Tag: Newt Gingrich

The real story of the shutdown: 50 years of GOP race-baiting

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in GOP Racists, Race Baiting, Tea Baggers

The real story of the shutdown: 50 years of GOP race-baiting

A House minority from white districts want to destroy the first black president, and the GOP majority abets them

By Joan Walsh

The real story of the shutdown: 50 years of GOP race-baiting
EnlargeTed Cruz, Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul
(Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/Tami Chappell/AP/Ed Reinke)

On the day the Affordable Care Act takes effect, the U.S. government is shut down, and it may be permanently broken. You’ll read lots of explanations for the dysfunction, but the simple truth is this: It’s the culmination of 50 years of evolving yet consistent Republican strategy to depict government as the enemy, an oppressor that works primarily as the protector of and provider for African-Americans, to the detriment of everyone else. The fact that everything came apart under our first African-American president wasn’t an accident, it was probably inevitable.

People talk about the role of race in Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”: how Pat Buchanan and Kevin Phillips helped him lure the old Dixiecrats into the Republican Party permanently. Far less well known was the GOP’s “Northern Strategy,” which targeted so-called white ethnics – many of them from the Catholic “Sidewalks of New York” like my working-class family, in the words of Kevin Phillips. Without a Northern Strategy designed to inflame white-ethnic fears of racial and economic change, Phillips’ imaginary but still influential notion of a “permanent Republican majority” would have been unimaginable.

“The principal force which broke up the Democratic (New Deal) coalition is the Negro socioeconomic revolution and liberal Democratic ideological inability to cope with it,” Phillips wrote. “Democratic ‘Great Society’ programs aligned that party with many Negro demands, but the party was unable to defuse the racial tension sundering the nation.” Phillips was not trying to defuse that tension, far from it – he was trying to lure those white ethnics to the GOP (although he later broke with the party he helped create.) But his Northern Strategy truly came to fruition in 1980, with the election of Ronald Reagan. Where Nixon swept the South, Reagan was able to take much of the North and West, too.

I loved Chris Matthews’ book “Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked,” but as I said in my interview with him, I think he let Reagan off the hook when it came to race. Ronald Reagan picked up the political baton passed to him by Barry Goldwater and Pat Buchanan, and played his role with genial gusto. Reagan had trafficked in ugly racial stereotyping over the years, about “young bucks” buying T-bone steaks with food stamps and Cadillac-driving welfare queens. But the Reagan who got elected president was better at using deracialized language to channel racial fears and resentment. He and his strategists had succeeded in making government synonymous with “welfare,” and “welfare” synonymous with lazy people, most of them African-American.

When Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg studied the voters of Macomb County, a hotbed of so-called Reagan Democrats – the county gave two-thirds of its votes to John F. Kennedy in 1960, and the same proportion to Ronald Reagan in 1980 — he found that they no longer saw Democrats as working-class champions. “Blacks constitute the explanation for their vulnerability and for almost everything that has gone wrong in their lives,” and they saw government “as a black domain where whites cannot expect reasonable treatment,” Greenberg wrote.

So for a lot of Democrat-turned-Republican voters, “government” was all about black people, Reagan knew. You didn’t have to be racist to thrill to Reagan’s declaration that “government is not the solution; government is the problem,” though it didn’t hurt. Republican strategist Lee Atwater explained exactly how it worked in a now-infamous 1981 interview that was secret for 30 years. Atwater explained how the GOP dialed down its racial rhetoric for fear of alienating white moderates who might buy the GOP’s anti-government crusade, but be uncomfortable with outright racism.

This is Atwater talking to an academic interviewer in 1981, Year One of the Reagan revolution:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N–ger, n–ger, n–ger.” By 1968 you can’t say “n–ger” — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites … “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N–ger, n–ger.”

And then you say “Defund Obamacare,” and everyone knows why.

To be fair to Republicans, not everyone is or was comfortable with this strategy. One of the things I remember best from Richard Ben Cramer’s legendary history of the 1988 election, “What It Takes,” was the way both George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole grappled with whether and how to reach black voters, in the wake of the Reagan revolution. Each man struggled, in his own way, to understand and accept exactly how party leaders, starting with Goldwater, had actively pushed African-Americans out of the party of Abraham Lincoln. Dole’s discomfort seemed a little deeper and more genuine; in the end, Bush acceded to Atwater and Roger Ailes, one of Richard Nixon’s media henchmen, to produce the infamous Willie Horton ad that helped torpedo Michael Dukakis.

Over and over, that’s how things got worse: Republicans who know better, who probably aren’t “racist” in the old-fashioned sense of believing in black inferiority and opposing the equality and integration of the races, nonetheless pander to those who are, for electoral gain. And when the election of our first black president riled up the racists and launched the Tea Party – supposed deficit hawks who tolerated skyrocketing government spending under George W. Bush — too many Republicans went along.

Today, the entire government has been taken hostage by leaders elected by this crazed minority, who see in the face of Barack Obama everything they’ve been taught to fear for 50 years. Start with miscegenation: He’s not just black, he’s the product of a black father and a white mother. (That helps explain an unconscious motive for birtherism: They can’t get their minds off the circumstances of his conception and birth.) With his Ivy League degrees, they are sure he must be the elitist beneficiary of affirmative action. Steeped in Chicago politics, he’s the representative of corrupt urban machines controlled by Democrats – machines that ironically originated with the Irish and once kept African-Americans down, but which are now synonymous with corrupt black power. In Michele Bachmann’s words, Obama is a product of Chicago’s scary “gangster government,” or did she say “gangsta”?

Leading Republicans who know better have demeaned the president with a long list of racially coded slurs. Obama is “the food stamp president,” Newt Gingrich told us. He wants to help “black people” (or was it “blah people”?) “by giving them somebody else’s money,” Rick Santorum said.  Even his so-called GOP “friend” Sen. Tom Coburn insists Obama is spreading “dependency” on government because “it worked so well for him as an African-American male.”

Where Mitt Romney’s father, George, stood up to the rising tide of racism in his party and marched in fair housing protests in the 1960s, Mitt himself embraced the birther-in-chief Donald Trump during the 2012 campaign. And when things got tough in the fall campaign, he and Paul Ryan doubled down on racial appeals by accusing Obama of weakening welfare reform – he hadn’t – and of giving white seniors’ hard-earned Medicare dollars to Obamacare recipients. And we all know who they are.

Now we have John Boehner, elected House speaker thanks to the Tea Party wave of 2010, shutting down the government over Obamacare. Boehner has the power to open the government by bringing a clean continuing resolution to the floor and allowing it to pass with the help of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. Should we expect such courage?  In one of his first major media appearances after becoming speaker, he refused to rebuke the birthers in his caucus. “It’s not up to me to tell them what to think,” he told NBC’s Brian Williams.

Now he’s kowtowing to the roughly 30 House Republicans from bright red districts that also happen to be almost exclusively white, in a country that is more than one-third non-white. They want to shut down the government to torpedo Obamacare, the signature program of our first black president. Obviously, though he’s the leader, Boehner believes it’s not up to him to tell the GOP suicide caucus what to think. Although the speaker told reporters after Obama’s r-election that Obamacare was the law of the land, and that a government shutdown would be bad for the country, he changed his tune when confronted with an insurrection, and the de facto House speaker who happens to be a senator, Ted Cruz. (Cruz’s father, by the way, just joined the ranks of those who seem to believe Obama is a Muslim, telling a Colorado woman who made that claim: “[Sen. John] McCain couldn’t say that because it wasn’t politically correct. It is time we stop being politically correct!”

In the end, it’s all about Obama. I keep waiting for John Boehner to have his “Take this job and shove it” moment, since he’s not the House leader, he’s being led by Ted Cruz and the House suicide caucus. But I’ve been waiting a long time for Republicans to do the right thing and repudiate their party’s lunatic fringe, particularly its racist fringe. I assume I’ll be waiting a while longer.

Joan WalshJoan Walsh is Salon’s editor at large and the author of “What’s the Matter With White People: Finding Our Way in the Next America.”
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The Latest Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Obama’s Third Term

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Right Wing Kooks, Right Wing Lies, Right Wing Loons, Right Wing Nuts, White Racists, White Supremacists, Wingnut Media, Wingnuts

The Latest Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Obama’s Third Term

Our Kenyan-born, secret Muslim president has apparently cooked up a sneaky plot to subvert the 22nd Amendment.

—By Asawin Suebsaeng

Probably not. benson./Flickr

Barack Hussein Obama is hatching a secret plot to pull off the ultimate power grab: securing himself a third term in the White House.

At least that’s the narrative being spun by right-wing conspiracy theorists, who seem to believe Obama is modeling his presidency after fictional Nixon in Watchmen.

Among the main proponents of this theory—which comes in several different flavors—is Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, a publishing firm that hawks financial advice—and has a history of promoting dubious claims. Even before the president won reelection, the company began blasting out emails to subscribers of various conservative newsletters, warning of the coming third term of Obama. The emails went out as paid advertisements through the right-leaning Townhall.com, Newsmax, Human Events, and Gingrich Marketplace (a spokesman for Newt Gingrich and the vice president of Human Events both claimed this email blast was a mistake).

The emails alerted readers to a vague—and somewhat counterintuitive—theory: Some unspecified but major event will lead to an epoch of American economic prosperity. Because it will happen under Obama’s watch, he’ll claim full credit and receive an unprecedented boost in approval ratings, giving him a mandate to demand and subsequently obtain a third term. If you’re confused, below are screenshots of two of the emails:

These messages are accompanied by a slideshow titled “The Third Term — INSIDE: The Secret Plan to Retain Power Through 2020” and narrated by Stansberry & Associates founder Frank Porter Stansberry. It discusses how Obama will become American history’s greatest tyrant, responsible for implementing “the most terrifying socialist policies” the country has ever seen. “The Third Term” also highlights the company’s supposed track record of correctly predicting the future, and invites readers to check out their trading and investing services and other pricey products.

