Newt Gingrich

Newton Leroy "Newt" "Moon Base" Gingrich (originally pronounced "Gingri'k,"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ndkzs4XHTI0&feature=player_detailpage#t=15s now pronounced Ging-rich) is a well-known American Republican gas-bag and paragon of (dysfunctional) family values. When not on the lookout for the next former Mrs. Gingrich, he made himself busy leading the charge to impeach Bill Clinton for lying under oath about adulterous activities while concurrently having an affair with a Chevrolet Capitol Hill staffer, Callista Bisek. He is the first space cadet to run for President and the only amphibian to have ever served in Congress.
Despite having a doctorate in history and being a history professor at the University of West Georgia in the 1970s, he rode into power on the pseudohistorical concept of "American exceptionalism" from 1994 through 2020."American Exceptionalism" by David A. Bell. In: Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, edited by Kevin M. Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer (2022) Basic Books. ISBN 1541601394. Pages 13-24.
More than any other, Newt Gingrich is the man responsible for the current crop of extremists in the Republican Party and, by proxy, the general insanity of Congress today.Ornstein, Norm, "The 8 Causes of Trumpism", 1.4.16. Thanks to his tireless work, the House of Representatives is little more than an audience for the Speaker. (That's God's work, right there!) However, his skills as a combative back-bencher did not translate to the ability to ride herd on the GOP House members, and he was eventually ousted by his own party.Guy Gugliotta and Juliet Eilprin, "Gingrich Steps Down in Face of Rebellion", WaPo 11.7.98, Page A1). Now, he's a rent boy for Fox News and heavy promoter of the Tea Party, the ideological successors to his reign of demagoguery as Speaker.
Gingrich is widely believed to have died some time in the mid-2000s, but thanks to the people at Industrial Light & Magic, he occasionally still makes appearances on FOX News. Someone also keeps writing articles in his name, and even tweeting, raising the same ethical questions as the continued appearance of Peter Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin or the Twitter account of Herman Cain.
==Accomplishments==
*Helping to rally the Religious Right,Brownstein, Ronald, "GOP Leaders Embrace Christian Coalition Plan: Conservative group's 10-point agenda includes abortion restrictions, elimination of Education Department", NYT 5.18.95. along with Rove. Remember that the Republican party was not always the party of religious zealots.
*Getting government OFF OUR BACKS Funneling "Big Government" money to his constituency in Cobb County, Georgia.Green, Josua, "Newt Gingrich, Welfare Queen", Bloomberg 4.24.12. Only Arlington, home of the Pentagon, and Brevard County, where the Kennedy Space Center is, received more federal subsidies.
*Coining many Republican buzzwords,"Language: A Key Mechanism of Control", Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. e.g. "Liberal Elites", "Secular Humanists." 
*Shutting down the government because he was told to go to the back of a plane.Sherwell, Philip, "US shutdown: 1995 flashback when Newt Gingrich was 'snubbed' on Air Force One", Telegraph (10/1/13 at 6:03PM).
*Marrying his HS teacher, then dumping her because she was too old (!) to be First Lady.
*Running a bunch of scam charities.Babcock, Charles R., "Use of Tax-Exempt Groups Integral to Political Strategy", WaPo 1/7/97 p. A01.
*Writing 22 bad checks.Dover, Elicia, "Gingrich Defends Utah Bounced Check", ABC 4.11.12.
*Authored DOMA.http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Newt_Gingrich_Civil_Rights.htm 
*Paying out $300,000 in fines for ethics violations.Angie Drobnic Holan and Louis Jacobson, "Did Newt Gingrich pay a $300,000 ethics fine back in the 1990s?", Politifact (2/7/12 at 4:40 p.m.).
*Voting himself a secret pay raise.Schmidt, William E., "THE 1990 ELECTIONS: Georgia; Gingrich Barely Escapes Going From G.O.P. Whip to Just Plain Whipped", NYT 11.8.90.
*Loosening a federal law which prohibited foreign-owned TV networks (again for a fat allowanceSeeyle, Katherine Q., "Aides Say Gingrich Met Murdoch Before Book Deal", NYT 1.13.95).).
*Praising Fannie Mae as a miracle of privatization. Newt denies he was lobbying on their behalf. See, look, he's on their books as a "historian."Rubin, Jennifer, "Gingrich, Fannie and Freddie", WaPo 11.10.11. No historian in history has earned $25,000/hour.
