May 2016 ~ @PolitiJim's Rants for Reasonable People |

There are some rather uninformed posts flying around suggesting Newt Gingrich is some kind of one world government elitist. Most of this is recycled disinformation from the Mitt Romney forces of '12 or deceptive cherry picked exceptions of a very distinguished conservative crusader. The same can be done with ANY politician including Reagan who dramatically expanded abortion just 6 years before running for President, who implemented broad illegal alien amnesty as POTUS and who spoke highly of his liberal friends like Tip O'Neill.

Simply put, there may not be another personal alive who has done more to advance freedom and conservative values.

He was among the first vocal and enthusiastic supporters of the TEA party appearing with Sean Hannity at the FIRST Tea Party event on 4/15/2009.
He vigorously defended Sarah Palin to liberal reporters.
He has a LIFETIME 90% American Conservative Union score, 100% his final year ('98).
National Taxpayers Union’s Annual Scorecard on reduced spending and taxes gave Gingrich an “A”, for his last four years in office, ranking him #1.
The Moral Majority Founder Paul Weyrich admired Newt Gingrich as did the founder of GOPAC. (For those who don't know, Paul Weyrich is the reason Reagan got elected according to Morton Blackwell.)
He banned any Muslim who hadn’t renounced Sharia Law from his campaign.
He started a campaign to not only defend gun ownership as a Constitutional right, but to make it a WORLDWIDE human right.
As House Speaker, with a Democrat President, Gingrich initiated the first balanced budget since before the Vietnam War, we cut taxes and lowered unemployment to under 5 percent. (Incidentally we have NOT had a balanced budget since.)
Not only was Gingrich against Bush and the GOPe's TARP bill, he had at least 2 TV interviews, 2 op-ed articles and gave a major National Press Club speech against it.
Led the fight against HillaryCare in the 90's (and won).
Led the biggest change of government power to conservatism since Benjamin Disraeli in the 1800's, enacting MORE conservative legislation even than Reagan did.

Don't lose sight of that last point. At the bottom I list and link to more specifics, but the Democrats had controlled Congress for FORTY YEARS before Newt Gingrich engineered the Contract with America. Not only that, America went from a 20% approval to a 60% approval of Congress following Gingrich's leadership.

Yes, as Al Gore's INCONVENIENT TRUTH spread the false evangelism of Global Warming, Gingrich openly said we needed to take it seriously and if, true, would need to consider some form of research and legislation to stop carbon pollution. Just like many other scientists like Rush Limbaugh's buddy Roy Spencer did. But less than 2 years later - even before the Climategate email scandal of faked data became apparent, Gingrich had educated enough to vigorously fight against Cap and Trade in Hearings before Congress.

Yes, the academic professor (who began in environmental studies, graduated in history and obtained a Masters and Doctorate in European history) opens himself up to - sometimes strange - people and ideas. His enthusiastic admiration for the Toffler's (The Third Wave) are often bandied about as some kind of new world order inspiration despite his continuing movies, books and speeches on Reagan, Washington and Christianity in American Government. And lest you forget, they ended up being prescient about many aspects of technology and social interaction. But if you are truly worried, go no further than Alvin Toffler himself who said that he and Newt agreed on very little.

You want to know the WORST decisions/opinions of Newt Gingrich over his long career? Here you go: The Drinking Scale of Gingrich Big Government Gaffes. Enjoy. And then help set the record straight by idiots that have tried to smear this man for the past 8 years.

Here is a quick list of links to other Newt insights:

Description of a Newt Gingrich's childhood by a friend who knew him.
A frank discussion of Gingrich's early marriages.
How Gingrich got conservative legislation passed with so many RINO's and liberals.
Links for: Michael Reagan AND Nancy Reagan believed Newt Gingrich was the steward of the Reagan movement and legacy. The most conservative architects of the Reagan administration endorsed Newt Gingrich in 2012.
(AMAZING MUST WATCH) Video archives/transcripts of Gingrich speeches BEFORE he became Speaker of the House including story of his daughter on how much he talked about his love for America as she was growing up. This post gives an insight into the amazing understanding of how the political SYSTEM needed to be changed, to actually move the country to the right - including how to deal with the liberal press.

