Free Republic

I want to call this a palate cleanser, but it’s so acidic — especially his memory of the sign in Newt’s office on the Hill — that it’s more likely to burn your tongue. Can’t use it as evidence of the upswell in conservative anger towards Newt after his MTP appearance either, I’m afraid: Coburn is a Gingrich critic of loooongstanding, which makes this less of a standard “what happened to Newt?” lament than a bitter “I told you so.” To follow up on an earlier analogy, it’s as if Coburn jumped into the ring, pushed Drago aside, and started...

At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee–where she worked–had jurisdiction, official records show…

Economic Reform: Newt Gingrich may have, to the glee of the left, been written off by everybody who's anybody on the right. But he's put forth one of the most laudable economic plans in memory. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page says the former House speaker has a big mouth and timid policy instincts, and that his best move right now would be to shut down his presidential campaign and donate the cash he's raised to House Republicans. Indeed, no one can understand why Gingrich stuck his foot in his mouth and Paul Ryan's hindquarters at the same time, unfairly...

Support for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign has virtually evaporated, dropping to just 3 percent among likely Republican primary voters, a new IBOPE Zogby poll reveals. That’s down from 7 percent in a May 6-9 poll, meaning Gingrich has lost more than half his support in the new poll conducted May 20-23. Asked to choose from among 13 possible GOP presidential candidates in 2012, poll respondents chose eight Republicans ahead of Gingrich, including several who, unlike Newt, have not announced their candidacy: Herman Cain (19 percent), Chris Christie (16 percent), Mitt Romney (11 percent), Ron Paul (9 percent),...

Sarah Palin, the politician that the media loves to cover ad nauseum, will most likely announce her candidacy for president sometime in the near future (some are saying she may wait until September). Everything seems to be falling her way of late, or at least it appears that way when looking at how things are shaping up within the field of potential candidates in the Republican Party. It is almost as if Fate were stepping in to take a hand in positioning things just right for the former governor of Alaska... How so? Just take a look at several major...

What is Daily Kos full of? Many things, of course, but this past week one correct answer to that question would have been "advice for conservatives." One Kossack suggested that if Republicans want to win in 2012, they'll have to adopt Newt Gingrich's Meet the Press position on Paul Ryan's Medicare reforms. Another asserted that GOPers ought to profusely thank President Obama for not destroying them when he had the chance. As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym. Kos: Reagan wouldn't be welcome in today's frothing GOP ...There was a time when obsessing over tax...

Via Michael O’Brien at The Hill: Gingrich: ‘I’m not a Washington figure’ Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said he doesn’t view himself as a “Washington figure,” positioning himself as an anti-D.C. candidate in his campaign for president. Gingrich railed against the Washington establishment in a breakfast Monday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, claiming the mantle of the “change” candidate in the field of GOP presidential aspirants. “I’m not a Washington figure, despite the years I’ve been here,” Gingrich said. “I’m essentially an American whose ties are across the country and is interested in how you change Washington, not...

The most sweeping reform signed into law during the Newt Gingrich era as House Speaker was the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act – popularly known as welfare reform. The landmark bill transformed welfare from entitlement to temporary safety net. Instead of welfare being available forever to any individual who met qualifying criteria, it was transformed to a time limited assistance program in which individuals had to also demonstrate their efforts to get to work. Democrats insisted during debate on the issue that the reform would push millions into poverty and then Senate Minority leader, Democrat Tom Daschle,...

Meet the Press" host David Gregory said Friday there are "prominent views within Israel" that support President Obama's controversial Mideast peace ideas expressed the day before. When asked by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, "What major Israeli public figures have come out supporting the President's speech," Gregory couldn't name one (video follows with transcript and commentary): ... Unfortunately for the "Meet the Press" host, Scarborough exposed the charade with a simple question. Readers are reminded that Gregory has been celebrated by his comrades in the media all week for his gotcha interview with Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich last Sunday. Unlike those...

