A neo-Can goes over the border in attacking Ron Paul

A neo-Can goes over the border in attacking Ron Paul
Published: Monday, November 28, 2011, 2:22 PM     Updated: Monday, November 28, 2011, 3:44 PM
by Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2011/11/a_neo-can_goes_over_the_border.html#ooid=RzYXkxMzrXO6LlbTIUPgQrLSdayTFo25


Only in Washington could a former Walter Mondale speechwriter who was raised in Canada be permitted to pose as a conservative.

That's Charles Krauthammer, who is seen above making an attack on Ron Paul that is positively bizarre.

Krauthammer is among a group of what I call the "Neo-Cans." There are liberal internationalists who have snuck in from Canada disguised as conservatives. Mark Steyn and David Frum also meet the definition.

In the above clip Krauthammer is asked which of the contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination he could support.

"Probably everyone except Ron Paul, who is living in the 20s, who thinks we can have a moat around the United States and if we ignore the world, the world will ignore us," he responds.

This is dumb even by neo-Can standards. Of course we can't put a moat around the entire country. How would you dig a moat in the ocean? Doesn't Krauthammer have a map? Most of our borders are already defined by The Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

As for the two countries with which we have land borders, neither is or ever will be a military threat.

That's just dumb. But that comment about the 1920s is just plain crazy.
Back then there were no nuclear weapons and no long-range bombers. We had a powerful navy to protect our coastlines.

And who was going to attack us? Assuming this neo-Can knows his history - never a safe assumption with neocons - he has to be aware that Germany was in the midst of an economic collapse back then.

And assuming he's aware of that, what would he have had the United States do back then?

Should we have mounted a preemptive strike on Germany before Hitler came to power?

Should we have assembled a fleet and attacked Japan for no reason whatsoever?

Krauthammer is a psychiatrist. And here he is making a real advance in his field. He has provided us with irrefutable proof that neoconservatism is a form of insanity.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2011/11/a_neo-can_goes_over_the_border.html

cain is toast

WASHINGTON – An Atlanta businesswoman said Monday she and Republican
presidential contender Herman Cain had a 13-year extramarital affair
that ended right before Cain announced his campaign.

Ginger White told Fox 5 in Atlanta she met Cain in the late '90s while
he was chairman of the National Restaurant Association and that the
relationship was "pretty simple."

"It wasn't complicated. I was aware that he was married. And I was
also aware I was involved in a very inappropriate situation,
relationship," White told WAGA-TV." The accusation I had a 13-year
affair with her, no," Cain said.

Cain said the allegations will not cause him to drop his bid for the
presidency.

Cain said he found out about the allegations when the television
station contacted his lawyer, Lin Wood, for comment.
In a statement to the Atlanta station, Wood called White's depiction
of her relationship with Cain "private, alleged consensual conduct
between adults" and "not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or
the public."
"This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace — this is
not an accusation of an assault — which are subject matters of
legitimate inquiry to a political candidate," he said.

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Statism from the Right and Left

Monday, November 28, 2011
Statism from the Right and Left
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, a conservative, and New York Times columnist Gail Collins, a liberal, recently provided excellent insights into how the statist mind operates, both from a conservative and a liberal perspective.

During a recent presidential debate, Gingrich praised the Patriot Act, claiming that "all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives." He's referring, of course, to the government's "war on terrorism," a "war" that Gingrich and other warfare statists claim will be with us forever,

Unfortunately, Gingrich didn't explain why that is so. Why is it that Americans must live with the fear of terrorism for the rest of their lives?

NATO's recent killing of six children in Pakistan provides a microcosm of why the war on terrorism is perpetual in nature. The children were killed by an airstrike that officials said was targeted at insurgents who were purportedly laying mines in a local village. Essentially, the children were at the wrong place at the wrong time, making them unfortunate collateral damage.

According to the New York Times, however, "An uncle of the four children disputed that account. He said that his relatives were working in the fields when they were suddenly attacked by the planes. 'There were no Taliban in the field; this is a baseless allegation that the Taliban were planting mines,' Mr. Samad said."

As a practical matter, whether there were insurgents laying mines or not doesn't really affect the rage that naturally arises within people when children are killed by bombs or missiles, especially by foreign occupiers. When children are killed, parents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and friends are going to get angry ­ very angry. Some of them are likely to join the next group that is laying roadside mines intended to oust the occupiers from their country.

The cycle then continues to repeat itself, ending up in a perpetual war on terrorism and perpetually increasing infringements on civil liberties supposedly intended to keep us safe from the terrorists that the government's foreign policies are producing.

Why does Gingrich say that Americans will be unsafe for the rest of their lives? Because in his mind, the U.S. Empire is a given. Even if the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan were to end, that would simply mean that imperial resources and manpower would be reoriented toward other parts of globe ­ e.g., Asia, Latin America, Africa, or the Middle East.

For a statist like Gingrich the basic imperialist paradigm isn't to be questioned. Instead, for him the paradigm of imperialism, militarism, and a giant military-industrial complex with ever-rising military budgets must be considered a permanent feature of American life, much as the Egyptian military considers its position a permanent feature of Egyptian life.

With empire comes foreign anger and rage, which manifests itself in terrorism, which is then used as the excuse for ever-rising military budgets and perpetually growing infringements on civil liberties.

A similar mindset was manifested by Collins in a recent column entitled " O.K., Now Ron Paul." Since Paul is now in the top tier of polls in Iowa, Collins said she felt compelled to devote an entire column to his views. One can almost feel Collins' pain of having to address Paul's libertarian perspectives rather than simply ignore them.

Referring to Paul's book End the Fed, Collins writes "if you are interested in abolishing the Federal Reserve, I would really suggest reading it. However the Fed is not going to be ended."

I find that last sentence to be both fascinating and revealing. How does she know that the Fed is not going to be ended? Is she a seer? Is she predicting the future?

I don't think so. I think that what she is saying is that the statist paradigm of monetary central planning is a permanent feature of American life. Like Gingrich's warfare state, the Federal Reserve is here to stay and everyone had just better get used to it, even if it does mean that financial and economic bankruptcy lies at the end of the road.

Thus, while it's fun to have libertarians like Paul bringing up ideas on monetary freedom and the private minting of money, for Collins they are totally irrelevant given that in her mind, the paradigm of monetary socialism will be with us forever.

But if the status quo really is permanent, why do totalitarian dictators incarcerate, torture, and execute people who are spreading ideas on liberty? What difference does it make to them that such people are spreading such ideas if statism is, in fact, permanent in nature?

Indeed, the reason that dictators shut down those who are spreading ideas on liberty is precisely because they know that the status quo is never permanent. Ideas on liberty have the potential to inflame the populace, to such a point that even the most powerful of paradigms and regimes can be brought down.

