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Politics

Gingrich Concedes Romney Wasn’t Honest About His Tax Plan During Debate

By Judd Legum on Oct 7, 2012 at 9:51 am

This morning on Meet The Press, Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs confronted Newt Gingrich on a fundamental inconsistency in Romney’s description of his tax plan. During the primary debates, Romney insisted that everyone in America would get a 20% tax cut, including the 1%. But last week’s during his debate with Obama, Romney insisted that his tax cut would not reduce taxes at all for wealthy Americans.

Gingrich acknowledged the clear inconsistency, saying “I think it’s clear he changed.” He described the change as “good politics.”

Watch it:

Of course, while Romney’s spin regarding his plan has changed, the plan itself has not. Independent experts have concluded that, even if Romney eliminated every tax deduction, it still wouldn’t counterbalance his massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

His tax plan was one of 27 issues where Romney was less than honest during the debate. Romney’s campaign also conceded he misstated the truth on green jobs.

Election

FACT CHECK: The Truth About Obama’s Abortion Record

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Aug 27, 2012 at 11:45 am

Defenders of senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) have come out of the woodwork in the week following his assertion that women can’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” Among those who have rushed to Akin’s defense are former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, both using the conversation as a launching pad to argue that President Obama supports infanticide.

Both Gingrich and Huckabee have made misleading statements about President Obama’s abortion rights record, particularly on his votes in the Illinois state senate against the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act,” to try to frame him as a supporter of killing viable fetuses. On Fox News, Huckabee claimed that President Obama believes “you can still take the life of a baby even after abortion”:

HUCKABEE: [Obama] voted three times against a bill that would say that you had to give medical treatment to a baby that was born as a result of a botched abortion but it was a living child outside of a mother’s womb. This is an after-birth abortion. He said no, you can still take the life of the baby even after abortion.”

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Gingrich has echoed this claim in recent days, saying Obama is “the most extreme, pro-abortion president in U.S. history” and that he voted in favor of killing unborn children.

That bill, which Obama did vote against, would have required doctors to resuscitate an aborted fetus if legislators felt it had any chance of viability. But Obama’s reasoning for voting against the bill was nothing like how Gingrich and Huckabee represent it. In interviews with a range of media outlets, Obama expressed that he feared the bill would undermine Roe v Wade by defining any fetus as a human with human rights and claimed it could be used to take down any abortion rights legislation that anti-choice activists didn’t like.

Obama was, however, “fully in support” of a federal bill that provided the same protection viable fetuses while also including protections for Roe v Wade :

OBAMA: I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported – which was to say – that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born – even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade.

Obama also felt that the legislation would have taken decision-making out of the hands of doctors, giving anti-abortion activists an opening to sue abortion providers by alleging that they chose to terminate the life of a viable fetus on purpose. He did not, however, express any support for “infanticide” or for ending the life of a viable fetus, as Huckabee and Gingrich claim.

Election

Republicans Who Criticized Obama As Foreign Policy Novice, Say Romney’s Missing Experience Is A Plus

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Aug 12, 2012 at 12:30 pm

The same Republicans who criticized President Obama for lacking foreign policy experience in 2008 are now stepping in to defend the dismal international relations record of Romney-Ryan ticket.

Former House Speaker New Gingrich (R) and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) on Sunday argued that Romney and Ryan are actually better equipped to lead on international relations than Obama and Biden:

GINGRICH: I think it’s an advantage that they’re not part of the current mess….Mitt Romney has the same amount of foreign policy experience as Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet empire decisively in 8 years. I would rather have Romney and Ryan rethinking everything than have the current team continue.

PAWLENTY: Romney and Ryan have a terrific national security policy team around them…Governor Romney spent his entire career in global business arrangements, transactions and traveling and understanding different countries, cultures and geography.

Watch it:

But both Gingrich and Pawlenty were happy, in 2008, to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows at do the opposit — attack Obama and Biden for not having the foreign policy chops they deemed necessary.

In the fall of 2008, Gingrich asked Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, “Who do you trust more to deal with the dangerous world … somebody who has read about it and sort of vaguely thought about it but hasn’t really collided head-on with it?”