Stansberry has something of a checkered past when it comes the claims appearing in his newsletters and online videos. In 2010, he released a similar slideshow called “End of America” (77 minutes long), in which he predicted waves of violence and tumult across the United States and the impending implosion of the American economy—an argument that contradicts the premise of “The Third Term.” In 2003, the SEC filed a complaint against him for pushing false information via his financial newsletter. In 2007, Stansberry (and his investment firm, then called Pirate Investor) was ordered by a federal court to pay $1.5 million in civil penalties and restitution. Stansberry Research did not respond to a request for comment.

Other conspiracymongers who have recently jumped on the Obama-third-term-prophecy bandwagon are radio host Alex Jones—who has featured Stansberry on his show—and birtherism promoter and WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah. Over at the conservative forum Free Republic, commenters have ruminated on a related theory. In this scenario, Michelle Obama runs for president in 2016 and wins, thus allowing Barack to run the government as a shadow president. Among the first to prognosticate an Obama power grab was Rush Limbaugh, who was way ahead of the curve: He predicted a third Obama term in the summer of 2009, when the 44th president had just barely moved into the White House:

The third-term theory isn’t limited to the far right: Technorati writer Sreedhar Pillai has also mused about a possible third term, and Faheem Younus at the Washington Post‘s faith blog posted on why war with Iran could grant Obama a Roosevelt-like run.

It’s unlikely that this theory will gain much traction nationally (though the third-termers have achieved enough publicity to earn their theory derisive words from Chris Matthews on MSNBC). From a purely legal perspective, there are solid obstacles to the president achieving this alleged goal, mainly the 22nd Amendment. It plainly states:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

President Obama—who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade—likely knows this already.

“There is no  evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a  coup. It’s a  right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans.”

But, just to double check, we asked a few experts about the Obama-third-term theory. “There is nothing in his tenure as president, nothing that we know of him, that indicates that Barack Obama is going to seek a third term,” David Adler, director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, told Mother Jones. “Short of a military coup, the 22nd Amendment stands as an  insurmountable obstacle to a third-term president today, and there is no  evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a coup. It’s a  right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans.”

As a thought experiment, if Obama and his political allies did want to take a stab at repealing the amendment (in a time of economic boom, or whenever), they’d be in for a political fight that would make passing the Affordable Care Act look like a stroll in the park. “As a practical matter, no constitutional amendment can occur without being supported by both major parties,” said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of law and political science at Yale University. “Constitutional amendments require two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-quarters of  the states to ratify. No party controls that much. That’s all you need to  understand. So, no, Barack Obama will  not be serving a third term.”

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and Bush-era FEC commissioner (and one of the nation’s foremost voter fraud crusaders), agrees: “I’m going to attempt to not laugh at this,” Von Spakovsky told Mother Jones. “I don’t like Obama’s policies, but even I don’t believe he would try to get a third term  in direct contravention of the 22nd Amendment. Particularly because he couldn’t. There is a constitutional prohibition as well as a practical one: When you submit an application in every state and in Washington, DC, to the state  election official to qualify to get on the ballot, they simply won’t accept an application from someone who violates the 22nd Amendment.”

Technically, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for an American politician to launch an effort to lengthen a term, or  seek an extra four years. Early in President Reagan’s second term, congressional allies attempted to find support for amending the Constitution to give him a  chance to potentially serve a third term. And when Nixon was in office, there was a proposal to expand presidential terms to six  years. Both initiatives were quickly abandoned.

As Von Spakovsky said, “This is not a realistic fear that anyone should have.”

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The Corruption of US Politics By Jewish Right Wing Extremist Sheldon Adelson

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Jewish Extremists, Jewish Fanatic, Jewish Fanatics, Jewish Fascism, Jewish fascists, Jewish Fundamentalism, Jewish Racists, Jewish Radical Right, Sheldon Adelson

Sheldon Adelson Obliterates Democracy at Home and Abroad

“My political leanings are far to the right….
Attila the Hun was too liberal for me.”
–Sheldon Adelson, 2010If you’ve been paying any attention to Election 2012, you have undoubtedly become familiar with Sheldon Adelson. The casino magnate and Republican Party benefactor – worth $20.5 billion according to Forbes magazine – is fully committed to defeating President Barack Obama, and to that end has pledged to spend as much as $100 million.

Beyond Adelson’s anti-Obama advocacy lies two greater causes; un-wavering support for right wing Israeli politicians and organizations; and, urging the US government to take more muscular action against Iran.

In addition to dumping boatloads of money into Republican Party war chests, Adelson has almost single-handedly destroyed what has historically been a pretty vigorous newspaper culture in Israel.

The Gingrich factorInterestingly enough, by dropping millions into the coffers of the failed candidacy of Newt Gingrich, Adelson kept the disgraced House Speaker viable long enough for two Israel-related factors to unfold: 1) Gingrich’s promotion of extreme pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian views, which moved all the other GOP candidates (except Ron Paul) to the right on Israel; and, 2) the inability of religious right and the Tea Party to settle on one candidate, handed the nomination to Mitt Romney, a longtime friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Adelson’s influence “has turned the Republican contest into a competition of extreme rhetoric, in which there is no room for compromise or diplomacy, and the only answer to any international problem is unmitigated toughness,” Gal Beckerman reported in The Jewish Daily Forward in January of this year. “No one wants to be outflanked by the right when it comes to foreign policy (no one, I should say, besides Ron Paul) and so Gingrich’s apparent parroting of Adelson’s hardline attitudes about Israel — and, I should add, Iran — means that the whole tone of the race is affected.”

Adelson out-AIPAC’s AIPAC

Beckerman pointed out that Adelson’s “positions [on Israel] are unambiguously right-wing and hawkish to the extreme. When it comes to the Palestinians, there is no one to be trusted.”

Beckerman noted that Adelson split with AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) because it “was not far enough to the right for him”: “After being a diehard supporter — funding a new building in Washington, D.C. — he split with the group in 2007 when it decided to support a congressional initiative, backed by the Israelis, to increase economic aid to the Palestinians. ‘I don’t continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they want to jump,’ he said at the time by way of explanation. He had the same reaction when Ehud Olmert, whom Adelson had once befriended, came to the conclusion that he had to pursue negotiations with the Palestinian leadership.”

Adelson told The Jewish Week last year that, “The two-state solution is a stepping stone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.”

Adelson’s involvement with Israeli politics is nothing new. In 2007, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Adelson “has been organizing delegations [to Israel] of Republican congressmen and senators for the past 15 years. ‘They all come back Zionists,’ Adelson said.”

Adelson and his wife, Miriam, are major funders of Birthright, a project that sends young Jews on free trips to Israel. Earlier this year, jta.org reported that over the course of Birthright’s 13-year history, the Adelsons had donated more than $140 million to the project.

The casino magnate has also been involved with overt Islamophobic endeavors. AlterNet’s Elly Bulkin and Donna Nevel recently reported that Adelson had been distributing copies of the 2007 film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West (2007) to Birthright participants. The film “demonizes all Muslims, and through explicit statements and rapid-fire images, makes clear the filmmaker’s view that there is a direct connection between Nazis and both Palestinians and Muslims,”

Adelson’s Israeli media grab

Adelson’s influence over Israeli politics has grown exponentially since 2007, when he founded a free daily newspaper, Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today), that had “a strikingly pro-Netanyahu line that quickly became Israel’s most-read newspaper with nearly 40 per cent of the market,” The Globe and Mail recently pointed out.

In many ways, Israel Today closely resembles both the Reverend Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times, which since its’ founding has essentially functioned as a house organ for conservative politics while losing tens of millions of dollars, and the media properties of Rupert Murdoch.

Since its advent, Israel Today has been unabashedly pro Netanyahu. It gave him a “vital boost in the knife-edge 2009 election when he regained the premiership [and it] …. has helped counter the negative coverage that continues to plague his administration, The Globe and Mail reported. .

According to The Globe and Mail, “Critics say [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has effectively become part of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign at Adelson’s behest, creating a rift with Obama and damaging Israel’s ability to work with the United States to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“While Adelson’s newspaper is not the only right-leaning media organ, it is helped by its owner’s willingness to operate at a loss, a luxury not available to other Israeli media.”

The paper “costs Adelson more than $30-million a year, according to a former business partner, Shlomo Ben Zvi.”

In 2010, Adelson told a media conference that his “political leanings are far to the right.” He then added: “Attila the Hun was too liberal for me.”

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Young Turks Kick Callista Gingrich When She’s Down (VIDEO)

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Newt Gingrich Self-serving Hypocrite, Newt Gingrich Serial Adulterer, Newt Gingrich Unethical, Wingnuts

Young Turks Kick Callista Gingrich When She’s Down (VIDEO)

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

To Serve Man
Everyone hates Moon Empress and Lizardoid “V” Queen Callista Gingrich, this is not “news.” But why? Wonkette’s own Jim Newell explained she has never done anything to anyone (we guess Jim forgot about Newt’s second wife) and is not even running for anything so what who cayuhs. Well, Cenk [Last Name] of The Young Turks apparently does, that’s who, and put together a nightmare video, after the jump.
VIDEO:-
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Toxic Cannibal Newt Gingrich Manages to Find Obama’s Trayvon Comments ‘Disgraceful’

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Republican Loons, Republican Throwbacks, Right Wing, Right Wing Buffoons, Right Wing Clown Car, Right Wing Crackpots, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Freaks, Right Wing Hatemongers, Right Wing Hypocrites, Right Wing Kooks, Right Wing Nuts, Vile Pig Newt Gingrich, Wingnuts

Toxic Cannibal Newt Gingrich Manages to Find Obama’s Trayvon Comments ‘Disgraceful’

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

The horror
Well, guess we got one more post in us this evening, huh? Here we were, drinking wine, sitting on the couch, and braiding Kirsten Boyd Johnson’s hair, and this little bit of happiness and rainbows and unicorns and magic flitted across our (somewhat impaired) field of vision: Newt Gingrich, Great White Hope, has turned his attention from protecting the honor of white ladies from Robert DeNiro’s terribly offensive (not at all offensive) jokes, and focused instead on the honor of everyone in this great nation of ours who had the misfortune to not be born black. See, the President noted, somberly and steadily, that Trayvon Martin looked like he could have been his son. Even the Daily Caller, try though it did, wasn’t able to find anything wrong with Obama’s statement itself, only that it had clearly been made at the behest of the Black Panthers, because duh of course it was. But you, Newton, are a special fellow. Open that pretty piehole, show us what you’re working with: “What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful.” Because the president is racist? Yes.

