Posted on 12/07/2011 8:16:15 PM PST by fightinJAG
The House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reprimand House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and order him to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty, the first time in the House's 208-year history it has disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.
The ethics case and its resolution leave Gingrich with little leeway for future personal controversies, House Republicans said. Exactly one month before yesterday's vote, Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.
"Newt has done some things that have embarrassed House Republicans and embarrassed the House," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.). "If [the voters] see more of that, they will question our judgment."
[snip]
The 395 to 28 vote closes a tumultuous chapter that began Sept. 7, 1994, when former representative Ben Jones (D-Ga.), then running against Gingrich, filed an ethics complaint against the then-GOP whip. . . .
[snip]
House ethics committee members took pride in yesterday's bipartisan resolution of the case. "We have proved to the American people that no matter how rough the process is, we can police ourselves, we do know right from wrong," said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), who headed the investigative subcommittee that charged Gingrich.
[snip]
For Gingrich, it was another humbling event in a remarkable series of peaks and valleys since 1994.
[snip]
In a strongly worded report, special counsel James M. Cole concluded that Gingrich had violated tax law and lied to the investigating panel, but the subcommittee would not go that far. In exchange for the subcommittee agreeing to modify the charges against him, Gingrich agreed to the penalty Dec. 20 as part of a deal in which he admitted guilt.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The names are in the article. Did you read it?
Gingrich also plead guilty to providing false information to the committee. That was separate from the IRS findings.
But none of that was the point.
I love your standard of it being the poster’s responsibility to provide all the rebuttal to an article that is posted.
No, that is the point of the discussion thread. Unless, of course, one is determined to make it all about the poster instead of the information in the article.
Since you believe this apparently, how do you then think that Gingrich will be able to accomplish any of his agenda?
I don't find Gingrich a danger to establishment Republicans at all. He IS the ultimate establishment Republican, except that he is undisciplined and egomaniacal. Therefore, he clashes with some in his own party -- not necessarily over policy views -- but because of his erratic political behavior.
IOW, if, as you believe, Gingrich is a threat to Republicans in power, it's not because he's such a great conservative and they're not. It's because, as he did as Speaker, he's likely to govern in such a way that he loses the support of conservatives.
Everyone knows this and those who don't are not paying attention.
It's not the poster's responsibility to provide extensive rebuttal to every article, especially of facts well-known to the forum. If a person on the thread wants to restate known facts or add context, by all means, that's what the thread is for.
I often add additional facts or rebuttal to a thread. So I instead (laughably) try to call down the poster for not posting those facts or rebuttal in the first place?
Of course, it's possible to go through every post on a thread and claim it is incomplete or unfair because it didn't include this, that or the other.
Do you really think freepers are such doofuses that they need the poster to explain to them the full factual context of every article or that they simply accept the conclusions of every article that is posted? I don't.
No. They simply disagree with you on Gingrich's suitability to be the next President.
Moreover, let's examine this constant excuse of "they're just panicked" (comparable to the threads where everyone who said something less than 100% positive about Palin were psychoanalyzed as "just jealous"):
If a person sincerely, using his best judgment and experience, determines that a particular candidate would be a nightmare as President, yet a bunch of conservatives are falling all over themselves to look past his possible negatives and support him, maybe they SHOULD be panicked.
In this case, they would not be panicked because such a great conservative, one that threatened their supposed power base, is being pushed.
They would be panicked because, in their view, they see a bunch of people being duped into electing the wrong guy for the times, a guy who is Big Government all the way, a guy who cannot INSPIRE anybody. Nobody.
Since our country doesn't avoid going over the cliff unless the next President can INSPIRE conservatives, that would be a legitimate cause for concern for the country.
You disagree with them, obviously. But there's no grounds for your assumption that they are panicked (IF they are) about Gingrich because he is so great. They are panicked (IF they are) because he is so wrong for what we need right now.
As Mark Steyn said yesterday, this is John McCain and Bob Dole all over again. Except the times are much more dire, and we have much less time to spare, than even when McCain was "the man."
