amnesty for illegal immigrants, higher taxes, and a myriad of other unconstitutional legislation. But it is enough to prove he lied each time took his oath of office. The question is, why this disdain for the rule of law? A close look at Gingrich’s associations provides the answer to why he had such a propensity for claiming conservatism while voting with the establishment.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/2396-newt-gingrich-the-establishments-conservative?showall=1

[howardroark]

In 1995, Gingrich wrote the foreword to the book Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave by authors Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Gingrich “urged all Americans to read” this book. See for yourself on the back cover. -Jack Hunter

[Shockwave]

Vomit if he wins.
If he does win... lord help us... Obama or Gengrich?

WTF!?

As Americans, we need to stand up and say something, Im sick and tired of having to vote for the candidate I hate the least.
Im sick of it being an election of the "lesser of 2 evils", cause in both cases, we get fucked.

Its time for the 2 party system to die IMHO, otherwise they are going to just flat out take over just as inevitably as the sun rising. Its obvious they already view themselves in that position. Especially after the "voter from is a commonly accepted method of getting elected"

[Soul Crusher]

Vomit if he wins.
If he does win... lord help us... Obama or Gengrich?

WTF!?

As Americans, we need to stand up and say something, Im sick and tired of having to vote for the candidate I hate the least.
Im sick of it being an election of the "lesser of 2 evils", cause in both cases, we get fucked.

Its time for the 2 party system to die IMHO, otherwise they are going to just flat out take over just as inevitably as the sun rising. Its obvious they already view themselves in that position. Especially after the "voter from is a commonly accepted method of getting elected"

I am A B O regardless, but understand this: 

Obama complained for the first two years that he was stymied by bush failures and not having 60 plus votes in the senate.  Despite that he got everything he wanted other than decapitate & traitor, but he still is ramming that shit through. 

The mid terms were a rebuke to obama, yet he still refused to work with the GOP.   So now he blames a "Do Nothing Congress" for everything.   First it was that he did not have sixty plus votes in the senate, then its a gop congress. 

So what does that say?  Its obvious - Obama is the problem and obstacle since unless he gets his way 100%, nothing gets done.   

Now - in 2012 - what is the probability that the senate will get 60 plus seats on the demo side?  Next to nothing. 

So even if the demos took back the house, even if they held on the current seat makeup in the senate - not likely at all - Obama has already said he cant get things done under those scenarios. 

SO WHY THE FUCK SHOULD ANYONE VOTE FOR HIM WHEN HE ALREADY SAID HE CANT GET ANYTHING DONE?

BTW - Newt at least pushed clinton for balanced budget and welfare reform. 

[howardroark]

I think we're pretty much doomed to have a two-party system the way our electoral system works...

Think about it like this. In the electoral system that much of Europe uses, if one party gets 30% of the vote and another gets 25% of the vote, they can come together and form a coalition government. But in the US, if one party gets 30% and another similar party gets 25%, then the party that got 45% wins the election, even though 55% of people don't like that party.

The only hope I see is if the states started splitting their electors according to who won the vote by what percentage... in such a case, perhaps parties could work together toward a compromise in the electoral college. But aside from that, nothing short of an amendment to the US Constitution could change our two-party system.

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.nysun.com/national/all-eyes-on-gingrich-in-wake-of-his-call-for/87662


Gold Standard?

[howardroark]

I am A B O regardless, but understand this: 

Obama complained for the first two years that he was stymied by bush failures and not having 60 plus votes in the senate.  Despite that he got everything he wanted other than decapitate & traitor, but he still is ramming that shit through. 

The mid terms were a rebuke to obama, yet he still refused to work with the GOP.   So now he blames a "Do Nothing Congress" for everything.   First it was that he did not have sixty plus votes in the senate, then its a gop congress. 

So what does that say?  Its obvious - Obama is the problem and obstacle since unless he gets his way 100%, nothing gets done.   

Now - in 2012 - what is the probability that the senate will get 60 plus seats on the demo side?  Next to nothing. 

So even if the demos took back the house, even if they held on the current seat makeup in the senate - not likely at all - Obama has already said he cant get things done under those scenarios. 

SO WHY THE FUCK SHOULD ANYONE VOTE FOR HIM WHEN HE ALREADY SAID HE CANT GET ANYTHING DONE?

BTW - Newt at least pushed clinton for balanced budget and welfare reform. 

I agree that BO sucks - but Big Government Newt isn't the answer. If Newt gets the nomination, I hope a third party spoils the election.

[Soul Crusher]

A third party is a vote for obama - no thanks. 

And as far as Ron Paul goes, HE DOES NOT WANT TO WIN! 

I am a huge fan of his, but as a campaigner he sucks terribly.  I have said so from the beginning.  On the issues of course he is the best, but people need to see some agression and fight! 

The thing that pisses me off about RP more than anything, as well as his most ardent supporters, is that they go after fellow repubs more than they do obama! ! !

Is that dumb or what?  Seriously - its political malpractice!  Why spend time attacking people who agree with you on say 6/10 things more than the worst disaster ever in public office who agrees with them on 0/10 things? 

RP could have easily won the nomination had he campaigned better and I am a bit pissed off over it since I am going to be forced to vote for newt or romney.   

 

[howardroark]

A third party is a vote against the Big Government Republican establishment. It would send a signal to future candidates.

[Soul Crusher]

A third party is a vote against the Big Government Republican establishment. It would send a signal to future candidates.

I'm not as much concerned about the gop establishment at this point than I am the existential threat to this nation of an Obama 2nd term. 

 

[Shockwave]

I'm not as much concerned about the gop establishment at this point than I am the existential threat to this nation of an Obama 2nd term. 

 

I think theyre both equally as dangerous for America, especially if people get so mad that they blindly vote for the other, thats how Obama got elected in the 1st place.
These politicians are forcing us play their game, we allow them to put radicals in the white house because of the actions of their counterparts.

[howardroark]

I'm not as much concerned about the gop establishment at this point than I am the existential threat to this nation of an Obama 2nd term. 

 

I think gridlock is preferable to having one party controlling all branches of government. Obama would be powerless with a Republican-controlled Congress.

[Soul Crusher]

I think gridlock is preferable to having one party controlling all branches of government. Obama would be powerless with a Republican-controlled Congress.

No he wouldnt - he would continue his assault on the nation via regulatory agencies, etc.

And guess what?   If enough people stay home - the demos will take back all branches of the congress and we will get pelosi - reid - obama 2009 -2010 redux.   

[howardroark]

No he wouldnt - he would continue his assault on the nation via regulatory agencies, etc.

Congress can reign that power in. Remember, the President is only the executive.

And guess what?   If enough people stay home - the demos will take back all branches of the congress and we will get pelosi - reid - obama 2009 -2010 redux.   

I'm not talking about staying home - I'm talking about voting third party for President.

[Soul Crusher]

Congress can reign that power in. Remember, the President is only the executive.

I'm not talking about staying home - I'm talking about voting third party for President.

I dont think the average voter, which clearly you are not, is that sophisticated to do that.   

And right now - with Reid running the Senate - they are not reigning in anything! Boehner is grossly overmatched and the only ones trying to do anything are Issa, West, and a few others.