This is especially true with respect to the Federal Reserve, which is now being attacked by both the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements. Both sides are figuring out that we libertarians have been right about the Fed from the start ­ that it's a vehicle by which public officials fraudulently plunder and loot ordinary people for the benefit of the rich and the privileged, including their cronies on Wall Street and elsewhere.

It is ideas on liberty, both in foreign and domestic affairs, that makes libertarianism such a threat to statists like Gingrich and Collins. Deep down, people of the statist ilk know that the socialism, interventionism, and imperialism that they have foisted onto our land can be dismantled. All that's needed is a critical mass of Americans who become fed up with the statism that afflicts our land and demand the restoration of liberty, free markets, and a limited-government republic. If that were to happen, a paradigm shift could occur as rapidly as the fall of the Berlin Wall, which statists once claimed would be with us for the rest of our lives.

That's what scares statists like Gingrich and Collins. They see the rising level of interest in libertarians, which is being manifested in the political arena by the Ron Paul campaign. At first, they hoped to ignore it. When that didn't work, they chose to scoff at it and suggest to people that system can't be changed ­ that statism is here forever.

When statists suggest that libertarian ideas can never prevail in America, me thinks that the statists might just be whistling past the graveyard.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-11-28.asp

Newt Gingrich: Supposed Republican “Frontrunner,” Totalitarian Social Engineer

Newt Gingrich: Supposed Republican "Frontrunner," Totalitarian Social Engineer
Posted on 28 November 2011 by William Grigg



"Don't say this out loud -- but I'm actually a New Age statist posing as a conservative!"

Republican presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich, the most recent contender embraced by the "Anybody-but-Mitt" constituency, received what many consider an ironic endorsement from former political antagonist Bill Clinton:

 "He's articulate and he tries to think of a conservative version of an idea that will solve a legitimate problem, For example, I watched the national security debate … And Newt said two things that would make an independent voter say, 'Well, I gotta consider that.'"

Gingrich and Clinton are much more compatible than many observers might suspect. In 1993, when then-First Lady Hillary Clinton was promoting a nationalized health care scheme, Gingrich (at the time a Republican Congressman from Georgia) publicly supported the idea of a federally enforced individual health insurance mandate – a much-despised mechanism incorporated into the "Obamacare" program. In a Meet the Press interview earlier this year, Gingrich expressed his support for a "variation" on the Obama-era health insurance mandate.

Under the reign of Bill Clinton – the first president to acknowledge youthful "experimentation" with narcotics, albeit in oddly qualified fashion – the federal War on Drugs escalated dramatically. Gingrich, who likewise spent some of his youth "frolicking in the autumn mist," as it were, also offers unqualified support for the federal anti-drug jihad. As House Speaker in 1996, Gingrich introduced legislation to impose the death penalty on drug smugglers.

Asked about that proposal during a recent interview, Gingrich reiterated his support for capital punishment for drug offenses. He also insisted that "draconian" anti-drug policies imposed by Singapore and other authoritarian countries are compatible with  the "American" view of the citizen's relationship with the government.

"You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there's nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American," pontificated Gingrich. "If you're serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we're going to have drugs in this country."

Gingrich, who has ruined two marriages through adulterous affairs and whose corpulent form is not the physique of someone who practices rigorous self-discipline, is eager to dispense potted homilies of that kind, most of which combine hypocrisy and dishonest history. Rep. Ron Paul, a long-time physician and ardent physical fitness buff who still rides a bicycle 20 miles a day at the age of 76, emphatically opposes drug abuse. He also understands that no government has the moral right or constitutional authority to regulate what adults choose to ingest.

What Gingrich breezily dismisses as "the Ron Paul tradition" – which rejects prohibition in all forms – was actually settled social policy in the United States until the early 20th Century. Our pious, abstemious 19th Century forebears lived in a country in which cocaine was available at the corner apothecary and advertised in family magazines as a topical analgesic for use in treating children's dental pain. Gingrich's authoritarian paternalism is much more in keeping with the "Progressive" movement, which promoted the use of federal power to remake society – through, among other things, the prohibition of alcohol.

Gingrich's itch for social engineering isn't limited to the domestic "War on Drugs." He has long championed a Progressive-style interventionist foreign policy and its necessary coefficient, a domestic police state to deal with the terrorist "blowback" that is inevitably generated by military adventurism abroad.

During the late 1990s, Gingrich helped create the The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century – often referred to as the Hart-Rudman Commission because its co-chairmen were former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman. That Commission helped draft the proposals that were incorporated into the so-called PATRIOT Act; in fact, the blueprint for that legislation was on the president's desk months before the 9-11 attack.  Gingrich's role in creating that measure helps explain the asperity he displayed when it was criticized by Rep. Paul during the recent Republican National Security Debate in Washington, D.C.

Although Gingrich consistently supports radically expanded federal power to protect Americans from terrorism, he has actually suggested – in all seriousness – that the federal government needs to permit an occasional terrorist attack in order to maintain a public "psychology" that will support a more invasive government.

During a visit to a Long Island bookstore during a 2008 tour to promote his book "Days of Infamy," Gingrich lamented that the Bush administration's purported success in stopping terrorist threats (which are actually vanishingly rare) was among the "great tragedies" of recent history. "This means there's less proof … that we're in danger," he claimed. "And it's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us."

As his audience laughed, Gingrich made it clear that he intended for the shocking remark to be taken seriously:  "The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping the bad guys, the less proof there is that we're actually in danger. Think about the psychology."

Gingrich's influence-peddling on behalf of various corporate interests – from the Ethanol lobby to the unfathomably corrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac – provoked George F. Will's lacerating description of the former House Speaker as a "classic rental politician." Devoid of conservative principles, hostile to individual liberty, utterly indifferent to the stench of his personal hypocrisy, and suffused with unearned self-regard, Gingrich isn't likely to win the Republican nomination. The eagerness with which the pundit class has embraced him most likely reflects its anxiety to create a plausible contender to Romney – and its dogmatic insistence on pretending that Ron Paul doesn't exist.

http://www.republicmagazine.com/news/newt-gingrich-supposed-republican-%E2%80%9Cfrontrunner%E2%80%9D-totalitarian-social-engineer.html

'Is David Gregory a Vegetable?'

Well he is kind of pretty.

And such a nice $2 million house on Dexter Street in Foxhall he shares with his Fannie Mae lawyer wife.  Just around the corner from MSNBC colleague Andrea Micthell's house in Kent she shares with her Federal Reserve chairman husband.

Could there be a reason they don't question people about the mortgage and financial meltdowns?

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Monday, November 28, 2011

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Tea Party: Cut Insane Deficits. Bring Back Crazy Deficits!

November28th
Tea Party: Cut Insane Deficits. Bring Back Crazy Deficits!
Tom Woods

Herman Cain won a straw poll of Missouri Tea Party members last week. Ron Paul came in second, and Newt Gingrich third, with no other candidate even close.

