Free Republic

Gingrich lost, but he hasn’t retired. After 69 years, Newt Gingrich is wealthy, a celebrity, and the owner of a tony home in Northern Virginia. His place in the history books, as the leader of the Republican revolution, has long been established. But the former House speaker isn’t ready to fade away. “I don’t rule it out,” he said on Thursday over breakfast, when asked about a future presidential run. He spoke excitedly about his company, Gingrich Productions, and his upcoming trip to South Carolina, where he won the Republican primary last year. Gingrich’s unflagging energy isn’t surprising. We’ve all...

Joshua Green shares an amazing story about the secret negotiations between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich for a “unity ticket” during the Republican Presidential primary. In the end, Green reports, neither of the two Republican leaders could agree which of the two would be president. (T)he two candidates spoke face-to-face at an energy forum just before the primary. Gingrich made an elaborate historical argument that when the party hasn’t been able to agree on a nominee, it always settles on the senior figure. Santorum wasn’t persuaded, and urged Gingrich to do what was best for the conservative movement.

An unsparing piece keying off the same Rick Perry soundbite at CPAC that inspired this post. Perry said that it’s unfair to blame conservatism for the GOP’s losses in 2008 and 2012 because, after all, our nominees weren’t conservative. Emery’s response: Then why did Republican primary voters vote for them instead of for a solid conservative like, say, Rick Perry? Her answer? Between Reagan’s generation and the current crop of Rubio, Scott Walker, etc, there simply haven’t been many good conservative candidates. Instead, against establishment types who were national figures, the conservative movement flung preachers and pundits (Pat Robertson, Alan...

Fox News chief Roger Ailes made headlines when an excerpt from an upcoming biography included quotes of him deeming President Obama “lazy,” Vice President Joe Biden “dumb as an ashtray,” and Newt Gingrich a “prick.” In an interview with Howard Kurtz on The Daily Beast, Ailes said he’s not backing away from the statements for one simple reason: They’re “true.” “Are every one of those statements true? Yes,” Ailes told Kurtz. “Should I have said them? Well, that’s a debate.” When Ailes saw his remarks printed, he “looked at it and thought, someone’s made outrageous statements about our leaders, and...

John McCain has gotten quite a bit of attention after he took to the Senate floor on Thursday to publicly rebuke (which is actually sugercoating it) a member of his own party, Rand Paul, for holding a 13-hour filibuster on the issue of drone strikes. McCain talked with Piers Morgan tonight about his objections to Paul, and observed that when he speaks his mind against GOP leadership he’s considered a brave maverick, but when he rebuts the filibuster of one junior senator he’s suddenly the “angry old man” who’s out of touch with reality. McCain explained to Morgan that he...

Fox News chief's choice words for Obama, Biden and Gingrich Posted by CNN Political Unit (CNN) – Roger Ailes has never been known to keep his opinions to himself. So perhaps it's no surprise the powerful boss of Fox News Channel revealed candid opinions of top political figures – including President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich – during conversations and meetings that were recorded by his biographer Zev Chafets. In excerpts of Chafets' upcoming book "Roger Ailes: Off Camera" that were published in this month's Vanity Fair, the Fox News president is shown...

Former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says he’d be happy to appear on NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice" if asked by Donald Trump, the show’s creator. "Sure, why not," Gingrich told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday. "I've known The Donald, we've done fundraisers together. But look, I think Republicans would be so much better off and relaxed [to] go on shows like that and be interesting." Gingrich offered his assessment of Trump: "Donald Trump is a phenomenon. Donald Trump has no meaning in American politics except that he is a billionaire who is interesting and who is very clever at...

Fox News chief Roger Ailes says President Barack Obama is “lazy” and claims the commander-in-chief “never worked a day in his life,” a controversial new book claims. Ailes also takes shots at Vice President Joe Biden, saying, “he’s as dumb as an ashtray,” and at Newt Gingrich, who he says is a “sore loser.” In his upcoming biography, “Roger Ailes: Off Camera,” author Zev Chavets writes that Ailes reacted to a crack by Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen that Ann Romney, wife of last year’s Republican presidential candidate, “never worked a day in her life,” with his own blunt opinion of...

The acronym TCOT has been bandied about a lot recently on the Twitter microblogging site, frequently in the form of the hashtag #TCOT. For starters, the acronym and hashtag are references to the "Top Conservatives On Twitter." When used in the hashtag form, as it is most often, the term provides a way for conservatives in particular and Republicans in general to locate and follow the tweets of their like-minded brethren. And the term is also a reference to an influential list of those so-called top conservatives, which is maintained at the website Top Conservatives on Twitter. The site provides...