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From: Stats Comparing Conservative Accomplishments of Newt and Mitt

Newt Gingrich as GA Congressman and Speaker of the House:

33 years as Congressman including 4 as Speaker of the House
Lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 90%
(most recent year was for 1998 at 100%)* **
He had a Democrat controlled Congress up until 1994, a Democrat President
Helped Reagan pass biggest tax cut in 50 years as Minority Whip, called out George Bush on breaking his promise and led (as a legislator) a Democrat President to do the same.
Art Laffer confirms Gingrich helped on a team that designed “Supply Side Economics.”
Supported/Championed policies that created 11 Million jobs.
National Taxpayers Union’s Annual Scorecard on reduced spending and taxes gave Gingrich an “A”, for his last four years in office, ranking him #1, #4, #2 and #11 and as one of the most conservative members in Congress.
Led a Balanced Budget initiative with a Democrat President. He did this AS A SPEAKER, not an Executive Branch Leader and not in control of the Senate or Executive Branch. He balanced the budget 4 times creating the first SURPLUS in decades.
$400 billion in debt was paid off during time as Speaker, although Gingrich agreed with Reagan on deal that ended up running deficits until 1988.
Fought and defeated HillaryCare both in strategy, as well as political and legislative maneuvering.
On third try got a Democratic President and Senate to initiate Welfare Reform that put 60% of recipients to work.
Gingrich’s pro-life voting record is 98.6%, 70 out of 71 votes.
Brought two partial birth abortion bills to Clinton that served as the model for what was passed under George W. Bush.
He helped Reagan’s initiative to eliminate 12 of 94 programs and cut budgets of many others like the SBA more than 50%. (Life Lesson: SBA grew afterward to over 10X it’s original budget. If you don’t eliminate a it, it will always grow bigger.)
He identified, recruited, campaigned for and helped organize the biggest minority opposition swing in US modern history getting 367 Congressional candidates to sign the Contract With America. This resulted in a NET GOP pickup of 52 seats in the House, 8 in the Senate and 11 Governorships. GOPAC founder Pete DuPont and Paul Weyrich both didn’t believe it could be done.
Multiple conservatives congressmen got their political start including:
Contract With America - (1995 Description): “…represented the culmination of 30 years of creative conservative thinking dealing with the basic social and economic problems of modern America. The ideas provided the background for the widest range of legislative initiatives, certainly since the 1930s, and possibly at any time in American political history.”

The ten items in the Contract were all acted upon in the first 100 days of the new Congress, which is what the signatories had pledged. Nine of the ten items in the Contract passed the House: Only the constitutional amendment on term limits (which required a two-thirds vote) was defeated. Out of a total of 302 roll call votes on issues related to the Contract With America, the conservatives prevailed on 299 of them. A balanced budget amendment passed in the House by a 300-123 margin but was subsequently defeated as it fell one vote short of the two-thirds needed for passage in the U.S. Senate. The overall margin by which the items in the Contract were passed averaged about 70 percent despite the fact that the Republicans only held a 12-seat margin over the Democrats (52-48 percent, the smallest House majority margin in 40 years). Given the notorious lack of party discipline in the American Congress, the passage by a large majority of nearly all of the items in the Contract was a remarkable achievement.

I can’t adequately cover all 10 initiatives and their profundity but they include:
- Congressional Reform including Congress being subject to the law they pass
- Balanced Budget with Line Item Veto (failed Senate, passed Veto but declared unconstitutional)
- Anti-crime package (truth in sentencing, more law enforcement help)
- Personal Responsibility (ultimately became Welfare Reform)
- Tax Package Including Child Tax Credit, Elimination of Marriage Penalty, Savings Account, Middle Class Tax Relief
- Disallow US Troops from serving under foreign authorites like the UN
- Frivolous Litigation vetoed by Clinton but tort reform override veto.
- Job Creation act included capital-gains cuts and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages.
  