*Flirting with doxing, before that was a thing.Beers, David, "Master of Disaster", Mother Jones Sept 1989.Krauss, Clifford, "As Casualty List Grows, G.O.P. Shows Doubts About House Bank Scandal", NYT 4.16.92.
*Trying to impeach two Presidents.Millhauser, Ian, "Gingrich Suggests Impeaching Obama And ‘Zero[ing Out’ The Attorney General Over DOMA"], Think Progress 25 February 2011. What exactly was Obama's crime? (Presidenting While Black.)Rucker, Phillip, "Gingrich promises to slash taxes, calls Obama ‘food stamp president’", WaPo 13 May 2011.
**Trying to impeach Clinton for the same thing he was doing, causing the opposition party to lose seats in the midterms (now that takes talent), and Gingrich to resign in disgrace.Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, "Fall of the house of Newt", TIME 11.16.98. His flouting of 19th-century sexual moresOsborne, David, "The Swinging Days of Newt Gingrich", Mother Jones 11.1.94. left him with "political baggage"Wyler, Grace, "Christian Right Goes To War Over Newt Gingrich's Wife", Business Insider. that was not easily overcome by his post-Speakership conversion to a Lutheran Baptist Roman Catholic.Seeyle, Katherine Q., "Gingrich Gets a (New) Religion", NYT (3/31/09 at 4:12 pm).
*Threatening to arrest judges who rule against him.Zengerle, Patricia, "Under fire, Gingrich targets judges", Reuters (12/18/11 6:58pm EST).
*Turning space exploration into a talk show punchline."Romney Mocks Gingrich’s Plans For Moon Base", CBS (1/26/12 at 2:34 PM).
*Crapping out a few direct-to-DVD movies about Islam.Serwer, Adam, "Gingrich's Anti-Muslim Sugar Daddy Funded Film Shown To NYPD", Mother Jones (1/24/12).
*Calling for a new House Un-American Activities Committee to go after Muslims and "Nazis."Krieg, Gregory, "Newt Gingrich wants new House Un-American Activities Committee", CNN (Updated 6:37 PM ET, Tue June 14, 2016).Jaffe, Greg, "Obama calls Gingrich’s sharia-law test ‘repugnant and an affront to everything we stand for as Americans’", WaPo (7/15/16 at 4:41 PM).
*Failing to get tenure at the third-rate Georgia university which employs him.Hicks, Josh, "Newt Gingrich: historian?", WaPo 12.15.11.
*Has authored several mediocre books, or most cases hired other more experienced authors to do the majority of the work (including his wife Callista), and slap his name on the cover. These titles range from Donald Trump puff pieceshttps://www.gingrich360.com/product/understanding-trump-autographed/https://www.gingrich360.com/product/trump-and-the-american-future-autographed/https://www.gingrich360.com/product/trumps-america-autographed/ and socialism critiqueshttps://www.gingrich360.com/product/to-save-america-autographed/https://www.gingrich360.com/product/defeating-big-government-socialism/, to alternate history fictionhttps://www.gingrich360.com/product/days-of-infamy-autographed/ and political thrillershttps://www.gingrich360.com/product/collusion-autographed/.
*What has this guy been doing recently? Is it wholesome?"Gingrich wild about zoos", WaPo 12.9.11.
==Contract On America==
Newt Gingrich rose to the position of Speaker of the House after successfully building a movement that groomed up-and-coming Republican politicians, preparing them to run for the House of Representatives. In the 1994 midterm election, his Republicans gained control of the House, the Senate, most governorships, and most state legislatures, running on his ten-point "Contract On With America". 
Gingrich immediately became one of the most influentially destructive politicians in modern American history. As Speaker, he set about dumbing down the intelligence of Congress. Gingrich fired the lawyers, economists, and investigators who work for committees rather than individual members by a third. He reduced the auditors, analysts, and subject-matter experts at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional Research Service (CRS), and so on, by a third. He eliminated the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) entirely. Much of the research, number-crunching, and legislative wording that used to be done by Capitol Hill staffers working for the government is now being done by outside experts, many of them former Hill staffers, working for lobbying firms, think tanks, consultancies, trade associations, and PR outfits. Instead of independent committees enacting research and objectivity, think tanks have been empowered to feed bullshit into Congressmen. In fact, conservative think tanks became the only outside group allowed to brief members and their staff at weekly lunches of the Republican Study Committee, the House conservatives' policy and messaging arm. This "brain drain" created a significant decline in Congress’s own ability to monitor and investigate the government. The number of hearings on policy development and oversight plummeted by nearly 50 percent in the House and 25% in Senate.Fuck all these important government agencies! 