If you read this blog regularly, nothing here will come as a surprise to you. But I am still trying to understand what principles the Tea Party espouses. Constitutionalism? Newt Gingrich is a constitutionalist? Herman Cain is a constitutionalist? What is the evidence for these claims? Both figures hold extremely conventional views on a wide array of issues. Neither one is any kind of maverick, except according to the media's definition of the term.

Here's what I wrote in Rollback about Newt the constitutionalist:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a reputation for being a right-wing ideologue. But it is surely a strange right-wing ideologue who credits Franklin Roosevelt with lifting the country out of the Great Depression, joins with John Kerry on "climate change," and supports (among many other things) the Medicare prescription drug benefit, federal programs to pay for more teachers, Internet access for every American, and rewards to students who take challenging math and science courses ­ not to mention his sympathy for federal energy policy and Hillary Clinton's proposed national health-care database, among other things….

[In 1994,] the GOP leadership made the [election] into a referendum on [Gingrich's] "Contract with America," a series of proposals the party pledged to champion if elected. Democrats and Republicans alike pretended it was a radical assault on government spending and activity ­ Democrats in order to frighten their base, and Republicans in order to energize theirs. The Contract was, in fact, a hodgepodge of trivial changes that both kept the basic structure of the American Leviathan intact and neutralized the more ambitious plans and proposals of freshman congressmen who may actually have wanted to change something. The center-left Brookings Institution had it right: "Viewed historically, the Contract represents the final consolidation of the bedrock domestic policies and programs of the New Deal, the Great Society, the post-Second World War defense establishment, and, most importantly, the deeply rooted national political culture that has grown up around them."

Here's more about Newt. Newt the constitutionalist, who will save the republic. That's about what the American public deserves.

So what is the attraction of these men? They supported TARP, opposition to which is supposed to define the Tea Party. Thus on the key economic issue of our time, they sided with the establishment against the people. Nice.

I see no serious proposals for specific spending cuts from either of them, and opposition to high spending is supposed to define the Tea Party. Cain endorsed Mitt Romney in 2008, the person the Tea Partiers claim to dislike.

Cain's positions are a complete disaster, as I've shown again and again (see below), and the fact that he thought the economy was fine on September 1, 2008 shouldn't fill Tea Partiers or anyone else for that matter with confidence that this is the man we need at a world-historic moment of economic crisis.

I wrote a post not long ago called 'I Support Cain' Means 'The Country's Fine Just as It Is." And here's my resource page on Cain, the alleged "outsider" who chaired the Federal Reserve of Kansas City.

Let me amend that blog post title, by the way. "I support Cain" or "I support Gingrich" means "I haven't yet been exploited enough by the American political duopoly, so please keep looting me and holding me in contempt. Though while you're doing it, have the decency to give pretty speeches about how much you side with me against big government."

http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/tea-party-cut-insane-deficits-bring-back-crazy-deficits/

Ron Paul’s strategy for winning: Independent and cross-over voters

Ron Paul's strategy for winning: Independent and cross-over voters
With not a lot of enthusiasm for either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, Ron Paul may become increasingly attractive to independent and cross-over voters. At least that's what his supporters are counting on.
By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer / November 27, 2011

"Ron Paul beats Barack Obama in recent poll."

That headline (made up by me) is sort of true. It refers to a Public Policy Polling survey earlier this month in which Paul beats Obama among independent voters 48-39 percent with 13 percent undecided.

Unremarkable, you say, since Obama beats Paul 47-41 percent among all likely voters in the PPP poll. Besides, I agree, such polls are ephemeral at best, more art than science in their dissection.

Election 101: Ten things to know about Ron Paul

Still, the same one-on-one fake elections show other Republican presidential hopefuls in the field – Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann – losing to Obama among independents. Only GOP front-runner Mitt Romney comes close, tying Obama among such partyless voters (but losing overall, as do the others).

Why is this important?

It's because independents are the fastest growing segment of our nominally two-party system, swelling the ranks of voters as the Democratic Party and the Republican Party alike lose trust and loyalty.

That's the point Paul-supporter and WatchingAmerica.com publisher Robin Koerner makes in his recent Huffington Post column.

With not a lot of enthusiasm for either Romney or Obama, Koerner argues, Paul's cross-over appeal becomes increasingly apparent. He also points out a sleeper tidbit potentially offsetting the GOP's more saber-rattling stance than Paul on foreign affairs: Paul has been getting more donations than his rivals from those who actually do the nation's fighting – those identifying themselves as active duty or retired military personnel. (Chickenhawks and other Neocons take note.)

An unscientific anecdote seems relevant in retrospect.

As our Thanksgiving crowd watched droolingly while the turkey was being carved, someone (me) brought up Ron Paul. I expected sparks to fly among the cranberries and corn pudding, but no. Three friends – a liberal Democrat, a moderate Republican, and a fan of Rush Limbaugh – all had good things to say about the Texas congressman with strong libertarian tendencies.

One can make too much of this. Ron Paul has an enthusiastic fan base that (like Robin Koerner) scans polls and other political entrails selectively to make the point that their man can win not only his party's nomination but the general election.

Still, Paul soldiers on, typically going his own way on issues from immigration to Israel, speaking without pretense or political calculation at debates, holding his own in polls (certainly more so than most of the rest, especially those like Bachmann, Perry, and Cain who surged then fell back to the second tier).

And as he does so, he's getting more media attention (although supporters still complain that he's being ignored).

Take the Iowa caucuses next January, the first test of a candidate's relative strength, where Paul is putting lots of resources and effort.

"Paul is an interesting wild card in Iowa," writes Brent Budowsky, who blogs for The Hill newspaper. "He can win Iowa, and if for some reason Newt falls back, I suspect he will win."

"The media has always underestimated the premium of passion, conviction and organization in the Paul campaign," writes Budowsky. "Paul's main competitor in Iowa is Newt. If Newt maintains his support, which is questionable, he has a good shot at Iowa, and if he does not, my bet is Paul."

"If conservatives are forced to settle for Romney, who many hold in contempt," Budowsky concludes, "Ron Paul could run a blockbuster third party campaign, if he chooses."

Of course, that's what they said about Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000. Which is why we had Bill Clinton for two terms and George W. Bush for two more.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/1127/Ron-Paul-s-strategy-for-winning-Independent-and-cross-over-voters

Romney on the ropes, Gingrich on the rise, Paul on the defensive, Huntsman on the periphery

Romney on the ropes, Gingrich on the rise, Paul on the defensive, Huntsman on the periphery
By Brent Budowsky - 11/28/11 02:29 PM ET

Mitt Romney is the weakest front-runner in modern political history and is far more vulnerable than most pundits think. Newt Gingrich will get a major boost from the Union Leader endorsement, which will put pressure on Romney and Ron Paul in Iowa and New Hampshire. The great mystery of the campaign is that no matter how many Republicans rise and fall as the alternative to Romney, Jon Huntsman has not had his moment.