  Other sections of the Contract include a proposed Family Reinforcement Act (tax incentives for adoption, strengthening the powers of parents in their children's education, stronger child pornography laws, and elderly dependent care tax credit) and the Senior Citizens Fairness Act (raise the Social Security earnings limit, repeal the 1993 tax hikes on Social Security benefits and provide tax incentives for private long-term care insurance).
  
  The only bill that failed was Term Limits.
He is the longest-serving teacher of the Joint War Fighting course for Major Generals at Air University and taught officers from all five services as an honorary Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Professor at the National Defense University.

His “Liberal” Legislation?
Voted for Department of Education with Carter in first term.
Supported Reagan in Simpson-Mazzoli Amnesty Bill
Voted to raise taxes twice with Reagan.
Would vote for earmarks in exchange for conservative legislative votes.

When Newt became Speaker in 1995 congressional approval was about 20%. When he resigned the Speakership four years later, it was about 60%.
(Now it is at 11%).
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From: Is Newt A Fat White Obama Progressive?

NEWT GINGRICH RECORD: CONSERVATIVE OR LIBERAL?

Unlike Obama, Cain, (and to some extent Bachmann), there is no lack of speeches, books - and most importantly – votes to find out who Newt is. The Club for Growth has an exhaustive PDF white paper on Newt and there are many other conservative sources including the American Conservative Union (Rating 90%). So how do people like Beck make the jump that a man
William F. Buckley called, “profoundly committed free trader,” progressive and worse?
Because it’s not 100% conservative. Gingrich admitted to CBN recently that he regretted his vote for the Department of Education and evolved from a Rockefeller Republican (liberal republican) into a conservative. Who hasn’t, right? Except that many like Reagan didn’t have a contiguous public voting record during the change. So what were these terrible “Progressive” votes of his:

Voted YES on the Reagan tax cut of 1981
Voted YES on the Reagan tax reform bill of 1986
Voted NO on the George H.W. Bush "Read My Lips" tax hike in 1990.
Voted NO on the Clinton tax hike in 1993.
Voted YES on the capital gains tax cut in 1997.
Voted NO on the Chrysler bailout in 1979
Voted YES on the Gramm-Rudman balanced budget bill in 1985
Voted YES on a balanced budget amendment (as part of the "Contract for America" effort that he led) in 1995
Led the effort and voted YES to cut $16.4 billion from the budget in 1995.
Voted YES on welfare reform in 1996

I’m sure Beck would claim this was ALL a setup to seduce non-suspecting patriots into a hypnotic state until he could REALLY get his hands on power! AH HA! Only one problem. He barely survived a battle against DeLay and Boehner (who couldn’t make an argument for crony capitalism and progressive against these two right?), and STEPPED DOWN from his Speakership and Congressional seat after winning election.
AND FINALLY we have an important point – apart from the insane and uninformed ravings of those on our side. Gingrich did not feel that pressing for hardcore conservative positions with a Democrat President would serve our purpose. Especially after they had successfully enacted welfare reform and balanced budgets by working WITH Democrats than against them. And this is a good argument.
Is it better to remain in power and do SOME good, or stand on principle and lose all power to do any good?

ACU’s Keene calls Gingrich a partisan but NOT a conservative although he admits his speakership was basically conservative. (Figure that one out.) But if he is not a conservative, why did he create and fulfill the VERY conservative CONTRACT WITH AMERICA? And why did those who argued AGAINST Gingrich’s leadership – end up running the franchise into the ground that gave us Pelosi and Reed? Was the prescription drug and Head Start programs under Bush better under the anti-Newt forces?
I think like the Roosevelt and the Clinton years the “TIMES” will make Gingrich. We would like to think of our leaders as the William Wilberforce's of history who have one true guiding NORTH and would rather lose the argument for decades until the ship aligns to their view. Gingrich instead seems fine going from NORTHWEST to NORTHEAST to stay on the ship. His impact AS A LEADER on the LAST MAJOR REPUBLICAN victory (Balanced Budgets, Welfare Reform) seem to me to not only make Beck’s argument silly about being a progressive – but also diminish the REAL records of Santorum and Bachmann. It is one thing to vote on a measure – or even sponsor a bill. it is quite another to motivate dozens of other leaders to a cause and actually WIN a battle or a war. This Gingrich did.