===Lasting damage===
By the time of the Tea Party movement, Congress cut its budget by another 20 percent, a far higher ratio than any other federal agency, leading to staff layoffs, hiring and salary freezes, and a general sense of disillusionment. Professional staffers (who knew what had worked in the past, what members’ preferences and personalities were like, and how to draft a bill that would pass) were laid off by Gingrich -- about 800 of them. In 1993, Congress employed nearly 2,150 professional committee staff; in 2011, there were just 1,316, according to the most recent data. The Government Accountability Office, Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Research Service, and now-defunct Office of Technology Assessment operated on a bipartisan basis, offering measured reports on topics suggested by House members themselves. Sometimes, these agencies act as helpful librarians. Sometimes they’re more like referees, carefully adjudicating among the competing quantitative claims of various members and outside groups—all of which Gingrich hated and set about to eradicate. 
His adamant refusal to compromise and his desire to destroy everything in government that wasn't in his vision became the Republican Party's driving force, which has now reached its absolute extreme in the Tea Party movement. He explained that he wanted to cultivate a loathing for Congress itself while simultaneously restructuring it to eliminate anything that opposed his vision, like committee chairmen, contradictory facts from legislative support agencies, more moderate Republicans, and the minority party. Under his new rules, committee chairs were instead appointed by the Speaker, instead of seniority or a vote by committee members. Subcommittees also lost their ability to set their own agendas and schedules; that too mainly became the Speaker's prerogative. At the same time, Gingrich imposed six-year term limits and required chairs to be reappointed (by the Speaker) every two years. Finally, Gingrich protected, and in some cases bulked up, the staff leadership offices, which were given the task of writing significant pieces of legislation and handing them to the committees. All politicians were utterly fucked; whether or not they advanced in their careers, whether they were reappointed or on which committee they were appointed, would be determined by party leaders based on their subservience. Gingrich's House passed 124 pro-conservative measures in 1995, more than double the 53 that Tip O’Neill’s House passed in 1981. 
Due to Gingrich, the Speakership often dictates to committees what it wants bills to look like or drafts them outright. Instead of learning deeply about a given subject, debating various policy options, engaging in the nitty-gritty of a topic for years and sometimes decades, committee members nowadays are often asked either to reverse-engineer a piece of legislation based on party leadership’s description of what kind of bill they’d like to see or to simply vote on a bill they did not write to begin with.
==Comeback?==
In May 2011, Gingrich officially announced his candidacy for President. He was off to a rocky start, first daring to criticize new GOP darling Paul Ryan's deficit reduction and catching massive flak from his party colleagues as a result. Next came the revelation that he had run up a tab of half a million dollars at luxury jeweler Tiffany's, which he didn't think he'd need to disclose.Isikoff, Michael, "Gingrich Advisors Thought Tiffany's Credit Line Was Private", NBC (6/22/2011 6:43:17 PM ET). When reached for comment, Callista Gingrich said, "Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi and that Donna, Karan, he be sharin' all that money got me wearin'."