Pawlenty echoed a similar line. “He basically graduated from law school, went on to be a community organizer and a law professor; went to the U.S. Senate and began running for president essentially the day he arrived,” he said of Obama on Meet The Press in 2008, “So what is it in his background, Tom, that would give him that same type of requisite wisdom and judgment and insight on national security matters or foreign affairs matters or anything else?”

Security

Colbert Mocks Michele Bachmann’s Islamophobic Witch-Hunt

By Ben Armbruster on Aug 10, 2012 at 10:55 am

Last night on his Comedy Central show, Steven Colbert mocked Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) anti-Muslm charges that the U.S government is supposedly being infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. “I admire” Bachmann’s campaign, Colbert said, adding, “Exhibit A: Did you know that the congressional cafeteria serves crescent rolls? That is nothing more than warm buttery jihad.” Colbert then ridiculed Newt Gingrich for praising McCarthyism to defend his support of Bachmann:

COLBERT: Yes it takes a brave man to randomly accuse someone of something horrible based on no evidence and then demand they refute the evidence that you don’t have. So tonight, I am accusing Newt Gingrich of being a baby eating werewolf.

Watch the clip:

Colbert also interviewed Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who has led the charge in Congress against Bachmann’s baseless witch-hunt. Ellison confirmed to Colbert that he is Muslim and has siblings. “So you are literally a Muslim brother,” Colbert joked, “You realize I just caught you. I caught you in a lie.” Watch the interview here:

Economy

Gingrich Admits There’s ‘No Proof Today’ Of Claims Made In Romney Welfare Reform Ad

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 9, 2012 at 9:34 am

Newt Gingrich has spent the last two days doing interview after interview to discuss the Romney campaign’s disingenuous attack claiming that the Obama administration is out to “gut welfare reform.” But during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Gingrich was presented with the actual text of the Department of Health and Human Services regulation that the administration is adopting, and had to acknowledge that the directive, as written, doesn’t gut welfare. “None of us believe them,” was all Gingrich could say.

Gingrich made a similar admission Wednesday night, when he all but all but admitted to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that a Romney campaign ad about welfare reform has no evidence behind it:

COOPER: But under the — I mean, this ad said under Obama’s plan you wouldn’t have to work, you wouldn’t have to train for a job, they just send you your welfare check. There’s no evidence of that at all.

GINGRICH: Well, given that this is an administration which has maximized the increase in dependency, maximized the number of people on food stamps, maximized the effort to get people to rely on the government, there’s also no evidence that once the waiver system is in place that you could rely on this administration to defend work. [...]

COOPER: I want to just try to clarify this. You do think that the actual wording under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work, you wouldn’t have to train for a job, they just send you your welfare check, that is not factually correct?

GINGRICH: We have no proof today, but I would say to you under Obama’s ideology it is absolutely true that he would be comfortable sending a lot of people checks for doing nothing. I believe that totally.

Watch it:

Romney’s ad claims that, “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.” In reality, the administration is simply granting states waivers to experiment with their job programs, not ending them. One of welfare reform’s conservative architects even called the Republican attacks “exaggerated.”

And none of this political debate grapples with the fact that today’s welfare programs were wholly inadequate during the Great Recession, getting aid to just a fraction of those families who needed it.

Security

Gingrich Glorifies McCarthyism To Defend His Support Of Bachmann’s Anti-Muslim Witch Hunt

By Ben Armbruster on Aug 8, 2012 at 6:39 pm

Today on CNN, Newt Gingrich applauded the central tenets of McCarthyism to justify his support for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) baseless campaign to root out alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government.

Host Wolf Blitzer singled out Bachmann target Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, telling Gingrich that it’s “ridiculous” to include her and that the whole thing reeks of McCarthyism. But the former House Speaker — and Mitt Romney supporter — wouldn’t back down, praising McCarthyism for rooting out communists and defending Abedin’s inclusion in Bachmann’s witch hunt. “This State Department has been amazingly pro-Muslim Brotherhood,” he said, “American citizens have the right to have the Congress ask the question.” Watch the clip:

Bachmann has been widely criticized for her anti-Muslim campaign, including by some top Republicans, particularly for singling out Abedin. But the Minnesota congresswoman has yet to offer substantial proof of any Muslim Brotherhood plot. In fact, actual members of the Islamist group have recently lamented that they can’t even take over the Egyptian government.