In my view, Huntsman is the most qualified Republican to be president. In the White House view, Huntsman would be the strongest candidate. So, Shakespeare might write, wherefore art thou, Jon Huntsman?

What Huntsman could have done, and could still do today, is make himself the true conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. For whatever reason, he has chosen not to. As a result, he has been on the periphery of the main event in the GOP campaign, which is Mitt Romney versus whoever emerges as his chief opponent.

Huntsman complains he has not received enough attention in the debates. But the way for Huntsman to get attention is to repeat, on issue after issue, in debate after debate, that he is the candidate of conservative authenticity while Romney is the candidate of political expedience.

There is a linear consistency throughout Huntsman's career, from his service as White House aide to Ronald Reagan to his conservative and widely acclaimed service as governor of Utah.

Huntsman could say he is proud of his record and his governorship while Romney must run against his moderate record and liberal governorship.

Huntsman should counterpoint against Romney on every major issue on which Romney has flipped and flopped (which is just about every issue). He should use these debates to force the media to pay attention to him, by directly challenging the authenticity of Romney on one issue after another. Within each debate, he should take Romney on. From one debate to the next, he should take Romney on.

My guess is that Gingrich has his fall, like the other Anybody But Romney candidates. We shall see. Here is the new totem pole:

Mitt Romney is in serious trouble. A strong majority of Republicans do not like him or trust him.

Gingrich gets a big boost from the Union Leader. He pressures Romney for the top spot, and he pressures Ron Paul, who could fall below 10 percent again if Gingrich becomes the one true alternative to Romney. If I were Ron Paul, I would be challenging Gingrich the same way Huntsman should be challenging Romney.

Huntsman remains in Never Never Land. He must forcefully challenge Romney, head to head, in every coming debate. After the next two debates, either Huntsman takes off by challenging Romney in the debates, or he closes New Hampshire, and his campaign, behind Romney, Gingrich and Paul.

I hope Huntsman rises to the occasion. If he does not, he will be a very good man who missed a very huge opportunity by standing on the sidelines of the only event that matters, which is: who will be the final alternative to Romney.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/195685-romney-on-the-ropes-gingrich-on-the-rise-paul-on-the-defensive-huntsman-on-the-periphery

Why Is a CBS News Anchor Scoffing at Blowback and Diplomacy?

Why Is a CBS News Anchor Scoffing at Blowback and Diplomacy?
By Conor Friedersdorf
Nov 28 2011, 12:04 PM ET

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EXvHPkRHBvk

The sneering contempt that Bob Schieffer shows Ron Paul in the interview above is something to behold. Watch it yourself, for words can't do his dismissive manner justice. But a mere transcript of the exchange is enough to show what the CBS newsman gets wrong on the merits, and to lay bare a bias in his purportedly objective journalism. As you read, ponder what is, in this case, an interesting question: What sort of bias is at work here?

Here's exchange number one:

BOB SCHIEFFER: I want to ask you some questions. Now that you're among the front-runners we need to know more about your positions on the issues. And I want to start with foreign policy, because your statements over the years, posted on your Web site and elsewhere, some of the things you have said in the debates, suggest that you believe that 9/11 happened because of actions that the United States took. Is that correct?

RON PAUL: I think there's an influence. And that's exactly what the 9/11 Commission said. That's what the DoD has said. And that's what the CIA has said. And that's what a lot of researchers have said. And, um, just remember immediately after 9/11 we removed the base from Saudi Arabia. So there is a connection. That doesn't do the whole full explanation. But our policies definitely had an influence. And you talk to the individuals who committed it, and those who would like to do us harm. They say, yes, we don't like American bombs to fall on our country. We don't like the intervention that we do in their nations. So to deny this I think is very dangerous. But to argue the case that they want to do us harm because we're free and prosperous I think is a very dangerous notion because it's not true.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, I would question the import of what some of those commissions found that you cited, but basically what you're saying, Mr. Paul, is that it was America's fault. That 9/11 happened and it was our fault that it happened.

RON PAUL: No, I think that's misconstruing what I'm saying, because America is you and I. We didn't cause it. The average American didn't cause it. But if you have a flawed policy, it may influence it. When Ronald Reagan went into Lebanon, he deeply regretted this, because he said if he'd have been more neutral, those Marines wouldn't have died in Lebanon, because the policy was flawed. The same thing that McNamara said after the Vietnam War. He wrote in his memoirs that if we don't learn from our policies, it won't be worth anything. So I'm saying, policies have an effect. But that's a far cry from blaming America. I mean, in America, you're supposed to be able to criticize your own government without saying you're unAmerican.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Of course.

RON PAUL: And that's what the implication is.

BOB SCHIEFFER: But you are saying it was the government's fault. That's basically what you're saying. But let me move on to something else--

RON PAUL: I'm saying it's the policymakers' faults, they contributed, contributed to it. Contributed.

This is the sort of interview I expect from the Fox News Channel. What's deemed the most important matter, circa 2011, to find out about a presidential candidate? How he attributes responsibility for 9/11. The method used to pin down his views? Repeatedly attributing to him a more extreme, inflammatory position than he holds.

What to do when Paul points out that his actual, longstanding position -- that American foreign policy was one factor that inspired the attacks -- is shared by lots of Americans, including the authors of various official government inquiries into the matter? Schieffer's response is the inexplicable, "Well, I would question the import of what some of those commissions found." Why?

As Glenn Greenwald notes, it would be one thing if Schieffer behaved similarly anytime he conducts an interview, but this style of contemptuous inquiry is reserved for positions he regards as ignorant. Why doesn't he think that 9/11 happened partly "because of actions the United States took"?

That brings us to question number two.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Am I correct that your idea of how to discourage Iran from building nuclear weapons is to be nicer to Iran's leaders? Is that correct?

RON PAUL: Well, no. I think we have 12,000 diplomats, I'm suggesting that maybe we ought to use some of them. Just think of how we prevented a nuclear war with the Soviets when the Soviet missiles were put in Cuba. We didn't say, "We're going to attack you." Kennedy and Khrushchev talked and they made a deal. You take your weapons out of Cuba, we'll take 'em out of Turkey. That's the kind of talk that I want. I think the greatest danger now is for us to overreact and this is what I'm fearful of. Iran doesn't have a bomb, there's no proof, there's no new information regardless of this recent report. And for us to overreact and talk about bombing Iran, that's much more dangerous. We got the Libyans to get rid of their nuclear power and their nuclear weapons, and look at what happened to them, we've got to understand that--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mr. Paul, may I interrupt for just a second? No one has suggested in the U.S. government that we're going to bomb Iran. What they have said is that we're going to impose very tough sanctions. You are against sanctions on Iran, is that correct?