Newt then proceeded to take a two-week vacation to the Mediterranean while the other contenders were busy barnstorming and fundraising (this is before he blasted Romney for being rich and out of touch). Upon his return, he learned that most of his senior campaign staffers were fed up with his half-assed approach and decided to flee the sinking ship.Newt Gingrich Advisers Resign En Masse Politico 
At a couple of points in the campaign (in November and December 2011 and for a moment after winning the South Carolina caucuses in January 2012), Gingrich was the frontrunner, rising above Mitt Romney in the polls in some intervals. Most of the time, though, he was at most the "not Romney" candidate. However, even this "lead" was short-lived. Gingrich lost the spot to Ron Paul, who even more quickly lost it to Rick Santorum.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-12/romney-seeks-to-deflect-attacks-from-rivals-over-10-000-wager.htmlhttp://www.decodedscience.com/game-changer-in-iowa-paul-gains-substantial-lead-in-two-polls/8205 During his surge, front-runner Mitt Romney (or, "officially," a PAC supporting Mitt Romney) unleashed a near-devastating barrage of ads in Iowa targeting him. This was most likely the cause for Newt's poor showing in the Hawkeye State. Gingrich responded the only way he knows how: whining about how unfair everyone was to him. He won a decisive victory over Romney in the South Carolina presidential primaries.South Carolina poll: Gingrich triumphs over Romney
===The law and the Newt===
Stephen Colbert has pointed out that Newt Gingrich has broken the law came close to breaking the law but took advantage of a loophole so he could do what the law tries to prevent without also doing jail time. That Newt is really a slippery animal. Anyway, Newt told a supporter who is spending more money than Newt is allowed "to scrub ads attacking Mitt Romney for possible inaccuracies."http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Vox-News/2012/0118/Will-Jon-Stewart-go-to-jail-for-running-Stephen-Colbert-s-super-PAC Try and stick within the type of campaigning that the law wants, Newt.
Compare:
To:
Or how about:
and:
===Secular-Socialist Machine!===
Newt's new prog-rock band favorite catchphrase is "secular-socialist machine," which comes from the subtitle of his book To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine. According to Newt, Barack Obama is the most radical president in US history and is using Saul Alinsky tactics and Chicago politics to refashion the US into a dreaded "high-tax low-growth" European state. Apparently, "the secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union did."Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, Human Events
===Too Moderate?===
Throughout his campaign, various hard right commentators went after Gingrich on the basis that he was too moderate, especially compared to the various conservative candidates running at the time. Glenn Beck called him a "big government progressive"https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-oreilly-and-glenn-beck-clash-over-whether-newt-gingrich-is-progressive/ and said members of the Tea Party who were supporting him despite being against Obama simply disliked the President because of the color of his skin.https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/2011/12/13/glenn-beck-tea-party-support-for-gingrich-equals-racism/ Ann Coulter wrote a series of columns criticizing Newt for his past holdings of "moderate positions" and failure to properly stop the policies of her arch-enemy, Bill Clinton.https://anncoulter.com/2011/12/07/newt-presents-a-fresh-new-virtual-face/https://anncoulter.com/2011/12/14/newt-speak-bombastically-and-carry-a-tiny-stick/https://anncoulter.com/2011/12/21/newt-helped-formulate-christmas/https://anncoulter.com/2012/01/25/re-elect-obama-vote-newt/
===Bye===
Gingrich announced on April 25 that he would drop out of the race and support Mitt Romney, the "Massachusetts Moderate".http://www.nj.com/njvoices/index.ssf/2012/04/newt_gingrich_drops_out_of_rac.html Newt Gingrich Drop Out of Race, NJ.com His campaign was nearly dead, so he left it for a younger one.
==They can be each other's fourth wives==
Will Gingrich ever be relevant to the Trump administration? If nothing else, Gingrich checks off all the boxes for Trump's particular needs:
☑ A veneer of legitimacy from being an ex-Speaker<BR>
☑ Is a crazy person<BR>
☑ Has nothing to lose<BR>
☑ Great "impeachment insurance"<BR>
☑ Could serve as a bridge between Trump and movement conservativesGilbert, Aaron, "Gingrich: ‘There's No Evidence at All That Trump Is a Racist’", Atlantic 7.2.16.<BR>
☑ Very popular with racists and bigots in general ("We went after every rural southern prejudice we could think of." said a Gingrich congressional campaign officialAfter Political Victory, A Personal Revolution by Dale Russakoff & Dan Balz (December 19, 1994) The Washington Post.
☑ Speaks fondly of arresting political opponents for the "crime" of being a political opponent"Newt Gingrich Invented Donald Trump’s Lock-Them-Up Politics How one man was the bridge from Reaganism to Trumpism." by Jonathan Chait, NYMag, 2022 January 24
On the other hand, Newt Gingrich would almost definitely undermine the hell out of Trump and whatever his plan is. Not because he wants to, but because he doesn't know how not to. Real Roman Senate-type shit.