Clinton recently praised the Republicans who spoke out against Bachmann and today, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan denounced the campaign as well. “I have no idea of what it is that they are making reference to, and I’m not even going to try to divine what it is that sometimes comes out of Congress,” he said.

Security

Romney Reverses Again: ‘Culture Does Matter,’ But Still Ignores Israeli Occupation Of Palestinians

By Ali Gharib on Aug 1, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Palestinians line up at an Israeli military checkpoint in the West Bank

Mitt Romney took a lot of flak for his comment that the disparity between Israeli and Palestinian economic prosperity could be chalked up to “culture” (and God and a “few other things” that went unspecified). Perhaps chastened, Romney initially denied he was talking about Palestinian culture, though he plainly was. Then, true to form, he reversed himself.

Romney doubled down and, before long, penned an article in the National Review titled “Culture Does Matter.” The presumptive GOP presidential nominee placed his comments about Israel squarely into his flawed Freedom Agenda. He wrote:

Like the United States, the state of Israel has a culture that is based upon individual freedom and the rule of law. It is a democracy that has embraced liberty, both political and economic. [...] Israelis, Palestinians, Poles, Russians, Iranians, Americans, all human beings deserve to enjoy the blessings of a culture of freedom and opportunity.

Leaving aside that modern Israel was founded in part by collectivist farmers (Romney cancelled a meeting with their political descendants), the trope stems from Romney’s apparent interest in two books he’s read — but didn’t read very carefully.

But what Romney left out almost entirely on his trip to the Mideast — unlike his father, who visited Israel in 1967 — was the Palestinians. Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times that, “Much of what is wrong with the U.S.-Israel relationship today can be found in that Romney trip.” Were Romney to bother, he would have seen he was wrong:

[H]ad Romney gone to Ramallah he would have seen a Palestinian beehive of entrepreneurship, too, albeit small, but not bad for a people living under occupation.… In short, Romney didn’t know what he was talking about.

Indeed, as many commentators have noted, the World Bank blames Palestinian economic woes in large part on the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

As for “freedom” as a stand-in for cultural traits that lead to prosperity, Altantic writer Robert Wright noted that, “I’m sure many Palestinians agree they could use more freedom, and that this would have economic benefits”:

I mean, leave aside the left-right argument about whether Israeli or Palestinian leaders are more responsible for the failure to reach a two-state solution back when that was still possible. Do you have any idea how offensive Romney sounds to the vast majority of Palestinians who definitely can’t be blamed for this failure to seize past moments?

Romney did find some support for his statement, though. Former House Speaker and failed Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich seemed to accept that Romney was indeed ripping Palestinian culture — despite belonging to a non-existant people — as inferior to Israel’s. It’s no surprise that they would find synergy on this. In a December debate, Gingrich said of the Palestinians, “These people are terrorists.” Romney responded: “I happen to agree with most of what the Speaker said.”

Security

Gingrich Defends Bachmann’s Attack On Top Clinton Aide

By Igor Volsky on Jul 24, 2012 at 9:13 am

Newt Gingrich came to Michele Bachmann’s defense during an event at Politico Tuesday morning, insisting that she and the four Congresspeople who have been criticized by other Republicans for implying that a senior aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, are raising legitimate concerns about the groups’ efforts to infiltrate the American government.

“There weren’t allegations, there was a question,” Gingrich insisted. “The question ought to be asked across the board, what’s the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, what are its various networks and to what degree does it now influence the United States?” Gingrich claimed that senior members of his own party — including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) — have bought into an “elite” culture of “political correctness” that prevents any discussion about radical Islam:

JIM VANDEHEI (POLITICO): So you think the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the American government?

GINGRICH: I think it’s worth knowing and I think it tells you something about the level of hysteria attacking these five members of Congress….I would ask the question, what is it they’re afraid of learning?

Watch it:

The former House Speaker lamented that most Republicans, including the party’s presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have resisted investigating the influence of radical Islam on the government and singled out former primary opponent Rick Santorum as a leader on the issue.