“It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

“Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.”

So what Newt Gingrich is “working with” then is “unallayed fucking sociopathic evil.” What did we say this morning? Yes, here it is, ctrl-c/ctrl-v:

But how can a black man be in charge of the Executive Branch when the Justice Department is investigating a possible hate crime against a black boy? That would be like a black man pointing out that it’s stupid for a cop to arrest a black man in his own home for suspecting him of being an intruder, or a gay judge being in charge of a case about gayness. Unpossible! Racism! Bias!

Right. Haha, remember, like 9 hours ago, when that was funny? (Eh, it was never that funny.) So how many hours did that take you, Newty, to decide to let it all go, that last shred of humanity that might have been hiding in there, the speck that knew you were doing wrong before you did it anyway? When did you decide, for your ambitions, to go full-Colonel Kurtz and let all your homicidal tendencies run free? Newt Gingrich, destroyer of souls, ruiner of humanity, really not-good-looking manthing! It’s got a good beat! You could dance to it! Anyhoo, sure hope you at last manage to peel off a few voters from Santorum, otherwise that just wasn’t a very good deal you got for what was left of your soul. [National Journal]

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The Twisted Twins | Catholic Fascist Warmongers Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Buffoons, Catholic Crazies, Catholic Crusader Newt Gingrich, Catholic Crusaders, Catholic Empire, Catholic Fascist Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich Adulterer, Newt Gingrich Catholic Fascist

Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!!!!!!!  . . .   Bomb! Bomb Iran!!!!! (Christian Warmongers, Good Catholic Boys Div.)

by Rev. Paul McKay

SANTORUM & GINGRICH HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH TORTURE AND THE CASUAL DROPPING OF BOMBS THAT WILL DESTROY THE LIVES OF SCORES OF INNOCENT MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN; THESE ARE A COUPLE OF REALLY, REALLY VIOLENT, HATEMONGERING, WARMONGERING CATHOLICS AND WE CANNOT LET THESE PEOPLE GET US INTO ANOTHER CATASTROPHIC AND VIOLENT WORLD EVENT; SPEAK OUT, PEACEMAKERS: SPEAK OUT LOUD AND CLEAR AGAINST THIS MADNESS WITH ME

For Catholics who purport to care so deeply and passionately for the sanctity of life–for Catholics who claim to be all about the Catholic Church’s teachings–the Rick Santorums and Newt Gingriches of the world sure do talk casually about nuking people.

Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church were adamantly opposed to the mere invasion of Iraq, remember? So much so that the Pope dispatched an old Bush family friend and Catholic clergyman to try to persuade Bush that invading Iraq could in no way be justified on any Christian or moral grounds whatsoever.

At least President Bush heard out the old family Catholic friend before dismissing him with that typical Bush absolutism. (Absolutely to the right on war and peace.) Bush, a United Methodist (who left the Episcopal Church largely because of Laura’s Methodist ties and because “the Episcopalians kneel too much! he! he!”), turned a totally deaf ear to the United Methodist Bishops who joined every other mainline Protestant denomination in virtually begging him not to go venturing off on an unjust and unnecessary war.

Now, the Santorums and Gingriches of the world talk casually about dropping bombs–nuclear, no less–on Iran with no evidence to justify such draconian action (Ron Paul is right about that–walleyed crazy Ron Paul is right about a lot of things, not that I could ever vote for him except as a protest vote).

It seems to be lost on these Catholic politicos that their own Catholic Church, which they say they love and they defend so vigorously, extends the sanctity of life to all life–not just to life in the womb. It’s why the Vatican predictably speaks out loud and clear and justifiably every time there is a scheduled execution of a death row inmate in this country. It’s why the Vatican consistently opposes torture which Santorum and Gingrich have no prob with.

For all their problems and all the weird and twisted theology they have, in my humble opinion–as I noted in a recent posting, the theology of “every sperm is sacred” ain’t my deal–the Catholics at least are consistent on the sacredness of life and viewing a life as created in the very image of God. Santorum and Gingrich seem to think a lot of lives are born in the image of a literal Satan that doesn’t even literally exist (again, that opinion is my own humble and theologically informed opinion–send your nasty disagreements to revpaulmckay@gmail.com and put your name on your nastiness if you want to tell me how misguided a Christian I am because I don’t believe in a ridiculous literal Satan).

The Santorums and Gingriches speak as if they have no respect for their own church’s teachings and preachings whatsoever when they start fanning the flames of war. They speak of bombing without so much as any moral perspective. You won’t hear them say, “As much as I hate war, as much as I would tremble at the heavy responsibility of taking lives and wreaking havoc in the world, I would do it out of moral concern for the greater good of saving other lives.”

Nope, you won’t hear that kind of moral and Christian equivocating, acknowledging that people will suffer and die—living, breathing human beings outside of wombs–will be maimed if not killed and killed in the most gruesome way possible with nukes melting their bodies down. They won’t approach their violent positions on countries like Iran with any perspective on of the scores of innocent men, women and children who will be left starving, without shelter or clean water to subsist on.

And of course, they are clueless as to how kids growing up in Iran will see the U.S. as maybe being “the Great Satan” that their crazy ass dictator loud mouth clowns portrayed.

Kids in Iran want American Apple gizmos and cool blue jeans.

Bomb the country and kids in Iran will hate America’s guts because the Santorums and Gingriches didn’t give a shit if they and their loved ones lived or died.

I’m sorry, but Santorum and Gingrich are some really twisted sisters and haters.

And we can’t let the haters win.

Speak your voice.

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Catholic Fanatic Rick Santorum Latest GOP Frontrunner

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Fanatic, Catholic Fascism, Catholic Power, Right Wing Nuts

Rick Santorum: The New Face of the GOP

A reactionary, anti-science religious fanatic is now the frontrunner
Via:-  Charles Johnson

The thing about Rick Santorum is that he’s genuine. He really believes that anti-science reactionary bullshit he spouts. He’s not just saying it to get elected, unlike Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

The reactionary Republican base senses this genuineness; they see Santorum as one of them. And this has now catapulted Santorum into the lead — 15 points ahead of Romney.

Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP’s newest national poll. He’s at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul.

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The Free-Fall Of Ron Paul | Tea-Bagging Man

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Ron Paul, Ron Paul Conspiracy Nut, Ron Paul Fascist Theocrat, Ron Paul is a Kook, Ron Paul Tea-Bagging Man, Ron Paul Theocratic Fascist, Ron Paul Theocratic Nut, Tea Baggers, Tea Party, Tea Party Racism, Tea Party Racists

The Free-Fall Of Ron Paul

Thanks to:- lynnrockets

How fortunate that wacky Republican Ron Paul announced his candidacy for the 2012 presidency on a Friday the 13th. He now has a ready-made excuse for why his campaign was such an abysmal failure. Despite what the pundits constantly refer to as Paul’s fervently devoted group of grassroots supporters and Tea Party nut-jobs, nobody seems to ever vote for this guy. In Iowa he garnered a respectable 21% of the vote but finished only third. In the New Hampshire primary election, his percentage of the vote plateaued at 22% and in South Carolina his support dropped to 13%. It remains to be seen how low his support will drop today in the Florida primary election.

We knew that, as always, Ron Paul’s candidacy would go nowhere.  He is after all, a radical crazy person. If you need evidence of Ron Paul’s zaniness, consider these tidbits:

–  He is known as “Dr. No” because of his insistence that he will “never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution;

– He advocates withdrawal from the United Nations, and from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO);

– He opposes birthright citizenship;

– He advocates for the elimination of the Federal Reserve;

– He would deny women their right of freedom of choice in birth;

– He believes that the civil Rights act of 1964 is unconstitutional; and

– He would rather have sick people die from their illnesses than receive government provided health care.

Now let’s take a look at some of Ron Paul’s quotes as published in his newsletters:

– “Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philanderer Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.”;

– “even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.”;

– “opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions”;

– “if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”; and

– “hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos.” (referring to the crime of carjacking).

This is scary stuff. Is it any wonder that this man is never taken very seriously by the majority of Americans?

Nevertheless, Ron Paul does have the capacity to do some good for his country. He demonstrated that this last autumn when he decided not to seek re-election to his Texas House of Representatives seat. Consequently, there is certain to be one less radical insane person in the next Congress. Also, there is always the possibility that as soon as Paul realizes that he has no chance of capturing the Republican nomination, he may decide to run as either an Independent or a third party candidate. He would still have absolutely no chance of being elected, but he would steal a certain percentage of votes form the Republican nominee (Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich) thereby helping Barack Obama to win the general election.

Do the right thing Mr. Paul.

Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s song parody.

“Piano Man” song link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBC6IVP-C84

TEA BAGGING MEN (RON PAUL VERSION)

(sung to the Billy Joel song “Piano Man”)

It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday Rand Paul comes marching in A proud member of the Tea Party Like so many white racist men

He says, “Boy you know that I’m from Kentucky And I think that Obama blows It was sad and back-street how he chastised BP Just because their damn oil rigs explode”

La la la, di da da La la, di di da da dum

Sing us a song you Tea-Bagging men Sing us a song tonight Give us some patriotic imagery Tri-corn hats and a wig that’s too tight

Now Sarah Palin is no friend of mine Thank God she’s not the VP Yes she looked like a dope every time she misspoke As McCain claimed she was “mavericky”

She says, “Why does the press keep on grilling me?” As her smile runs away from her face “Can’t they see I’m a tabloid-bred superstar, Though I quit my job in disgrace?”