RON PAUL: Yes, because sanctions are an initial step to war. I was opposed to all the sanctions for 10 years and the bombings in Iraq because I said it would lead to war. But if you say no one is suggesting it, why don't you listen to the debates? Listen to some of the other candidates.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mr. Paul, may I correct you? I am listening to the debates. I know there have been some candidates who have talked about that, including Mr. Romney. The United States government has not said we're going to bomb Iran. I mean, that's just a fact.

RON PAUL: No, obviously they haven't said that, but the implication is, "Nothing is off the table." You've heard those statements?

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well yes, all right. Let's move on then.

What you see is confusion that is entirely the fault of the host. Rather than ask Paul whether or not he favors sanctions against Iran, Schieffer decided to get cute and patronize him -- misrepresenting his true position in the process -- by asking if he thought the solution was just being "nicer."

Again, it was like I was watching Sean Hannity, where the ignorant assumption is that diplomacy and negotiation are nothing more than little making-nice parties for naive liberals. Paul, who finds himself in a GOP field competing to be more bellicose toward Iran, understandably assumed Schieffer was asking if he favored going to war to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions.

And then Schieffer acts as if the idea that the United States government would bomb Iran is something only an ignorant loon would think.

Ron Paul holds some positions that, whether right or wrong, are undeniably out of the mainstream. But the notion that the September 11 attacks happened partly because of anger at America's foreign policy toward Middle Eastern countries? The idea that diplomacy is a better way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons than sanctions or war? Those are not fringe positions.

Why did the CBS news anchor treat them as such?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/why-is-a-cbs-news-anchor-scoffing-at-blowback-and-diplomacy/249097/#.TtPOLOBRmp0.email

Progressives: We Owe Everything to Government

November28th
Progressives: We Owe Everything to Government
Tom Woods

Several readers have alerted me to an article in the New York Times the other day by Gail Collins, making fun of Ron Paul for not believing in the need for various government agencies and functions. I haven't had time to glance at it ­ I spent the weekend exclusively with the family, and spiritually far away from the New York Times ­ but I may put together some kind of response this week.

One reader in particular shared with me the kinds of comments that accompanied the article. They were overwhelmingly of the low-self-esteem statist variety: we're too stupid to figure out how to organize society without guys with guns directing everything, so Ron Paul is silly and naive to believe in freedom.

Thus: "It's unlikely that Ron Paul would be here today if he had grown up in the world he wants the rest of us to live in. There's a reason we stopped living like self-sufficient nomads and built civilizations which could provide food, education, health care, defense, and commerce to a large and diverse citizenry."

Let's leave aside that England had achieved practically universal education well before the introduction of "free" schools, or that every single good this person insists we are too stupid and helpless to provide without guys with guns can indeed be and has in fact been so provided.

Let's focus just on commerce.

(1) The person quoted above actually thinks opposition to government power means opposition to commerce and a retreat into self-sufficiency. I hardly know what to say. One of the key classical liberal (libertarian) criticisms of government is that it disrupts commercial activity and undermines the international division of labor.

(2) Worse than this elementary mistake is the casual assumption, shared by folks across the ideological spectrum, that we owe the great achievements of mankind, including commerce itself, to guys with guns.

For one thing, what is so impressive about the international division of labor is that it occurs without central direction of any kind. Note what happened when this guy tried to build a toaster from scratch, entirely on its own. It turned out to be an unspeakably difficult thing that took him nearly a year and a pile of dough, and the toaster wound up working for ten seconds.

Yet the production process by which the various inputs that go into toaster production are produced, transported, and assembled, in just the right quantities without any surpluses or shortages, occurs every day without any Global Toaster Production Planning Board. And it isn't just a matter of getting a few pieces together. It isn't even just a matter of understanding mining or wiring. Every stage involves technical knowledge possessed only by a very few, and requires the outlay of capital and the allocation of productive factors to make it a reality. Toaster production requires the manufacture of rubber in order to make the tires that the trucks will need to transport the toaster's component parts. Thus the more closely we look at it, the more mind-bogglingly complex the whole matter becomes. That this occurs every day without our appreciating or even noticing it is truly incredible.

The classic work on this is Leonard Read's great little essay "I, Pencil."

(3) The extension of commerce has in fact involved striking down state-imposed barriers to the free interaction of individuals. It's a bit rich for the state to try to take credit for it.

(4) The more sophisticated critic may argue that the legal infrastructure necessary to make commerce work originated with the state. Wrong again. Merchant law developed in medieval Europe without the involvement of the state. This is particularly remarkable given that it sought to provide dispute resolution and basic legal standards across a wide territorial expanse that included peoples who spoke different languages and practiced different customs. You can read a good discussion of it in the classic work of Bruce Benson, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State.

(5) For all the commitment to peace and nonviolence that is supposed to define progressivism, there's a tad bit too much admiration for what we might call a military model of social organization for my taste. The casual assumption that all good things come about because of large-scale organization overseen by a leader barking out orders speaks ill of their understanding of how society actually functions.

In such a context, it may be interesting to note the zeal with which progressives (with only a handful of exceptions, so there goes the myth of the progressive peacenik) urged U.S. involvement in World War I. Yes, Germany had to be smashed, they said, but the American economy also needed the kind of regimentation and central organization that the pressures of wartime would surely bring. Once people had become accustomed to government direction of the economy, they would be more prepared in peacetime to abandon or at least modify their backward ideas about the sanctity of private property and all that.

I conclude with these remarks by Harvard's Samuel Huntington, a man of the Establishment if there ever was one:

On the military reservation…there is ordered serenity. The parts do not exist on their own, but accept their subordination to the whole. Beauty and utility are merged in gray stone…. The post is suffused with rhythm and harmony which comes when the collective will supplants individual whim…. The behavior of men is governed by a code…. The unity of the community incites no man to be more than he is. In order is found peace; discipline, fulfillment; in community, security….

Is it possible to deny that the military values ­ loyalty, duty, restraint, dedication ­ are the ones America most needs today? … America can learn more from West Point than West Point from America…. If the civilians permit the soldiers to adhere to the military standard, the nations themselves may eventually find redemption and security in making that standard their own.