You spend a lot of time jawboning about your theories of WHY a poster won't agree with you, all the way from "they're panicked" to "he's an Ivy League lawyer." Pretty dumb.
It's simple: not everyone agrees with you because, having evaluated all the available information and deliberated upon it, they reach a different conclusion. That is all. There is no ulterior motive. There is no psychological defect causing them to not see things your way. There is no nefarious contract to pay people to rebutt your arguments and disagree with you.
Some people just don't agree with your take on things. It happens!
And your inability to convince them otherwise is not because they are "stubborn" or "being paid" by the black helicopter guys.
It's because they have thought through their positions and, while open to substantive arguments (which you have not generally presented), they have yet to hear anything that substantially changes their conclusion. That is all.
You disagree with me. SO WHAT? I don't go around posting on and on about how you must be being paid to shill for someone or your presumed education makes you out to be this kind of person or that. I just accept that you disagree with me and you have your reasons.
It's pretty straightforward.
FRiend, you are not accepting the known negatives of Gingrich AT ALL. You're response is always "he's changed," "he's saying something different now."
Why are you troubled by my not "accepting" -- by which I think you mean, not crediting to the point of balancing out some of the negatives -- Gingrich's positives?
Why should I have to accept his positives any more than you have to accept his negatives?
Everyone has to make their own call on how the positives and negatives balance out.
Getting wrapped up in whether someone who obviously disagrees with your conclusions about Newt "accepts his positives" is just another way of arguing that if I only *really knew* what you know about Gingrich, then I'd agree with you. That I haven't *really listened* to your arguments about Gingrich, else I'd agree with you.
Not the case.
I do know what you're saying about Gingrich and I don't agree with you that the positives outweigh the negatives in terms of voting for him in the primaries.
I think conservatives are rushing to hand this man a historical gargantuan pass on a silver platter.
Instead of making clear to Gingrich that we hold him accountable, there is thread after thread about full of "I don't care" posts about his various negatives. If this is how he gets treated in the primaries, forget about him understanding accountability to conservatives once in the White House.
So we disagree on this and we each have valid reasons for our respective conclusions.
We'll see how this plays out in the next weeks and months.
!Es la verdad!
Maybe you should look at my posting history. You would see that on numerous occasions I have stated how much Newt has pissed me off in the past. He’s hardly a perfect candidate to me. Neither was Reagan, but then again, I’m not always right.
Reagan was a Democrat, raised taxes & signed the first abortion bill in Calif., signed off on amnesty, raised taxes as president, endorsed RINO’s, & ruffled the feathers of the elitists more than once, etc., etc.
He’s still one of my all time favorites, warts & all. I didn’t focus on his negatives because his positives, & what he could do for the country far outweighed the negatives. I feel the same about Newt. He’s got a boat load of laundry. But I feel he’s the right guy for the right time, much along the lines of Reagan & Churchill (who also had his fair share of baggage). I just don’t feel that “right guy for the right time” w/ any of the other candidates. They either don’t have the experience or the fortitude to go after it, & both will be necessary IMHO.
We need someone that will give us conservatives that “YES!” moment we haven’t seen since Reagan. No one has delivered those moments thus far except Newt, nor in my opinion will they due to the afore mentioned.
We want the same thing for our country and I sincerely hope you are right about Newt.
Did you even read the article and notice the party affiliation of those quoted, or the vote tally?
The Dems did not do this by themselves, regardless of whether the charges were meritorious.
Jan.22, 1997, Newt Gingrich, thanks fightinJAG.
“..the trainwreck he became as Speaker..”
Well he is a trainwreck again, stepping on his crank at every opportunity - Pollard, wetbacks, etc. His big egomaniac head is starting to show through as Cheney says “big time.” The “star debater” is starting to come across like he doesn’t have a lick of sense.
Neither one of these two guys is a worthy candidate. Where in the h3ll are we headed?
It sure seems like this is the year that something completely different must happen.
Mfl
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