Oh, la la la, di da da La la, di da da da dum

Ron Paul is a right-wing apologist He is anti-gay and pro-life Grasp of history’s hazy and he’s moon-bat crazy Ron Paul should be confined for life

And Scott Walker’s union-busting politics Sparked a recall to get him de-throned While Mike Huckabee thinks his “down-hominess” Will coax liberals to leave him alone

Sing us a song you Tea-Bagging men Sing us a song tonight Give us some patriotic imagery Tri-corn hats and a wig that’s too tight

Had a pretty big crowd just last Saturday With the Tea Baggers dressed in high style They were at a rally with signs misspelled badly To express ignorance all the while

And the town common, it looks like a carnival With the Tea Baggers from far and near They unload from their cars lots of feathers and tar As they fan flames of hatred and fear!

Oh, la la la, di da da La la, di da da da dum

Sing us your song you Tea Bagging men Sing us your song tonight Cuz we’re all in the mood for a melody Sung by folks that are old, dumb and white

(fade into extinction)

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Fidel Castro Nails the GOP Clown Car

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Fascists, Republican Homosexuals, Republican Hypocrisy, Right Wing, Right Wing Buffoons, Right Wing Crackpots, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Hypocrites, Wingnuts

Despite his age, Fidel Castro remains highly sentient and recently had some savvy sentiments about the GOP clown mobile. His remarks were right on the money.

“The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been,” said the retired Cuban leader, who has dueled with 11 U.S. administrations since his 1959 revolution.

Their sanctimonious “family values” facade, extravagant claims of their high Christian morals  are all betrayed by the actual behaviour, particularly of the buffoonish, cheating man whore and serial adulterer, Newt Gingrich.

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Polling Shows Romney With Big Lead in Florida

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Mitt Romney

Polling Shows Romney With Big Lead in Florida
Newt cratering
Nate Silver is now projecting mega-millionaire Mitt Romney to win the Florida GOP primary; Newt Gingrich’s surge has evaporated.

Is it another case of the dreaded Sarah Palin Kiss of Death?

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Man Whore Endorses Male Harlot | The Cain-Gingrich Endorsement

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Family Values Whores, Republican Hypocrisy, Right Wing Crackpots, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Hypocrites

The Republican “family values” team of liars, cheats, philanderers, crooks, adulterers and whores are joining forces to save America from moral decline. Praised be Jebus!

The Cain-Gingrich Endorsement
The loonier far right celebrities are lining up to show their support for Newt Gingrich — Chuck Norris, Sarah Palin, and now Mr. 999, Herman Cain.

WEST PALM BEACH — Herman Cain will be a surprise guest at tonight’s Lincoln Day Dinner at the Kravis Center to endorse Newt Gingrich, the Palm Beach Post has confirmed.

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The Skewed “Values” of The American Religious Reich

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Capitalism, Communism, Religious Death Dealers, Religious Fanatics, Religious Fascisim, Religious Fascists, Religious Insanity, Religious Racketeers, Religious Reich

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Newt Gingrich’s Crackpot Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theories

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Crusader Newt Gingrich, Catholic Crusaders, Catholic Fascist, Pamela Geller, Pamela Geller Corruption Money, Pamela Geller Hatemonger, Pamela Geller Right Wing Lunatic

Newt Gingrich’s Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theories
Crazy bigoted fear-mongering
Via:-Charles Johnson

With all the focus on Newt Gingrich’s race-baiting and “big ideas,” one thing that hasn’t gotten much notice yet: his outrageous anti-Muslim statements.

There’s a reason why Newt was scheduled to speak at hate group leader Pamela Geller’s “Ground Zero Mosque” demonstration in New York, and there’s a reason why she endorses him for President. On this subject, Gingrich sounds exactly like Geller.

Here’s Gingrich today on The Janet Mefferd Show, explaining that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, secular judges, “religious bigots who want to drive Christianity out of public life,” and “elites” are conspiring with the “Organization of Islamic Countries” to advance the cause of radical Islam.

Newt Gingrich with hate group leader Pamela GellerGingrich: Well, I think that we have to really, from my perspective you don’t have an issue of religious tolerance you have an elite which favors radical Islam over Christianity and Judaism. You have constant pressure by secular judges and by religious bigots to drive Christianity out of public life and to establish a secular state except when it comes to radical Islam, where all of the sudden they start making excuses for Sharia, they start making excuses that we really shouldn’t use certain language. Remember, the Organization of Islamic Countries is dedicated to preventing anyone, anywhere in the world from commenting negatively about Islam, so they would literally eliminate our free speech and there were clearly conversations held that implied that the US Justice Department would begin to enforce censorship against American citizens to protect radical Islam, I think that’s just an amazing concept frankly.

Here are a couple of facts to counteract this bizarre fear-mongering conspiracy theory that Newt’s parroting directly from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer:

First, Gingrich has the name of the organization wrong; it’s the Organization of the Islamic Conference (which shows the depth of Gingrich’s knowledge). (Update: recently changed to “Organization of Islamic Cooperation.”)

Second, the Obama administration has come out strongly against OIC-sponsored UN resolutions barring the defamation of religion. The idea that the Justice Department is going to start “enforcing censorship” against people who criticize Islam is just … stupid.

Newt is spouting a cartoon-like version of the reality, with Muslims as the boogeymen, and the right wing eats this stuff up.

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Newt Gingrich | Dangerous Right Wing Freakshow

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Extreme Right, Reich Wing, Right Wing, Wingnuts

Via:-|Noam Sheizaf

Newt Gingrich: The most dangerous man in DC

There won’t be a real difference between another Obama term and a possible Romney presidency. But Gingrich – with his ties to the Israeli right, destructive track record from the 1990s and very personal connection to Netanyahu – could turn out to be a real nightmare

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. More electable than Romney (photo: Gage Skidmore / CC-BY-SA-3.0)

Watching the American primaries makes for a mix of fun and moments of deep anxiety. Most of the time it’s like a good sports match, but every now and then you are reminded that the identity of the winner might have a real and clear impact on your life. After all, Israel has stopped being a foreign affairs issue in Washington a long time ago. Our very local politics are part of the strange and unpredictable American culture war; and – to quote Dimi Reider – our policies are often shaped by the myths, values and fears of people living far-far away.

After signaling Israel as a topic through which they can score easy points against the administration, the Republicans are engaged in an all-out competition over who is more Zionist. Some of the ideas they are promoting would put them in the hard right in Israel, somewhere between the radical settlers and the heirs of Kahane. Often, they simply betray a very misinformed and shallow view of the political reality. For example, even a right-wing Israeli government would hesitate before following Rick Santorum’s advice to annex the West Bank, since it would constitute a formal adoption of apartheid.

The two remaining viable candidates, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, are more knowledgeable and less prone to statements whose meaning they don’t fully understand.

Romney is a careful man. Seeing himself as the “inevitable” candidate, he is careful not to box himself in positions that could make his life as president harder. The former governor hasn’t committed to moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; he has refrained making degrading remarks like the one Gingrich made about the Palestinians, or from advocating ethnic cleansing like Mike Huckabee.

I would even go so far as to say that I don’t see a great difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Except for a brief moment in the first year of his presidency, Obama has continued with the approach of previous administrations, providing a diplomatic umbrella for the Israeli occupation while trying – with varying degrees of success – to somewhat slow settlement construction.

President Romney is likely to continue this path, while advocating the renewal of the “peace process” on Israel’s terms. One could even argue that a “moderate” Republican president would actually help progressives by forcing the Democrats to attack the administration’s Middle East policy from the left – something they are reluctant to do now. But even if you don’t buy this, given the last three years, there is little reason to believe that Romney would be that different from Obama or George W. Bush on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Newt Gingrich as the American Ariel Sharon

Newt Gingrich is a different story. Gingrich – a personal friend of Benjamin Netanyahu and a protégé of right-wing gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson – is a real supporter of the settlements and the occupation; his views of the Palestinians are as distorted as they come; and he has shown his inclination to be more “pro-Israel” than Israelis themselves, when he helped Netanyahu in the 1990s in his efforts against the Rabin government and the peace process.

America’s current policies are bad enough, but Gingrich is smart enough, well-connected to the Israeli right and ruthless enough to cause way more damage than any other president we have seen. Other candidates – especially those on the evangelical right – seem to be just saying anything that sounds conservative on the Israeli issue. If elected, their inflammatory statements will have to meet the test of political reality. Newt, on the other hand, seems to mean what he is saying. His madness is all too real. By following one of his “out-of-the-box” ideas, he will set the region on fire.

The common wisdom is that Gingrich is unelectable. I find this to be only half true. Of the two leading Republican candidates, I think Gingrich is the more dangerous one. He is the one who could lose big time, but also pull a stunning upset against a sitting president. Romney, on the other hand, seems like the guy who would finish an honorable second.

I shared this thought with some American friends and they all dismissed it, saying that the Democrats would thank their lucky stars if Gingrich were to beat Romney. Perhaps. But to me, Gingrich seems like the American Ariel Sharon – an unelectable, unpopular politician, who came back from the political desert to lead his party due to unique circumstances, and during the time of national crisis was able to change the national conversation and win elections in a landslide.

Ariel Sharon was a corrupt outsider with a strange personal history and a reputation for dark backroom deals – but ironically, at a certain point all this played in his favor: Nothing his political rivals threw at him helped, because the public had already heard all the allegations – and more – against him. Israeli voters, made anxious by the second Intifada, were ready to give Sharon a shot. Wouldn’t the American public do the same during the worst economic crisis in almost a century?

The prospect of Newt Gingrich in the White House and Benjamin Netanyahu (or Lieberman?) in the Prime Minister’s Office, unlikely as it may seem now, is something that could keep me up at night.