In short: shut up and obey, citizen.  It is this principle, and not your vaunted "voluntary social interaction," that makes the world go round.


http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/progressives-we-owe-everything-to-government/

Barney “the Gay Dinosaur” Frank Drops Out of 2012 Re-Election Bid

New post on Doctor Bulldog & Ronin Barney "the Gay Dinosaur" Frank Drops Out of 2012 Re-Election Bid by doctorbulldog Probably the only other thing he's ever dropped is a bar of soap: Rep. Frank won't run for reelection - The Hill Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he is not seeking re-election, ending a 32-year career in the House. Frank, 71, is the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee and the architect, with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of the sweeping Wall Street regulatory reform law enacted in 2010. He is scheduled to hold a press conference at 1 p.m. in his district, according to a spokesman, who said the congressman would announce at that time the reason for his decision. His retirement will deprive the House of one of its most colorful characters, a man known for his quick and often caustic wit. [...] Nope.  The article doesn't mention of his pot smoking nor his homosexual lover at Fannie Mae, Herb Moses.  Instead, we are treated to this: His legislative legacy is likely to be the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that passed in 2010 in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown that sent the economy into a tailspin in 2008. Hailed by the Obama administration, the law has drawn sharp criticism in the Republican presidential nomination fight, and one leading contender, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), even suggested that Frank be jailed, along with Dodd, for their support of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the lead-up to the financial crisis. [...] And, which financial institutions responsible for the 2008 crash were exempted from Barney's Dodd-Frank Financial Deform Legislation?  Fannie & Freddie, that's who! doctorbulldog | 28 November, 2011 at 11:03 am | Categories: Congress, congress sucks, Good News, politics | URL: http://wp.me/p1NPg-7sH Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe or change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/barney-the-gay-dinosaur-frank-drops-out-of-2012-re-election-bid/

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Jingoism Trumps ‘Jingle Bells’ in Nov. 22 Republican Debate

UPDATED: Jingoism Trumps 'Jingle Bells' in Nov. 22 Republican Debate
written by Ilana Mercer on 11.22.11 @ 7:29 pm

CNN's co-sponsors of the Republican debate from Constitution Hall, in the nation's capital, were the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. That fact set the jingoistic, interventionist tone for the evening. There were lots of leading questions from scholars of these respective special interests. Implicit in all these questions was the demand for a better-defined role (read war) for America in Iran, Syria ("no fly zone") and Sudan (all the better to inflame and focus the local Al-Qaeda chapter).
Mitt Romney ended this long, two-hour session by cementing the position of all the Republican candidates, bar Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman to a lesser degree: American exceptionalism means asserting America's military superiority. Unclear was how that position coincided with US economic bankruptcy.

In the next hour, I will be teasing out the details of the debate for you with the analysis you've come to except here at BAB (donation buttons to the left of you).

Humorous highlights (all the more essential given the fact that these are dead-end debates; the resignation written all over Ron Paul's face says it all):

Herman Cain (Chairman/CEO, Godfather's Pizza) calls Wolf Blitzes "Blitz," and firmly tells him, "No, Blitz."
Michele Bachmann (U.S. Representative, Minnesota, State Senator; Attorney) about Pakistan: "It is too nuclear to fail."
A scrappy Ron Paul (U.S. Representative, Texas, Physician) shouts half-way through the first hour: "How about the rest of us?" "Blitz ignores Paul, and his own promise at the onset to allocate fair time to all.

UPDATE: Okay to the meat of the exchanges:

Introductions: Rick P. touted the bliss of marriage and the beauty of his wife. Newt Gingrich sucked up to the hosts and think tanks named above. MB blew kisses to the troops. Ron Paul said what needed saying: "I am convinced that needless and unnecessary wars are a great detriment. They undermine our prosperity and our liberties. They add to our deficits and they consume our welfare. We should take a careful look at our foreign policy."

Patriot Act: Ron Paul sustained the momentum by calling the thing unpatriotic, advocating that one prosecute cases as the crimes they are. Paul also warned about sacrificing liberty for security in pursuit of total safety and a total police state. The other candidates, with the exception of Jon Huntsman, plumped for an extension and an expansion of the Act.

The Nation's Paid Pimps: Paul was not asked about the Transportation and Security Administration . Perry has moved to criminalize the TSA's pat downs in his state of Texas, but here the governor spoke primarily about privatization, getting rid of the unions, and doing better counterintelligence, as if the government could do anything better. Rick Santorum spoke to the Israeli model. This meant what I call "rational profiling" ( "Cabbies Do It Too). Ron Paul stepped in it (it was a matter of time, I guess). First Paul quite correctly called the other candidates on their circular reasoning: They all kept calling for Patriot-Act type preemption against dem "terrorists." However, until you bring a case against someone, he is but a suspect. After that fabulous point, Paul went and ruined it all by saying something stupid like "don't profile."

Pakistan/Afghanistan: Newt Gingrich stood out in his quest to effect a sort of American coup in both Pakistan and Afghanistan­I thought we had already done so; semantics, really­take over operations and run these places like we need to. G-d help us. Mitt wants nation building. For a clever man he sure sounded stupid claiming that divesting from these hell holes forthwith would threaten the gains and investment in blood and treasure made so far. Perry had taken his meds for this debate. No pennies for Pakistan was his position. He also spoke of encouraging the region's countries to trade. It's probably as good as talking to the hand, but it's sure worth suggesting barter over boycotts and bombs. Jon repeate d his best lines from the CNN/Tea Party Debate in Tampa, Florida, where he advocated for divesting from these crap countries.

Interspersed were questions from the pompous audience about sanctions on Iran (more, more), possible attacks on A-Jad, and requests for foreign aid. The last position was advanced by no other than Bush's Paul (Dundes) Wolfowitz. Naturally, now that Wolfy is president of the World Bank, he'd like to secure a supply of US funny money with which to sustain his new fiefdom.

I'm getting terribly bored. This whole competition will end badly. My report will commence tomorrow, if your interest is sustained. But Let me end with immigration, an issue on which they all sucked mightily, and should read "Suicide of A Superpower" and its sequel).

Like most Americans (except for us immigrants), the candidates, in their call for more special visas for highly skilled individuals, proved that they know close to nothing about America's labyrinthine visa programs. They advocated for fixing the immigration system so that the US could import many more brilliant individuals, as if there was a limit on, or an impediment to, such immigration.

THERE are no limits on the number of geniuses American companies can import.

America already has an "Extraordinary Ability" Visa. In exchange for my spouse's exceptional abilities and qualifications, he was awarded the O-1 visa. And we, in short order, gained green cards.

The primary H-1B hogs­Infosys (and another eight, sister Indian firms), Microsoft, and Intel­are forever claiming that they are desperate for talent. But, in reality, they have unlimited access to individuals with unique abilities through the open-ended O-1 visa program.

I believe that before the article titled "Why Aren't The H-1B Hogs Satisfied With The O-1 'Extraordinary Ability' Visa?" was written, no immigration expert had made the simple point above.

That's right: The O-1 visa program enables the importation of as many geniuses as a company can find, from every corner of the world.


http://barelyablog.com/?p=44788

Newt Gingrich Says Drug Use Is "Antithetical to Being an American," Wants to Escalate Drug War by Impoverishing More Users

Newt Gingrich Says Drug Use Is "Antithetical to Being an American," Wants to Escalate Drug War by Impoverishing More Users
Mike Riggs | November 28, 2011

"My general belief is that we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy," GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich tells Yahoo! News' Chris Moody. "In my mind it means having steeper economic penalties and it means having a willingness to do more drug testing." The latter applies almost exclusively to poors, naturally. More from that interview: 

In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?

I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence and the level of violence that they've done to society.  . . . You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there's nothing wrong with heroine and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American. If you're serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we're going to have drugs in this country.

Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They've been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.

In 1981, you introduced a bill that would allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. What has changed?

What has changed was the number of parents I met with who said they did not want their children to get the signal from the government that it was acceptable behavior and that they were prepared to say as a matter of value that it was better to send a clear signal on no drug use at the risk of inconveniencing some people--then it was to be compassionate toward a small group at the risk of telling a much larger group that it was okay to use the drug.

It's a change of information. Within a year of my original support of that bill I withdrew it.

Ron Paul and Barney Frank have introduced a similar bill almost every year since.

You have to admit, Ron Paul has a coherent position. It's not mine, but it's internally logical.

Speaking of Ron Paul, at the last debate, he said that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. We've spent billions of dollars since President Nixon and we still have rising levels of drug use. Should we continue down the same path given the amount of money we've spent? How can we reform our approach?

I think that we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user. It could be through [drug] testing before you got any kind of federal aid. Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.

It has always struck me that if you're serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting--I don't think actually locking up users is a very good thing. I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long term policy.

. . . Sometime in the next year we'll have a comprehensive proposal on drugs and it will be designed to say that we want to minimize drug use in America and we're very serious about it.

Further proof that the smartest man in the GOP actually loves " rightwing social engineering"; is a nitwit. Further reading: Why modeling U.S. drug laws on those in Singapore is tantamount to modeling U.S. Internet laws on those in China ( which, yay!, we're actually doing right now); Reason's Gingrich 2012 profile.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/28/newt-gingrich-wants-to-escalate-the-drug

Newt Gingrich Inc.: How the GOP hopeful went from political flameout to fortune

Newt Gingrich Inc.: How the GOP hopeful went from political flameout to fortune
By Karen Tumulty and Dan Eggen, Published: November 26

Anyone who doesn't believe in an afterlife must not live in Washington. Rarely, however, has reincarnation been so lucrative as it has for the man who now tops some polls for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich transfigured himself from a political flameout into a thriving business conglomerate. The power of the Gingrich brand fueled a for-profit collection of enterprises that generated close to $100 million in revenue over the past decade, said his longtime attorney Randy Evans.

Among Gingrich's moneymaking ventures: a health-care think tank financed by six-figure dues from corporations; a consulting business; a communications firm that handled his speeches of up to $60,000 a pop, media appearances and books; a historical documentary production company; a separate operation to administer the royalties for the historical fiction that Gingrich writes with two co-authors; even an in-house literary agency that has counted among its clients a presidential campaign rival, former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

Separate from all of that was his nonprofit political operation, American Solutions for Winning the Future. Before it disintegrated this summer in Gingrich's absence, American Solutions generated another $52 million and provided some of the money that allowed the former speaker to travel by private jet and hired limousine.

Along the way, Gingrich has become a wealthy man, earning $2.5 million in personal income last year, according to his financial disclosure form.

As unforgiving as Washington can be, it has long had a soft spot for its has-beens, even those who gave up power in defeat or disgrace.

There is a well-trodden path from Capitol Hill to downtown law and lobbying firms, where former members of Congress can earn a far better living than they did when they were on the taxpayer's dime ­ and still have afternoons free for golf.

But that would be a narrow and confining existence for a man who has always considered himself a transformational figure, and even a historic one.

"He just had a vision for being a great citizen," said Evans, who set up Gingrich's business operation and served as its chairman. "He looked for ways to participate in the dialogue that was going on."

In advance of his presidential run, Gingrich disentangled himself from his business empire. His presidential campaign even had to pay $8,400 to Gingrich Productions for the right to use the domain name www.newt.org.

However, some of his dealings have come under new scrutiny as Gingrich's campaign, which collapsed in June, has experienced a resurrection of its own.

Most controversial has been up to $1.8 million he collected in consulting fees from Freddie Mac, a government-backed firm whose lending practices conservatives blame for creating the conditions that enabled the housing crisis.

Gingrich and his allies portray his financial success as a natural result of a penchant for coming up with big ideas and his flair for selling them. They contend ­ and there is no evidence to the contrary ­ that Gingrich has never engaged in lobbying.

"I understood Washington reasonably well, as well as I understand the country reasonably well," Gingrich said in an interview. "So if you're looking for strategic advice, I was on the short list of people available, and in the same tradition as [former secretary of state] Jim Baker or anybody else who has been a very, very senior person."

However, many critics say he was hired because of his influence and access.

"The reason someone would hire Gingrich was that he was former speaker of the House, he had good connections to Republicans and good knowledge of how Washington works," said Bill Allison, editorial director of the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks lobbying and money in politics. "He may have steered clear of what the legal definition of lobbying is. But people were hiring him for the same reasons that they hire lobbyists, which was to help them achieve their objectives with the government."

In one 2004 presentation, his Center for Health Transformation think tank enticed prospective members with "access to Newt Gingrich" and "direct Newt interaction," as well as "access to top transformational leadership across industry and government."


Newt Inc.'s start

What has become known as Newt Inc. had a modest beginning, a few months after his unceremonious resignation as speaker in the wake of GOP losses in the 1998 midterm elections. Gingrich's tenure as speaker had been a bumpy one, begun in the glory of the first House takeover by Republicans in 40 years but later beset by an ethics inquiry, a government shutdown and even an attempted coup by other GOP House leaders. His fellow Republicans had come to regard Gingrich as a liability.

Cast out by official Washington, Gingrich gathered his most loyal friends to figure out what to do next.

"It was the first time he had been unemployed since grad school. He had to figure out how to earn a living," said Steve Hanser, who was chairman of the history department at West Georgia College when Gingrich taught there in the early 1970s and has been a mentor to him since.

Those at the session, according to various recollections, included Hanser; Gingrich's attorney, Evans, who had also been his student at West Georgia and had at one point lived in Gingrich's basement; Nancy Desmond, a onetime campaign volunteer who had been chief of staff in Gingrich's Georgia congressional office; and Gingrich's daughter Kathy Lubbers.

Most of his tight circle would later share in Gingrich's business ventures, holding ownership stakes in its various private subsidiaries, as would his third wife, Callista.

"This is the core group of people who stood by him during his fall, when he stepped down from the House, went through the divorce, all of that," said one former business associate, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly. "So these are the people he will stand by, no matter what."

Gingrich's financial situation in those days was made all the more dire by the fact that he had already gone through one expensive divorce, and it would soon be followed by another.

"The point was, he needed money. The question was, what can you do?" Hanser said. "In almost all of the years I knew him, he was broke ­ mostly owing money."

As they discussed his options, Gingrich was clear about what he did not want to do. He would not pitch a commercial product, as his former Senate counterpart Bob Dole was then doing for the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, or as any number of other former celebrities had done in those "Do you know me?" ads for American Express.

He wanted to make sure his new life allowed time for thinking, learning and, a favorite pastime, visiting zoos.