Newt Gingrich got one thing magnificently right last week. He called Barack Obama “The Food Stamp President.” Newt’s old; a bit behind the times. It should have been “The EBT-Card President.” Still, the shoe fits, and Obama should get stuck wearing it in November 2012. The American Left, with its typical intellectual brilliance, assumed that Newt Gingrich only called Barack Obama “President Food Stamp” because he was black. Newt would have called a white president “Captain Safety-Net” instead. I remember all the times Ronald Reagan went around thanking Jimmy Carter for all the social welfare he handed out in the...

Newt Gingrich can't catch a break, he recently got caught with "Dancin' Queen" as the ringtone on his phone! Really Newt? Your name, your hair, your marital history, your RINO grazing...those aren't enough to make you look unpresidential? The silver lining to this is it did make me wonder what ringtones liberal politicians would (or should) have... ---------- Harry Reid: The Village People - "Macho macho man, I want to be a macho man." Barack Obama: Carly Simon - "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you..."orMen at Work - "Do you come from the land down...

Newt Gingrich, whose campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has gotten off to a rocky start, risked fresh controversy on Thursday by suggesting that some illegal immigrants living in the United States "may have earned the right to become legal."

NewsCore) - For a man hoping to take office in the White House, at least it wasn't "S.O.S." Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich revealed his unusual ringtone Thursday when his cell phone began ringing during a speech in Ames, Iowa, the Des Moines Register reported. He sheepishly turned off the device, but not before attendees at the event raised a few eyebrows at hearing ABBA's "Dancing Queen" coming from the former House speaker's phone. Gingrich, who officially entered the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination last week, explained to media later that he is a big fan of the...

“I want to make sure every House Republican is protected from some kind of dishonest Democratic ad. So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, because I have publicly said those words were inaccurate and unfortunate.” A grateful nation thanks you, Newt Gingrich. The presidential campaign is just starting, and already you’ve given us a passage that will live in infamy — forever — in the annals of American political speech. Your delightful quotation shall be filed under “fiascos” and flagged with a cross-reference to “utter nonsense.” I can’t...

By the time they're done with him, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will look like a leading Democratic spokesman as the party moves quickly to harness his attacks on Republican plans to change Medicare. According to party sources, they plan to use Gingrich's assault on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan in a bid to knock down every Republican who voted for it. "By calling Paul Ryan's budget 'radical' and 'right-wing social engineering,' Newt merely echoed criticisms millions of Americans across the political spectrum have voiced at house Republicans' budget for weeks now," says Ryan Rudominer, a Democratic consultant...

When a prankster dumped a box of glittering confetti in Newt Gingrich's lap at a book-signing, the presidential candidate brushed off the stunt with a smile and quipped that it was "nice to live in a free country." But the man's easy access to Gingrich raises questions about security on the campaign trail, particularly in the early months before the Secret Service begins guarding candidates. And the first events of the 2012 campaign are playing out just a few months after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords....

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

Another Republican operative said he had spoken with an old friend of Gingrich's in the South who had been planning a fundraiser for the campaign. There were 18 co-chairs for the event until Gingrich's appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, where he labeled Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) proposed budget "radical" and "right-wing social engineering." "He said like 13 of them dropped off within 24 hours of 'Meet the Press,'"

The truth is out. Newt Gingrich is what so many true conservatives have long suspected, a quintessential Washington insider and board-certified member of what Walter Russell Mead calls an "intellectually and morally" corrupt American elite. His mouth may quote Thomas Jefferson, but his heart is pure Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York notorious for his hypocrisy and self-aggrandizing demagoguery. And, although the three witches of Macbeth found magic in combining "Eye of newt, and toe of frog," the only thing that mixes with our modern-day mouth of Newt is, perhaps, butt of donkey -- clear to most except...

Gingrich spokesman Rick Tyler slams the media coverage of Newt Gingrich in the aftermath of his remarks about Paul Ryan’s medicare plan and the individual mandate. His statement to the Huffington Post: ""The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by...