Read Also: 2012: Netanyahu’s shadow war for the GOP begins? The strategic use of the “anti-Israeli” label in US politics

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Gingrich Demands Yahoo Hooters As Backup

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Reich Wing, Wingnuts

Gingrich Can’t Debate Without a Bunch of Hooting Yahoos to Back Him Up
Newt pouts, threatens to skip debates
Via Charles Johnson

Newt Gingrich is raging at the media again, for shutting down the hooting yahoos who would normally cheer his far right race-baiting: Gingrich Threatens to Skip Debates if Audiences Can’t Participate.

Mr. Gingrich clearly noticed something was off, too. “We’re going to serve notice on future debates,” he told Fox. “We’re just not going to allow that to happen. That’s wrong. The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”

For a self-proclaimed constitutional expert and historian, Newt Gingrich has a very weird concept of “free speech.”

But since Gingrich is touting himself as the only candidate who can debate Obama, he should be aware that cheers and applause are forbidden in debates during the general election, by order of the Commission on Presidential Debates. Maybe he should skip those too.

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Romney Attacks Gingrich’s Record of Ethics Violations, Lobbyist Work

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Newt Gingrich Unethical, Race Baiters, Right Wing Crazies

Romney Attacks Gingrich’s Record of Ethics Violations, Lobbyist Work
Expect more race-baiting too
Why did it take Mitt Romney so long to bring up Newt Gingrich’s record of ethics violations? Mitt Romney: Newt Gingrich is a ‘failed leader,’ ‘disgrace’.

As the GOP’s anointed successor, Romney got overconfident and relaxed on these issues, while Newt Gingrich skillfully played on the race grievances of the GOP base. Now Romney is struggling to get back on even footing with someone he didn’t think would be competition.

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. — Mitt Romney landed here Sunday with a simple message: Newt Gingrich is a failure and a fraud. And a disgrace. And a hapless showman.

Standing under a brilliant orange Florida sunset, Romney delivered his longest sustained critique of the South Carolina primary winner to date — ticking through a list as if he were reading off Gingrich’s Wikipedia page, and undercutting each item as he got to it.

“Speaker Gingrich has also been a leader,” the former Massachusetts governor said. “He was a leader for four years as speaker of the House. And at the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader and he had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know whether you knew that, he actually resigned after four years, in disgrace.

Romney continued: “He was investigated over an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that and then his fellow Republicans, 88 percent of his Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of successful leadership.”

Then Romney got into Gingrich’s post-congressional career.

“Over the last 15 years since he left the House, he talks about great bold movements and ideas,” he told the crowd of several hundred people gathered at a building materials company here. “Well, what’s he been doing for 15 years? He’s been working as a lobbyist, yeah, he’s been working as a lobbyist and selling influence around Washington.”

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Romney Dives Into Racist Sewer With Gingrich

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Newt Gingrich Catholic Fascist, Religious Right

Mitt Romney Joins the Race-Baiters
This is what he has to do to win
What can you even say about this? Mitt Romney clearly understands that the GOP base is responding to Gingrich’s ugly race-baiting, so he’s jumping right into the sewer with Newt.

TPM’s Benjy Sarlin is at a Romney Rally in Ormond Beach, Florida and tweets that the former Gov. said “I think it’s time we had someone in the White House who knows how to create jobs because he’s had a job.”

The Republican Party is sick to its core.

UPDATE at 1/22/12 9:37:39 pm

Here’s why Mitt Romney is diving into the gutter with Newt Gingrich: according to the latest Insider Advantage polling in Florida, he’s behind Gingrich by nine points.

Newt Gingrich – 34.4 % Mitt Romney – 25.6 %

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Newt Gingrich’s Wife a Whore Says Religious Reich Leader James Dobson

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Uncategorized

With the American Religious Reich cuddling up to gay-hating, woman-hating, sodomy-obsessed Catholic fascist Rick Santorum, comes the inexorable fundi demonisation of potetional GOP presidential contenders.

We already know that the GOP’s Dominionist wing wants to re-criminalize homosexuality and control the wombs of every woman in America, but we can now officially say that slut-shaming is part of the evangelical belief system political calculus as well.

James Dobson, the decrepit founder of Focus on the Anus Family was one of the fundie luminaries invited to a Texas ranch with 15o other fundie “big thinkers” (I use that term very loosely) to figure out who they were going to back as the anti-Romney. They settled on Santorum as their man, but the real news is what Dobson said in ruling out Newt “serial adulterer” Gingrich. (The Politico):

“Dobson first talked about how great Santorum is,” recalled one source, who had first-hand knowledge of Dobson’s comment. “(He said) ‘I want to tell you that I’ve gotten to know Karen (Santorum) and she is just lovely. She set aside two professional careers to raise these seven children. She would make a fabulous first lady role model. And Newt Gingrich’s wife, she was a mistress for 8 years.”

Another source confirmed the account, and said Dobson concluded the sentiment about Callista Gingrich with, “Who do you want as your first lady?

“It was like a chill (set into) the room,” said one source.

The last time I checked, it takes two to tango, and Gingrich’s “Little Newt” was slutting around with Calista before she joined him in holy matrimony. How come that bit of business doesn’t come under fire in the House of Dobson?

The GOP is completely out-of-control when it comes to misogyny in this election cycle. It’s so bad that I don’t expect Newt — who is pandering to the hard right with every ounce of his being — will even bother to publicly defend his wife on this front.

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Theocon Fascists Decide on Catholic Fanatic Rick Santorum as Their “Stop Romney” Nominee

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Fascism, Catholic Right, Religious Right, Santorum

Theocrats Decide on Rick Santorum as Their “Stop Romney” Nominee

Theocon fascists endorse Catholic fanatic Rick Santorum

Check it out at the New York Times.  The story quotes the usual suspects including the FRC’s Tony Perkins, who is well known for purchasing David Duke‘s mailing list.  The leading theocrats met in Texas to discuss stopping Romney’s campaign and coming to a consensus.  The theocrats were concerned about Newt Gingrich‘s multiple marriages and attacks on Bain Capital.

They really don’t have anywhere to go, since they will all suck it up and support Mitt Romney in the general anyway as Peter LaBarbera stated in a tweet:

.@lloydletta I’d vote for . But in primary we socialcon Repubs need to find a -life AND pro-freedom-to-oppose-homo’y cand.

It would have been funny to get the results of this if Michele Bachmann were still in the race.  Her campaign torpedoed even among the leviticus crowd.
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Newt Gingrich Plays Catholic Martyr

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Fascist, Newt Gingrich Buffoon, Newt Gingrich Family Values Adulterer, Newt Gingrich Serial Adulterer

Gingrich Doubles Down on Victimhood Propaganda
Right wing grievance mongering on steroids
By Charles Johnson

Things aren’t looking good for Newt Gingrich, so he really has no choice but to double down on hatred, bigotry, and ridiculous victimhood inversion memes: Gingrich Touts War Against Christianity, Gay Adoption In South Carolina.

Here comes that old chestnut about a nonexistent “war on Christianity” again.

GINGRICH: The challenge we have is anti-Christian bigotry that has forced the Catholic Church to close its adoption service in Massachusetts because it actually wanted to follow the tenets of Christianity. And you look all all around this country and you see again and again, whether its a judge knocking down a cross… I am your President, if you help me win this election, we will not tolerate a speech dictatorship in this country against Christianity.

Of course, Gingrich is simply lying about the Catholic Church being “forced” to close its adoption services. No one “forced” them to do anything. These organizations were prohibited from using taxpayer funding while discriminating against same-sex couples — and in response, they chose to close down their adoption services themselves, because their anti-gay religious ideology is more important to them than the welfare of the children they’re supposedly helping.

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Rick Santorium Vs The Pill

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Rick Santorum Is Insane, What is a Santorum

Santorum v. Griswald

In 1961 Estelle Griswold was arrested for giving contraception to a married couple in Connecticut. Background on Griswold here. An op-ed I wrote on Griswold in 2005 here. Irin Carmen draws voters a picture at Salon:

It’s pretty basic: Rick Santorum is coming for your contraception. Any and all of it. And while he may not be alone in his opposition to non-procreative sex, he is certainly the most honest about it — as he himself acknowledged in the interview.

This is important, because while reproductive rights are always cast in terms of pro or against a woman’s right to an abortion and in what circumstances, even liberals are surprised to find out what social conservatives really want to do about contraception. Liberals are even willing to cast the proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood and all Title X programs (a position that has become mainstream in Republican circles) as an abortion issue, when it is actually about contraception. (The Hyde Amendment already bans almost all federal abortion funding.) So is this about “babies” or is this about sex? Rick Santorum isn’t even pretending it’s (only) about childbearing.

Speaking to ABC News’ Jake Tapper, Santorum recently reaffirmed his opposition to Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision that struck down a ban on discussing or providing contraception to married couples, and established a right to privacy that would later be integral to Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas. (It is generally better-known how Santorum feels about gay people.) That would be the case where the majority asked, “Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.” Rick Santorum disagrees. He thinks, using the currently popular states’ rights parlance, that “the state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have.” This is a view Santorum has held at least since 2003.

Ninety-nine percent of American women have used birth control… and most of them are using it with American men, so, you know, there’s that. But Santorum is a devout Catholic—which means he goes to mass weekly, doesn’t use birth control, and has committed adultery with Newt Gingrich—so maybe he should get a pass on his obsession with Griswold since American Catholics don’t use birth control. Tell that to the 98% of sexually active Catholics who use birth control—including, presumably, America’s most famous “devout Catholic,” Callista Gingrich.

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The GOP’s Race to the Dark Ages

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Buffoons, Catholic Fascist, Rick Santorum is Gay, Santorum

The GOP’s Race to the Dark Ages

Rick Santorum thinks Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that invalidated criminal bans on contraception, was wrongly decided. He’s off the deep-end on this one, and completely out of touch even with his fellow Catholics, but his statement provoked an exchange at last night’s debate about whether states should be permitted to ban birth control.