Gingrich also said he wouldn't lobby. Asking his old congressional colleagues for favors would be demeaning for himself and the speakership he once held, he said.

And what constitutes lobbying?

"Anything that looks like, smells like, walks like an attempt to influence legislation on behalf of a client for money," Evans said. He added that, internally, the organization applied what it called "the Washington Post test: If The Washington Post considered it lobbying, so did we."

But that left plenty of other ways to make a living. The easiest and most obvious: hitting the lecture circuit, which Gingrich quickly did, along with signing on as a Fox News commentator. All of which boosted sales of his books and documentaries.

"I was charging $60,000 a speech on the road, and I was doing 50 to 80 speeches a year," Gingrich recalled. "So take the books, where you could often do things with the speeches, go to a book signing at a place where you're going to give a speech, and then you're on television, so people can remember what you are doing."

On Saturday at a Books-A-Million in Naples, Fla., more than 500 ticket holders lined up and waited for hours to have their books, T-shirts or other memorabilia signed by Gingrich and his wife. With two titles by the former speaker available and a children's title by Callista, store officials said they had sold at least 400 books.


Trying consulting

Slower to get started was his consulting practice.

"We didn't make any money for quite a while," said Hanser, who recalled that it took at least a year to turn even a modest profit.

When a corporation signed on as a client, Gingrich said, he would throw in a couple of speeches gratis, "so just the market value of that was over $100,000. It was a deliberately integrated strategy."

Gingrich thought of himself as a big-concept guy, and his high-altitude approach did not always mesh with the more prosaic concerns of his clients.

In 2001, for instance, he signed up as a consultant with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, one of Washington's most powerful and well-funded industry lobbying groups. One former PhRMA executive recalled the contract as being "in the neighborhood" of $150,000 ­ substantial, but not a huge sum by association standards.

"We were reluctant to bring him on, because it was shortly after he left the speakership and because he was so radioactive," said the former PhRMA executive, who still works in the industry and spoke on the condition that he not be identified. "But he was doing some of the best thinking at the time on health care."

Still, while PhRMA was concerned about issues such as protecting U.S. manufacturers from cheap, re-imported drugs, Gingrich was counseling the industry to upend its business model. At one point, he urged PhRMA to set up a Travelocity-like Web site where consumers could compare drug prices at, say, Wal-Mart with those at CVS.

That idea and many others did not go over well with PhRMA officials. In early 2002, they let Gingrich's contract expire.

Gingrich began to consider setting up an enterprise where he would be in charge of the agenda. His for-profit Center for Health Transformation, which opened in 2003, ultimately became his biggest financial bonanza.

Corporations and industry groups lined up to join the think tank's roster of supporters, paying annual "membership levels" that ranged from $20,000 to $200,000.

So what did businesses get out of associating with Gingrich?

"In addition to advice on their business models, people want to feel that they're part of the discussion here in Washington," said former Gingrich aide Ed Kutler, who is now a Washington lobbyist and took some of his clients to visit the former speaker. "They want to know how to talk about their issues and how to think about Washington."

One business that saw that as an opportunity was Novo Nordisk, a Denmark-based drug firm that specializes in diabetes treatments. It paid a total of $1.2 million to Gingrich's foundation over six years as a "founding charter member."

"It was strictly a business, nonpolitical relationship," Novo Nordisk spokesman Ken Inchausti said. "We admired his leadership on issues related to health-care delivery systems. We thought the CHT brought something to the table to us in terms of finding ways to help people prevent diabetes."

Gingrich loaned his celebrity to causes that, whatever their other merits, could also be good for Novo Nordisk's bottom line. For instance, he was the keynote speaker at Novo Nordisk's "diabetes summit" in 2005 and joined the company in issuing a "call to action" to fight diabetes in Texas and Georgia.

Gingrich's consulting business and think tank had more than 300 members and clients, generating gross revenue of nearly $55 million between 2001 and 2010, according to a statement by former Gingrich aide Desmond, who remains chairman and chief executive of the operation.

Since his departure to run for president, however, much of the business operation he built has been struggling to keep going without its star attraction.

Gingrich relinquished ownership of his private holdings, transferring much of it to Gingrich Productions, a company headed by his wife.

Along with his rising fortunes came a change in Gingrich's lifestyle. As House speaker, he had worn $30 neckties and was known to duck into the discount salon chain Bubbles for haircuts. But as his fortune grew, his tastes and his shopping habits migrated upscale. He ran up bills at Tiffany & Co. that brought embarrassment to his presidential campaign and delight to late-night comedians.

Those bills became public shortly after Gingrich's campaign fell apart in June ­ an implosion caused in part by his public disappearance on a cruise in the Greek islands with his wife.

While he had been building his business, some of Gingrich's expensive lifestyle had been paid for by his nonprofit group, American Solutions for Winning the Future.

American Solutions spent $6.6 million on private air travel through Moby Dick Airways ­ a private charter service favored by many Republicans ­ during its four years of existence, amounting to about 13 percent of the group's budget, according to a Washington Post analysis of disclosure records.

The former business associate of Gingrich's, who was familiar with his finances, said Gingrich for at least two years insisted upon flying private charter jets everywhere he traveled, with most of the costs ­ ranging from $30,000 to $45,000 per trip ­ billed to American Solutions.

Gingrich aides would scramble to come up with American Solutions-related events to justify the billing, even if the actual reason for the trip was something connected to his health-care think tank, book sales or other profit-making venture, this source said.

The tab for private chauffeurs, primarily to ferry Gingrich and his wife, reached $200,000 to $300,000 per year, the source said.

"The unwritten rule was that Newt was doing everything he was doing for American Solutions, even though he clearly wasn't," the source said. "It was very excessive."

Evans, however, disputed that, saying that Gingrich's attorneys and accountants "flyspecked" every transaction to make sure that it was accounted for properly, and that the appropriate taxes were paid.

"If there was an American Solutions-paid-for plane, there was an American Solutions purpose and event," Evans said.

The former speaker needed to charter aircraft because he could not make all his commitments on a commercial airline schedule, Evans said, adding that the high cost of his and his wife's travel was "a product of how much they were going, not how they wanted to get there."

Gingrich's travel habits also contributed to his presidential campaign's near-demise this summer. The campaign disclosed more than $1 million in debt in July, nearly half of which was owed to Moby Dick Airways.

For Gingrich, running for president has meant a big pay cut ­ and trimming back on luxuries. But in many ways, he suggested in an interview last month, it feels like a return to normal.

"I've been flying commercial my whole life," Gingrich said. "I ran for Congress for five years and lost twice. Yeah, I lived off the land in the '70s."

And if the White House doesn't work out, might he rebuild Newt Inc.?

"Sure," he said. "I don't know that I would do anything as big as the center. Certainly, I would have an adequate career."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/newt-gingrich-and-how-he-got-rich/2011/11/21/gIQAftOglN_story.html