Climate Progress

Newt Gingrich On Blackout And Record Heat Wave: Forget Climate, Let’s Worry About Electromagnetic Pulses

By Stephen Lacey on Jul 13, 2012 at 12:21 pm

Newt Gingrich tests virtual reality goggles.

With drought baking one third of counties across the country, an historic wildfire that torched the arid landscape of Colorado, and record heat and violent storms that recently left millions without power on the East Coast, scientists and government officials in the U.S. are issuing stronger warnings about the influence of climate change on intensifying extreme weather.

But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a different worry: Electromagnetic pulses.

In a Washington Post op-ed published yesterday, Gingrich — who recently ran for the GOP presidential nomination — used the violent storms, blackout and heat wave to discuss his long-time concern for EMPs.

The introduction makes it seem like he might actually talk about climate change:

Callista and I live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, and, like many in the region, we lost power in the recent storms. The blackout, combined with a record heat wave, made homes nearly uninhabitable. The storm and heat were this region’s greater leveler: Rich or poor, urban or suburban, six-figure income or just barely getting by, we were all cast on the same strange shores.

But no. Gingrich instead pivots to an issue that experts at the Missile Defense Agency call “pretty theoretical.”

I write this now because of my concern for national security and our power grid, which are susceptible to doomsday-level damage if hit by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike or a major solar storm.

It is almost unthinkable, yet possible, that an enemy could detonate a nuclear weapon over the atmosphere over the continental United States, triggering an electromagnetic pulse. This would short-circuit our power grid, taking power off­line for months, perhaps even years.

One scientist looking at the data on the recent heat wave says it’s “highly unlikely that the extremity of the heat during the past 13 months could have occurred without a warming climate.” That seems like something worth mentioning.

Instead, Gingrich attempts to focus our national attention to a problem that defense experts say they’re only mildly concerned about:

The Missile Defense Agency, an arm of the Pentagon that maintains an arsenal of ground-based interceptors ready to fly into space and smash enemy warheads, says that defeating such an attack would be as straightforward as any other defense of the continental United States.

“It doesn’t matter if the target is Chicago or 100 miles over Nebraska,” said Richard Lehner, an agency spokesman. “For the interceptor, it’s the same thing.” He called the potential damage from a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack “pretty theoretical.”

Compare that to what Defense Department says about climate change. In May, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared that “climate change has a dramatic impact on national security.”

“Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”

Ironically, Gingrich calls for a national war-like effort to create “fortified bunkers for the national power grid.” But when asked about dealing with climate change — a direct, oncoming threat that the military establishment is planning extensively around — Gingrich said he thinks “there is no evidence that justifies a large government centralized response of any kind right now.”

Economy

Gingrich: ‘Yes,’ Romney’s Policies Will Lead To ‘Fewer Teachers’

By Igor Volsky on Jun 11, 2012 at 9:06 pm

The Romney campaign is now tripling down on its claim that the nation needs fewer public employees — like teachers, firefighters, and police officers — to help rebound the economy.

During an interview with CNN’s John King on Monday evening, Romney campaign surrogate Newt Gingrich defended Mitt Romney’s resistance to hiring “more firemen, more policemen, more teachers” and admitted that the former Massachusetts governor’s policy would lead to less teachers in the classroom:

KING: The president says use federal dollars to help. Governor Romney says no. [...]

GINGRICH: We have to come to grips with how big the challenge is, and does that mean there will be fewer teachers? The honest answer is yes. Does it mean that you’re not going to get quite the same pension plan people have been getting? The honest answer is yes. President Obama may say well, we can borrow our way out of that decision. I don’t think the American people agree with him.

Watch it:

Gingrich’s comments came in response to Romney’s critique of President Obama’s claim on Friday that the public sector is lagging behind in job growth. President Obama “says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers,” Romney said. “Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” Former New Hampshire governor and top Romney surrogate John Sununu defended the remarks earlier on Monday, saying, “the taxpayers really do want to hear there will be fewer teachers,” ignoring the fact that Obama’s job’s plan is fully paid for and would not increase deficit spending.

Federal, state, and local governments have laid off more than 700,000 workers since Obama took office. Had that not happened, the unemployment rate would be a full point lower and the economic recovery would be stronger.

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