  • Mitt Romney feigned surprise — and emphasized that he would be absolutely, positively against banning birth control — but the moderators failed to ask him about his enthusiastic support for “personhood” bills that would effectively ban certain kinds of birth control (not to mention fertility treatments). Santorum turned the question to be all about the Griswold ruling on a “penumbra” of rights created under the constitution, anathema to conservatives because of how it underpins Roe v. Wade, and, as Chris Geidner points out, Lawrence v. Texas. They claim these rights are not actually found in the Constitution but were created by “activist judges” — this from the people who think the 14th Amendment guarantees equal protectionto fertilized eggs.It seemed that the moderateors, George Stephanopolous and Diane Sawyer, threw out those questions for sport: after all, criminalizing birth control would require either the passage of a “personhood” bill, which couldn’t be pulled off even in Mississippi, or the overturning of Griswoldcombined with the political will in a state to pass a ban on birth control, quite possibly one of the most popular inventions in the history of the world. (Don’t you think Big Pharma makes a bundle on birth control pills? They’d squash such a thing faster than you can say progestin.)That’s not to say that Santorum’s, or any of the Republicans’ views on this issue aren’t dangerous, or to minimize the absurdity that in 2012, we had a presidential debate about whether to ban birth control. For real? Well, yes, for real. Some conservative think tankers argue there has been a “war on fertility.”

    But there was another question, which garners far less notice, that raises far more immediate concerns about the Republicans’ designs on birth control, and how they exploit religion to create political conflicts where none do or should exist. In answering a question about gay marriage, Newt Gingrich said:

    You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?

    The bigotry question goes both ways. And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media.

    Oh, wah, wah. Gingrich’s complaints have been covered here at RD, and a throrough investigation of his claims reveal them to be an effort to create a right that doesn’t exist in the Constitution. (Gasp!) Gingrich’s first reference was to Catholic Charities shutting down its adoption services entirely rather than risk having to place a child with a same-sex couple. Just like Jesus would’ve done. But his second reference goes more to the contraception question. He’s referring to the Department of Health and Human Services decision not to renew a contract with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide services to victims of sex trafficking, because the Bishops would not refer victims, many as young as 12 and brutalized by rape, for a full range of reproductive care, including contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion. Conservatives jumped on this decision as supposed proof of the Obama administration’s anti-Catholic bias. Catholics beg to differ.

    The right to free exercise of religion, a First Amendment right, does not entitle a religious organization to a government contract. Nor does it entitle religious organizations to have every one of their beliefs accommodated by the government. The USCCB wants the Obama administration, for example, to exempt all colleges, universities, and hospitals from the requirement under the Affordable Care Act that their health insurance provide employees co-pay-free birth control, even though churches themselves are already exempt. A Catholic and an evangelical university have sued HHS over the rule, citing “religious liberty.”

    Republicans have been making their intentions on access to birth control clear since they began campaigning to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. They say it’s about federal funding going to abortions, but that’s already banned by the Hyde Amendment. The funding they’d eliminate is funding for family planning services (which would help prevent unintended pregnancies and abortions, but who cares). They say this, too, is a matter of religious conscience, because they want no taxpayer money going to Planned Parenthood just because it does perform abortions, even if the money doesn’t directly fund them.

    After the Mississippi personhood measure failed, anti-choice fans of an “incrementalist” approach cheered. They fear a personhood measure would be a faulty challenge to Roe should one reach the Supreme Court, damaging their efforts to end legal abortion. They prefer slowly chipping away at access to abortion through the record number of restrictions enacted at the state level last year.

    There’s an incrementalist approach to restricting access to birth control, too. It hinges on the “religious liberty” argument, and Gingrich is right about one thing: this tactic deserves more scrutiny than it has received.

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Crazy Michele Bachmann ‘Steps Aside’ For Equally Unhinged Rick Santorum

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Kooks, Religious Right, Theocon Fascists, Theocrats

Bye Bye Bachmann
Bye Bye Bachmann
by vjack
Michele Bachmann
It is all over for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). She did not get her miracle after all. Jesus was not in her corner like she thought. And that is really good news for the reality-based community.
As she announced that she was dropping out of the presidential race following her poor showing in Iowa, Bachmann repeatedly referred to her god, you know, the god who wanted her to run for president in the first place.

Surrounded by her family, Mrs. Bachmann invoked her faith frequently. “I look forward to the next chapter in God’s plan,” she said. “He has one for each of us, you know.”

Did her god change its mind? Did she simply misunderstand her god? Of course not. Running a losing campaign based on lies was exactly what her god wanted of her. I mean, what other explanation could there be?

I know some atheists will miss Bachmann. Her antics were undeniably entertaining. I’ll certainly grant you that. But we must remember that she represents something dangerous: American theocracy. You see, Michele Bachmann is a true Christian extremist. Keeping her far away from political power of any sort is a good thing.

Anyone remotely in touch with reality – which, of course, ruled out Michele Bachmann and husband “Marcia” Bachmann (pictured above) – would have known that Michele Bachmann didn’t had a snowball’s chance in Hell of moving forward beyond Iowa in the GOP presidential clown car contest. And as one blogger noted, when Bachmann claims she heard God telling her to run for president, she should have asked “president of what?” In any event, in the wake of her disastrous showing in Iowa, Bachmann has been forced to at least briefly get in touch with reality and the result is that she is suspending – translated, ending – her presidential campaign. Frankly, given Bachmann’s unbridled homophobia and her marketing of reparative therapy through “Marcia” Bachmann’s “Christian counseling clinics,” I find it difficult to have even a shred of sympathy for her. Here are some highlights from Politico:

Michele Bachmann announced Wednesday morning that she would drop her GOP presidential bid after a sixth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday. “Last night, the people in Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to step aside,” Bachmann told supporters in West Des Moines.

She did not endorse one of her rivals, but said instead that Republicans “must rally” around whoever the party chooses as its “standard-bearer” in the race.

Her departure will give a boost to Rick Santorum, whose recent surge put him in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney on Tuesday.

Heading into South Carolina, where evangelicals and social conservatives dominate the pool of potential voters, Santorum will be in a better position to consolidate that support. Santorum’s hoping to establish himself as the new — and perhaps final — conservative alternative to Romney

[H]er campaign was beset by a string of gaffes — starting with the assertion at her campaign launch that Waterloo was the home of John Wayne, when it was actually the hometown of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Another blow came when Ed Rollins, her campaign manager, departed and began speaking out against Bachmann on cable TV and in the media.
Heading into the fall, Bachmann tried to derail the then-front-runner Perry by attacking him for mandating the HPV vaccine Gardasil. But the blowback of her claims that the vaccine caused mental retardation hurt her as well

Since her decline began, Bachmann had been banking on a strong finish with Iowa’s social conservative and evangelical voters. Last month, when Iowa conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats endorsed Santorum and called Bachmann asking her to consider dropping out, it became clear that she would not be the top choice of social conservatives in the state.

Bachmann is up for reelection to the House in November, but did not make any announcement regarding her plans for that race. Congressional observers and those in her district say she’d be a virtual lock for reelection if she decides to run.

With Bachmann out of the running, the equally unhinged Rick Santorum will be the short term beneficiary. However, one can only hope that as a result of Santorum’s new high profile, the media and his opponents will seriously focus on his significant baggage and far out of the mainstream positions on divorce, contraception and, of course, treatment of LGBT citizens. As for Bachmann’s re-election to her House seat, I hope and pray that her constituents may have waken up to the fact that she’s a huge liability to her district and the State of Minnesota.

https://theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com/

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Newt Gingrich, Crackpot “Historian”

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Uncategorized

Uber Buffoon and Serial Philanderer Newt Gingrich Turns Pseudo- “Historian”

Article image

Newt Gingrich has risen in the polls over past weeks while maintaining the traveling salesman routine that had previously made him a punch line.

Since entering the race in May, he has released a new documentary, and now has published his newest book The Battle of the Crater.

However this new book is leaving many people confused due to its lack of correct historical facts.

Read it at Mother Jones
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Newt Gingrich | Catholic Facsist Theocrat

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic America, Catholic Crimes Against Humanity, Catholic Crusaders, Catholic Fanatics, Catholic Fascisim, Catholic Fascist, Catholic Hitler, Catholic Inquisition, Catholic Lunatics, Catholic Power, Catholic Right, Catholic Terror, The Age of Blasphemy, Theocon, Theocon Fascists, Theocons, Theocracy

Gingrich Promises Presidential Commission On Ending The Separation Of Church/State

Catholic Crusader Newt Gingrich has published a document vowing that “on Day One” of his presidency he will create a commission to investigate any attempt to enforce the separation of church and state. He also promises that he will thwart any attempt to stop the religious bullying of LGBT students.

Effectively, Gingrich is saying that he endorses the right of Christians to express “their conscience” and harass, threaten, bully, and beat LGBT kids if God says they should.

 

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Gingrich To Force Women to Birth Rapists’ Babies

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Newt Gingrich, Newt Gingrich is a Vicious Monster, Religious Fascists, Religious Sadists, The Age of Blasphemy

Gingrich: I’ll Force Women to Bear Rapists’ Babies

The Republican Party’s monstrous anti-choice positions
Via:- Charles Johnson

If anyone ever asks again why I left … no, ran away from the right, here’s one of the main reasons: the utter heartlessness of a party so morally bankrupt that it would force women to bear the babies of rapists and incestuous family members. Gingrich: I ‘Wouldn’t Make Exceptions’ For Abortions In Cases Of Rape Or Incest.

With Gingrich now changing his previously stated views, the majority of the Republican candidates for President are onboard with this monstrous position — a position not arrived at through reason or rationality, but through religious fanaticism. Bad craziness indeed.

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The Crazy, Paranoid World of Ron Paul

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in John Birch Society Crazies, John Birch Society Cult, Ron Paul Conspiracy Nut

Ron Paul’s World

By JAMES KIRCHICK

Earlier this week, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, said that he would not vote for his fellow presidential candidate Ron Paul should Paul become the Republican nominee. The immediate cause of this dissension – highly unusual in a party primary – was the repugnant newsletters that Paul published from the late 1970s until the mid-1990s, which contain a raft of bigoted statements. Paul has denied authorship and implausibly claims not to know who wrote them.