===It's almost as if he's a flip-flopping liar===
In 2011, Gingrich accused Obama of "flip-flopping" on the Libyan uprising, but should have learned that throwing stones when living in a glass house isn't a good idea. He (finally) abandoned his Neoconservative views in '13, asking his fellow conservatives to "re-evaluate" their policy in the Middle East.Ralph Z. Hallow, "Newt Gingrich sees major Mideast mistakes, rethinks his neocon views on intervention" He's terrified that his sugar daddy... err, wealthy Republican donors like Adelson wield too much power.Gold, "Newt Gingrich says wealthy donors like Sheldon Adelson have too much influence", WaPo 3.28.14.
In 2016, Gingrich briefly rose from the dead to endorse Donald TrumpPennacchia, Robyn, "Newt Gingrich Wants America To Just Lie Back And Think Of Trumpland", Wonkette (6/2/16 at 2:32pm)..— to Newt's immediate regret. Most everyone saw it from what it was: A sad audition to be Donald's VP. Especially funny was Newt's criticism of Trump's insensitive remarks to a judge.Savransky, Rebecca, "Gingrich: Trump's judge attacks 'one of the worst mistakes' he's made", WaPO (6/5/16 at 09:49 am).
Remember Orlando and all the hyperbole from Trump and the 'thanks for the congrats'? That Trump is dead. He's got a new campaign manager and everything. Meet Nu-Trump. Still the same old bombast. Still using nicknames, still a serial twitterer. Only now he uses a teleprompter more often. And he aims for the middle. He's even got a pet Gingrich to tell him what's up:Sankin, Aaron, "Newt Gingrich: White people 'don't understand being black in America'", Daily Dot (Last updated 7/8/16 at 10:02 p.m.). 
Just hours before that Facebook broadcast, Gingrich appeared on Fox & Friends and said, 
Also, when a reporter asked Gingrich what to do about the homeless a few days after the police shot a homeless man in front of the White House (in 1994), Gingrich said: “Give the park police more ammo.”Wright, James D.; Donley, Amy M. (2011-03-31). Poor and Homeless in the Sunshine State: Down and Out in Theme Park Nation. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. p. 290. ISBN 9781412842211.
==Family life==
Gingrich is an orphan; he suffered the incredible tragedy of losing his stepfather when he was only 53 and his mother when he was 60. Amazingly, he overcame the difficulties of not being able to collect Social Security before having his parents ripped away from him. The fates are indeed cruel.
Contrary to rumor, Newt did not divorce his first wife on her deathbed; in actuality, he tried to get her to sign off her right to alimony and child support while she was semi-conscious in the hospital, recovering from tumor surgery.Gore, Dangelo.The Gingrich Divorce Myth, FactCheck.org, December 2, 2011 Shortly after his second wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, he announced his intention to divorce her. He later had his first two marriages declared invalid by Catholic authorities so that he could marry his mistress of six years in the Catholic Church.Carpenter, Megan. Newt Gingrich’s Second Wife Dishes Hard To Esquire: His Money Woes, His Philandering, His Meltdown, August 11, 2010. Newt definitely did not want an open marriage; we have to believe that because he says so.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16643430 
His current Stepford wife, Callista (winner of the reality show, America's Next Former Mrs. Gingrich), sings in the choir of Washington D.C.'s Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.Callista Gingrich in the spotlight, Washington Post, December 14, 2011.
Fox News Shrink Keith Ablow claims Newt's infidelity and open marriage policyEx-wife: Newt Gingrich wanted 'open marriage' could make him a superior president.Fox News: Infidelity might make Newt better president Rush Limbaugh said something similar, which is unsurprising given his own philandering. Other pundits have chimed in, with a fairly consistent and blatant misunderstanding of what an "open marriage" actually is.
==Quotes==
==See also==
*Lyndon LaRouche — The answer to "is there a left-wing Newt Gingrich?". This old Trotskyist thinks a lot of himself (and thinks of himself a lot).
*Tony Abbott — Whose megalomania is equally hilarious and troubling.
==External links==
*Newt in His Own Words: 33 Years of Bomb-Throwing (collection of quotes and incidents), Mother Jones, May 2011
*Newt Gingrich watched 'London Has Fallen,' liked it and wrote a tweet about it - Just like how GoldenEye was a sobering reminder of what Iran could do with EMP satellites.
* You're a Mean One, Newt Gingrich
==Notes==
==References==
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