Amphibian's unique proteins cast doubt on existence of latent potential for regeneration. The ability of some animals to regenerate tissue is generally considered to be an ancient quality of all multicellular animals. A genetic analysis of newts, however, now suggests that it evolved much more recently. Tiny and delicate it may be, but the red spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) has tissue-engineering skills that far surpass the most advanced biotechnology labs. The newt can regenerate lost tissue, including heart muscle, components of its central nervous system and even the lens of its eye. Doctors hope that this skill relies on a...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that Karl Rove should not play the role of kingmaker in congressional races across the country. Mr. Gingrich said it would be “repugnant” for Mr. Rove to use his newest super PAC — Conservative Victory Project — to ward off candidates that he doesn’t deem fit for a general election race. “I am unalterably opposed to a bunch of billionaires financing a boss to pick candidates in 50 states,” the Republican wrote in an op-ed that appeared in Human Events, a weekly conservative newspaper. “This is the opposite of the Republican tradition of...

"Sarah Palin has leveraged her brand well since exploding on the national scene in 2008, but since she recently lost her bully pulpit at Fox News, she may need to make another national run for office to keep the Sarah Palin brand viable," said political pundit William S. Bike. Bike is the author of the book Winning Political Campaigns: A Comprehensive Guide to Electoral Success. "Palin still will make money giving speeches to Republican and conservative organizations, but without the national stage that her Fox News job provided, she's going to start fading from public consciousness," Bike said. "To keep...

The key subplot to Rubio's immigration push, of course, is how much of a headache it'll be for him with conservatives in the 2016 primaries. The talk-radio charm offensive is mainly designed to get grassroots opinion-shapers like Rush to at least wait and see what the bill looks like before lobbying against it, but more broadly it's designed to move the Overton window on what positions are acceptable for a good conservative to hold. Rubio can afford to have immigration reform fail; he can't afford to be RINO-ized over it. Like I said yesterday, whether or not a bill ends...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Newsmax that Republicans need to be the “party of ideas,” offering real solutions instead of playing “bumper sticker politics.” Gingrich also says the GOP’s stance on immigration during the presidential campaign was “devastatingly destructive,” but he’s hopeful that reform can be implemented thanks to Sen. Marco Rubio’s “very important leadership” on the immigration issue. … In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Gingrich discloses how he reacted to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s recent pronouncement that the GOP should “stop being the stupid party.” “I broke out laughing because when I was first running for...

Twelve minutes long but worth watching in full, partly because Gingrich is in fine form and partly because it’s a nice demonstration of how futile and bad-faith the “debate” over guns is. Morgan’s point is straightforward: If gun-rights fans think it’s okay to ban machine guns because rapid-fire weapons are too dangerous for the public to own, why not ban assault rifles? Granted, automatics fire much more rapidly than semiautomatics, but you can still get off an awful lot of shots quickly with an AR-15 if you’re pulling the trigger fast enough. Gingrich comes at that logic from the other...

Hopefully, he'll be able to knock some sense in. Tom Delay should give him a call too. Republicans who were leaders who were weren't afraid to take on the democrats and the liberals. Take a lesson, Eric Cantor!

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich talked about gun control this morning on CBS: Gingrich revealed that he's been urging House Republicans to hold hearings about gun control in Chicago, President Obama's hometown and "the murder capital of the United States." "Well, I think it's amazing that we're having all this discussion about gun control: The president's hometown, Chicago, is the murder capital of the United States. Over 500 people were killed there last year. Vice President Biden doesn't seem to want to go there. I'm trying to get the House Republicans to hold hearings there. It's illegal to have all...

Full Title: Conservatives Have No Credibility with the Low-Info Crowd Because We Don't Defend Our Own When They Come Under Attack BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: New Milford, Connecticut. Bill, thank you for calling. It's nice to have you with us. Hello. CALLER: Yeah, Rush. It's an honor to speak with you. RUSH: Thank you, sir. CALLER: Thank you for what you do. RUSH: I appreciate you saying that. CALLER: Hey, earlier you had talked about Obama blaming the Republicans on the debt crisis and on the money that's been spent. You know, since you're the head of the Republican Party, you...

Newt "evolves" on gay marriage

NEWT GINGRICH: Let me ask you this. And I appreciate E.J.'s support here. But I want to make a point that probably he may not be as enthusiastic about. They have two vehicles. They have a continuing resolution, which is at the end of March, and they have the sequester bill. Now, these are legitimate government spending bills. The debt ceiling is different because it triggers all of these international financial problems and triggers the credit of the United States. They don't have to say, "We're going to be wimps." I've helped closed the government twice. It actually worked. Bill...