The story of the newsletters is not new. In 1996, Lefty Morris, Paul’s Democratic Congressional opponent, publicized a handful, and in January 2008, I published a long piece in The New Republic based on my discovery of batches of the newsletters held at the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Yet Paul’s popularity in the prelude to the Iowa caucuses, where many polls put him in first place, has renewed attention to their revolting contents.

Recent media reports have tended to focus on the newsletters’ bigotry, which was primarily aimed at blacks, and to a smaller extent at gay people and Jews. The newsletters have complicated the situation for writers who have defended Paul, who point out that there is no trace of such prejudice in his public statements. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast, for instance, writing last week about “rethinking” his original endorsement of Paul, suggests that

A fringe protest candidate need not fully address issues two decades ago that do not in any way reflect the campaign he has run or the issues on which he has made an appeal. But a man who could win the Iowa caucuses and is now third in national polls has to have a plausible answer for this.

In a long, anguished post on the Web site of The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf wrote that “the question is complicated by facts not in evidence and inherently subjective judgments about politics, race and the norms that govern how much a candidate’s bygone associations matter.” As long as one accepts the most charitable explanation for Paul’s opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act (it infringes on private property rights) or re-litigation of the Civil War (the government should have bought and released the slaves instead), perhaps there’s something to that argument. Though Paul’s penchant for promoting the cause of secession puts these stances in a dubious context.

But there is one major aspect of the newsletters, no less disturbing than their racist content, that has always been present in Paul’s rhetoric, in every forum: a penchant for conspiracy theories.

Ron Paul at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Feb. 11, 2011.
Jonathan Ernst/ReutersRon Paul at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Feb. 11, 2011.

In a 1990 C-Span appearance, taped between Congressional stints, Paul was asked by a caller to comment on the “treasonous, Marxist, alcoholic dictators that pull the strings in our country.” Rather than roll his eyes, Paul responded,“there’s pretty good evidence that those who are involved in the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations usually end up in positions of power. And I believe this is true.”

Paul then went on to stress the negligible differences between various “Rockefeller Trilateralists.” The notion that these three specific groups — the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller family — run the world has been at the center of far-right conspiracy theorizing for a long time, promoted especially by the extremist John Birch Society, whose 50th anniversary gala dinner Paul keynoted in 2008.

Paul is proud of his association with the society, telling the Times Magazine in 2007, “I have a lot of friends in the John Birch Society. They’re generally well educated, and they understand the Constitution.” In 1998, Paul appeared in a Birch Society documentary which lauded a bill he had introduced to force American withdrawal from the United Nations. With ominous music in the background and images of United Nations peacekeepers patrolling deserted streets, the film warned that the world body would destroy American private property rights, replace the Constitution with the United Nations Charter and burn churches to the ground.

Paul has frequently attacked the alleged New World Order that “elitist” cabals, like the Trilateral Commission and the Rockefeller family, in conjunction with “globalist” organizations, like the United Nations and the World Bank, wish to foist on Americans. In a 2006 column published on the Web site of Lew Rockwell (his former Congressional chief of staff and the man widely suspected of being the ghostwriter of the newsletters, although he denied it to me), Paul addressed the alleged “Nafta Superhighway.” This is a system of pre-existing and proposed roads from Mexico to Canada that conspiracy theorists claim is part of a nefarious transnational attempt to open America’s borders and merge the United States with its neighbors into a supra-national entity. Paul wrote that the ultimate goal of the project was an “integrated North American Union” — yet one more bugbear of conspiracy theorists — which “would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.”

In his newsletters, Paul expressed support for far-right militia movements, which at the time saw validation for their extreme, anti-government beliefs in events like the F.B.I. assault on the Branch Davidians and at Ruby Ridge. Paul was eager to fan their paranoia and portray himself as the one man capable of doing anything about it politically. Three months before the Oklahoma City bombing, in an item for the Ron Paul Survival Report titled, “10 Militia Commandments,” he offered advice to militia members, including that they, “Keep the group size down,” “Keep quiet and you’re harder to find,” “Leave no clues,” “Avoid the phone as much as possible,” and “Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

The closest Paul has come in his public statements to endorsing violence against the government was during an interview in 2007, when he was asked about Ed and Elaine Brown, a New Hampshire couple who had refused to pay federal income taxes. In the summer of that year, they instigated a five-month armed standoff with United States marshals, whom Ed Brown accused of being part of a “Zionist, Illuminati, Freemason movement.” Echoing a speech he had just delivered on the House floor, Paul praised the pair as “heroic” “true patriots,” likened them to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and compared them favorably to “zombies,” that is, those of us who “just go along” and pay income tax.

Finally, there’s Paul’s stance on the most pervasive conspiracy theory in America today, the idea that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated not by Al Qaeda, but by the federal government or some other shadowy force. While Paul has never explicitly endorsed this claim, there is a reason so many 9/11 “truthers” flock to his campaign. In a recent YouTube video posted by a leading 9/11 conspiracy group, “We Are Change,” Paul is asked, “Why won’t you come out about the truth about 9/11?”

Rather than answer, say, that the “9/11 Commission already investigated the attacks,” or ask the questioner what particular element of “the truth” remained unknown, Paul knowingly replied, “Because I can’t handle the controversy, I have the I.M.F., the Federal Reserve to deal with, the I.R.S. to deal with, no because I just have more, too many things on my plate. Because I just have too much to do.”

Paul knows where his bread is buttered. He regularly appears on the radio program of Alex Jones, a vocal 9/11 and New World Order conspiracy theorist based in his home state of Texas. On Jones’s show earlier this month, Paul alleged that the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador on United States soil was a “propaganda stunt” perpetrated by the Obama administration.

In light of the newsletters and his current rhetoric, it is no wonder that Paul has attracted not just prominent racists, but seemingly every conspiracy theorist in America. The title of one of Paul’s newsletter series – the Ron Paul Survival Report – was a conscious appeal to followers of the “survivalist” movement of the 1990s, whose ideology blended white supremacy and anti-government militancy in preparation for what Paul himself termed the “coming race war.”

As Paul told The Times last week, he has no interest in dissuading the various extremists from backing his campaign, which is hardly surprising considering he’s spent three decades cultivating their support. Paul’s shady associations are hardly “bygone” and the “facts” of his dangerous conspiracy-mongering are very much “in evidence.” Paul has not just marinated in a stew of far-right paranoia; he is one of the chefs.

Of course, it is impossible to know what Ron Paul truly thinks about black or gay people or the other groups so viciously disparaged in his newsletters. What we do know with absolute certainty, however, is that Ron Paul is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who regularly imputes the worst possible motives to the very government he wants to lead.

James Kirchick is a contributing editor for The New Republic and a fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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Conservatives Dumping on Loony Newt Gingrich

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Crazy Newt Gingrich, Political Whore Newt Gingrich

We like to take the piss out of a self-serving buffoons like Newt Gingrich – the ‘family values’ politician who has none – but it seems that conservatives prefer to take a piss on him!  
National Review Devoting Entire Issue To Bashing Newt Gingrich
Ooh. This promises to be fun:

From TPM:

It wasn’t enough for the National Review’s editors to just write a scathing anti-endorsement warning Republican voters that Newt Gingrich is a general election Hindenburg. No, they’re devoting an entire issue to tearing down the frontrunner.

The cover depicts Gingrich as Marvin The Martian, a shot at his longtime obsession with big-ticket space exploration projects, and features a cover story by Mark Steyn on his “Big Government Follies.”

If Newt wins the nomination, the DNC won’t have to do anything except point at the National Review and thank them for doing all the work.

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Prolific Profligate: The Serial Hypocrisies of Newt Gingrich

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Newt Gingrich, Newt Gingrich Adulterer, Newt Gingrich Hypocrite, Newt Gingrich Self-serving Hypocrite, Newt Gingrich Serial Adulterer

Newt Gingrich - Caricature
Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

Adultery For Me, But Not For Thee: A Master List of Gingrich’s Hypocrisies

Newt Gingrich is no stranger to hypocrisies. It’s just that his own self-righteousness often gets in the way of admitting to them: “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” the family-values candidate once famously said about his multiple extra-marital affairs. So in the service of airing out other yawning gaps between Newt’s words and deeds that may have emerged when the candidate was too busy loving America, TNR has compiled the following index:

On Christian moralizing: Gingrich’s litany of infidelities has been widely reported, as has his habit of leaving wives for mistresses. Of the affair that he carried on with a volunteer during his first campaign in 1974, one of his aides said, “We’d have won in 1974 if we could have kept him out of the office, screwing her on the desk.” But that hasn’t stopped him from claiming positions of moral loftiness, decrying the impending downfall of our society, and penning books arguing, “There is no attack on American culture more deadly and more historically dishonest than the secular effort to drive God out of America’s public life.” His second wife, in a 2010 interview with Esquire, claimed, “He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connected. … If you believe that, then yeah, you can run for president.”

On shady book deals: In the late 1980s, Gingrich launched a vicious attack on Democratic Speaker Jim Wright, arguing that bulk sales of his book had been crafted to avoid laws limiting outside income for members of Congress. By the mid-90s, however, Gingrich found himself in a strikingly similar position, as it came to light that he had received a $4.5 million advance from HarperCollins in a two-book deal. Then, in the spirit of one doing one better, it later came out that one of Gingrich’s charities had bought the books en masse.

On Obamacare and death panels: In July 2009, Newt Gingrich was director of a health care think tank and a staunch advocate of so-called “death panels,” writing, “If [end-of-life-counseling] was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.” But a year later, as he weighed his presidential aspirations, Gingrich took a different tack on Obama’s plan to reimburse doctors for such consultations: “You’re asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia.”

