"this city is building a wall of money to protect itself from America."

[rndmprsn]

not that i usually give a shit, but newt is turning it way up against his own "republican revolution".



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010402058.html

"Cronies behaving as cronies!"

"Indifference to right and wrong!"

"A system of corruption!"

"Clean up this mess!"

..."The election process has turned into an incumbency protection process in which lobbyists attend PAC fundraisers to raise money for incumbents so they can drown potential opponents, thus creating war chests that convince candidates not to run and freeing up incumbents to spend more time in Washington PAC fundraisers. So, in effect, this city is building a wall of money to protect itself from America."

Gingrich's assessment was at odds with those of President Bush and GOP leaders in Congress.

...Gingrich skipped some of the most inflammatory rhetoric in his prepared text, including the suggestions that "Abramoff is only the tip of the iceberg" and that Congress should "eliminate from authority those with bad judgment."

Was he talking about Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.)? Reporters surrounded Gingrich after the speech to find out -- and Gingrich confirmed that Republicans should elect a new House majority leader. "I see no prospect that DeLay will in any sense be cleared in any reasonable time," he said. Gingrich was asked whether DeLay's leadership had contributed to the GOP problems. "I'm not going to comment on that," he said, thereby providing all the comment necessary.

The speaker advised his former colleagues to hold urgent hearings, and to come up with legislation that, among other things, bans fundraising in Washington and forces disclosure of all contact with lobbyists. The Spirit of '94, he said, is at stake.

"That legacy hangs in the balance," he said. "We arrived here as a reform party. . . . We were real and we were serious." (Hahahahah reform...yeah right!)

So what happened to Republicans in Congress? "You have to go ask them," the former speaker said.

[orwell]

1. How Bad Has it Gotten...

...that Gingrich and Barr are starting to sound sane.

[sweetm2475]

4. i was listening to him talk on wj yesterday morning....

and you are so right. not that i believe a word of what the slimy troll has to say, just that if i didn't know better, i would actually think he was making sense. wow. newt gingrich - make sense? did i just say that???:freak:

[necso]

9. Lol.

[in_cog_ni_to]

6. No shit.

I thought I'd never see the day.

[rndmprsn]

11. yes...i agree

[global1]

2. Pretty Soon - The March Into The WH By Newt & Fellow Repugs...

to tell * to resign or be impeached by his own. They can't let * bring down the party.

[MellowOne]

3. Abramoff is only the tip of the iceberg?

If we only knew.....

[Kolesar]

5. Newt: I'm shocked, shocked by Abramoff scandal!

From his lofty perch on the sidelines, the ethically challenged former speaker denounces corruption in politics.

By Michael Scherer


Jan. 5, 2006 | Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who rose to power in 1994 by exposing -- and exaggerating -- Democratic corruption, found himself on familiar footing Wednesday in the basement ballroom of the Hotel Washington. This time, however, his target was the corruption of his own party, and the exploits of one of its former stars, the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"The more I have learned about this, frankly the angrier I have gotten," Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, told a gaggle of reporters. "The indifference to right and wrong is very troubling."
....

For veterans of congressional ethics scandals, Gingrich makes an unlikely champion of clean politics. It is Gingrich, after all, who still holds the distinction of being the only sitting House speaker to be disciplined by his colleagues for ethical wrongdoing. "Gingrich has a tremendous pot-calling-the-kettle-black problem," says Gary Ruskin, director of the Congressional Accountability Project, a watchdog group that hounded Gingrich during the 1990s. "This hardball fundraising strategy was started by Gingrich."

Before the 1994 election, several reports noted that Gingrich had been warning the heads of corporate political action committees to give generously to Republican candidates or face political retribution. It was a threat that soon became conventional wisdom, as Republican leaders built increasingly close ties to the lobbying community and more and more corporate funds found their way into Republican coffers. By 1996, Gingrich found himself saddled with a number of ethical problems similar in type, though not in scale, to the Abramoff scandal. He was accused of misusing nonprofit organizations for political purposes, personally benefiting from political contributions and giving false statements to ethics investigators. The House eventually voted to reprimand Gingrich and require him to pay a $300,000 penalty.

...more....
http://salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/05/gingrich/index.html

[annabanana]

7. .. don't know whether to applaud

his awakening... or to double check his bread for where the butter is these days...

[sweetm2475]

8. wouldn't it be something if, after all our "liberal whining"....

newter comes in, says all the same stuff, the repukes fall in line, the congress gets cleaned out in '06, chimpy gets impeached, and the toad takes all the credit? i don't necessarily think that is what will happen but, man, if it did :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: with all the facetime he's trying to scrap up lately and the things he's saying, seems like that's his plan to me.

[Javaman]

10. Newt is trying desperately to be relevant again...n/t

[Catherine Vincent]

12. you can't trust what this snake says