On the housing crisis: In the Bloomberg-Washington Post debate, Newt called, with a straight face, for the jailing of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank: “In Barney Frank’s case,” he advised, “go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at—at Freddie Mac. … Everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness which is weakening this country.” All that rage at lobbyists for the housing agencies … from a man whom Freddie Mac paid between $1.6 and $1.8 million for his “advice as a historian.” Which definitely isn’t lobbying, and would never qualify as the sort of relationship that he just suggested was worthy of being jailed for.

On drug policy: As a good child of the ’60s, Newt smoked pot, and as a young congressman in 1981, he authored a bill to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. But Gingrich’s more recent stated methods for dealing with drug offenders might have placed his younger self in a tight spot. Just last week, he argued that when it comes to dealing with illegal drugs, “Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that,” ostensibly endorsing the idea that anyone caught with 18 ounces of cannabis face mandatory death by hanging.

On corruption: Newt led Republicans to power in 1994 in part by blasting Democrats as being hopelessly corrupt. But soon after, Gingrich engaged in his own congressional corruption, getting slammed by the House Ethics Committee on a multitude of charges: of laundering donations through charities, of using a charity called “Learning for Earning” to pay the salary of a staffer writing a Newt Gingrich biography, and of lying to the ethics committee. Gingrich eventually had to pay a $300,000 fine for his transgressions.

On the Clinton impeachment: While leading impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton for lying about an extra-marital affair, Newt was … having an extra-marital affair. When he was later asked whether he considered himself to be inhabiting a “glass house” during the proceedings, he reluctantly agreed, but defended himself by saying, “I think you have to look at whether or not people have to be perfect in order to be leaders. I don’t think I’m perfect. I admitted I had problems. I admitted that I sought forgiveness.”

Thomas Stackpole, Darius Tahir, and Jarad Vary are interns at The New Republic.

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The Insane Ravings of Newt Gingrich

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Newt Gingrich is Insane, Wingnuts

10 of The Craziest Things Newt Gingrich Has Ever Said

            Among other things, Newt worries that the country will become both atheistic and Muslim.

December 8, 2011  |

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is the latest not-Romney to capture the attention of GOP primary voters. With a solid lead in three early primary states, he’s giving the erstwhile front-runner a serious run for his money.  While Newt may be the flavor of the moment, the Iowa caucuses are just three weeks away, so while he’s behind in fund-raising and has had trouble organizing a nationwide campaign, it’s impossible to count him out.

In light of his resurgence, let’s take a trip down memory lane and examine some of the most absurd statements Gingrich has made over the years. Rehashing every outrageous comment by Gingrich would be a lengthy endeavor, so this is not a comprehensive list.

1. No free speech for you!

In 2006, at an awards dinner honoring the preservation of free speech no less, Gingrich unleashed the scary specter of terrorism to argue that free speech must be curtailed, which he admitted would ignite “a serious debate about the First Amendment.”

Gingrich said:

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 before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.

His remarks immediately sparked controversy, leading him to write an op-ed days later in which he clarified  that the First Amendment should not be used as a shield for terrorists  working “to build ‘franchises’ among leftist, antiglobalization groups worldwide, especially in Latin America.”

2. Muslims don’t count

Remember last year when the right freaked out over Park 51, the planned Muslim Community Center in lower Manhattan? Because of its location, two blocks from the World Trade Center site, the right renamed the proposed interfaith, Muslim-run community center the “ground zero mosque.”

Some of the most appalling right-wing statements against Park 51 came from none other than Newt Gingrich, who made one bigoted comment after the next.  First, he demanded that America adopt the same religious  intolerance that marks the repressive monarchy of Saudi Arabia: “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

He then proceeded to equate American Muslims not just to terrorists, but Nazis, arguing that building a mosque near Ground Zero “would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.”

3. Yay for child labor!

Newt Gingrich longs for an era when children as young as five could slave away for 14 hours a day in a sweatshop.  At least that’s the impression he gave when declaring to a crowd at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that child labor laws should go.

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child [labor] laws, which are truly stupid,” said Gingrich, adding, “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor, and pay local students to take care of the school.”

Weeks later Gingrich doubled down:

Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works, so they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday.

They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of “I do this and you give me cash” unless it’s illegal.

But not to worry, even Gingrich has his limits.  When speaking to WNYM radio host Curtis Sliwa, he clarified, “Kids shouldn’t work in coal mines; kids shouldn’t work in heavy industry,” but he still supports having  poor school kids scrub toilets in public schools.

4. Blame the gays

In October, during a campaign stop in Iowa, Gingrich called gay marriage a “temporary aberration” that “fundamentally goes against everything we know.” He reminded his audience that “marriage is between a man and woman” and “has been for all of recorded history.”

This coming from a past adulterer who has been married three times. It’s not the number of marriages or even the affair that makes this statement outrageous, but rather the hypocrisy.  In his personal life, he has no problem disrespecting the so-called “institution of marriage,” yet when it comes to giving same-sex couples the right to marry, Gingrich is suddenly raging with concern about the sanctity of marriage and commitment.

And, as someone who constantly reminds his audiences that he’s a historian, it’s odd that Gingrich doesn’t know that polygamy has been the most common domestic arrangement in human history.

Gingrich’s disdain for LGBT marriage equality was on display one month earlier during an interview with Catholic radio, where he cast blame on same-sex marriage for the country’s economic woes.

5. Life as a white man is so unfair

Gingrich, like most conservatives, loves to play the victim card, like the time he called then Supreme Court Judge nominee Sonya Sotomayor a “reverse racist.”  This was in response to a statement made by Sotomayor during a 2001 lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where she said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

However, Gingrich and his fellow conservatives conveniently ignored the broader context of Sotomayor’s speech. She was making reference to former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor‘s famous saying: “A wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.”  Sotomayor went on to say that she hoped her gender and race would give her unique insight into cases that others on the bench, such as wise old men, may lack.

Gingrich was so outraged by her remark that he went to Twitter to air his grievances.  “Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.’ New racism is no better than old racism,” wrote Gingrich, adding: “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”

6. Obama the secret Kenyan

It seems like it was ages ago that Gingrich told the National Review that President Obama was some sort of undercover Kenyan out to destroy America. That is the conclusion he reached after reading a Forbes article by Dinesh D’Souza that accused Obama of having an “African socialist” agenda that he adopted from his Kenyan father.  From the National Review interview:

Gingrich says that D’Souza has made a “stunning insight” into Obama’s behavior — the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anticolonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

“I think Obama gets up every morning with a world view that is fundamentally wrong about reality,” Gingrich says. “If you look at the continuous denial of reality, there has got to be a point where someone stands up and says that this is just factually insane.”

The words speak for themselves.

7. Religious radical atheists?

In March, Gingrich gave a chilling speech about the frightening future in store for his grandchildren if godless liberals have it their way.  Or was it Muslim liberals?

I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age, they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.

Who knew that one could be both a secular atheist and radical Muslim at the same time?

8. So what if women get paid less?

In the land of Gingrich, the fact that women still make less than men isn’t all that important.  During a recent campaign stop at Harvard, Gingrich fielded a question from freshman undergraduate Holly Flynn, who said:

I’d like you to clarify your stance on women’s rights. And I’d like to know what you’d do to ensure gender equality in the United States. Given that even today, women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar.

Not only was Gingrich dismissive of the pay gap, he even twisted the facts around to showcase men as the real victims here:

Well, the latter is going to change dramatically in the next generation, because more women are going to college than men. And they’re doing better than men and entering professions more than men,” replied Gingrich. “In fact, if anything, you’ll be here in 15 years wondering what we’ll do about men inequality and male unemployment. Because the people who had the deepest decline of income are males who don’t go to college.

His analysis feeds into a larger narrative that says women are rising to the top and men are losing out, which is most apparent in what Alice O’Conner calls “the myth of the mancession,” referring to the notion that the recession has been far more devastating for men than women.  O’Conner notes that men lost a greater share of jobs when the recession first hit, but only because “they are disproportionately represented in traditionally hard-hit and better-paying sectors of the economy.”

9. Guilty until proven innocent

At the Nov. 22 CNN Republican debate on National Security, Gingrich said, “I think it’s desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty,” but only “if it’s a matter of criminal law.” He rejects applying these same basic standards in cases of national security — crimes for which he believes due process should be thrown out the window.

Gingrich makes the bizarre argument that if we allow alleged terrorists due process, America could be nuked.  His words: “If you’re trying to find somebody who may have a nuclear weapon that they are trying to bring into an American city, I think you want to use every tool that you can possibly use to gather the intelligence.”It’s unclear what this unlikely Jack Bauer scenario has to do with trying people who are already in custody.

10. Torture is not torture

At a town hall last week at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, an audience member asked Gingrich about his position on torture.  Newt replied:

Waterboarding is by every technical rule not torture. [Applause] Waterboarding is actually something we’ve done with our own pilots in order to get them used to the idea to what interrogation is like. It’s not — I’m not saying it’s not bad, and it’s not difficult, it’s not frightening. I’m just saying that under the normal rules internationally, it’s not torture.

I think the right balance is that a prisoner can only be waterboarded at the direction of the President in a circumstance which the information was of such great importance that we thought it was worth the risk of doing it, and I do that frankly only out of concern for world opinion. But we do not want to be known as a country that capriciously mistreats human beings.

Besides the fact that (a) waterboarding is morally reprehensible and (b) torture doesn’t work, there is no doubt under international law that waterboarding is indeed a form of torture, according to Juan Mendez, the United Nations’s Special Rapporteur on Torture.  The U.S. Army Field Manual also bans the use of waterboarding, because it’s considered a form of torture.

11. Bonus: Death to drug dealers

In 1995, when Gingrich was Speaker of the House, he advocated using the death penalty against drug dealers, saying, “You import commercial quantities of drugs in the United States for the purpose of destroying our children. We will kill you.”

When recently asked in an interview with Yahoo News whether he still supported executing drug dealers, he danced around the question, suggesting that drug cartel leaders should face the death penalty (which they already do in some circumstances).

He then praised Singapore, which enforces corporal punishment such as caning for minor offenses and the death penalty for drug offenses, as a model for drug policy, saying, “Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They’ve been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.”

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