Talk:Newt Gingrich

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"DeLay virtually invited them to write the Republican agenda. What they wanted first was “Project Relief” -- a wide-ranging moratorium on regulations that had originally been put into place for the health and safety of the public. For starters, they wanted “relief” from labor standards that protected workers from the physical injuries of repetitive work. They wanted “relief’ from tougher rules on meat inspection. And they wanted “relief” from effective monitoring of hazardous air pollutants. Scores of companies were soon gorging on Tom DeLay’s generosity, adding one juicy and expensive tid-bit after another to the bill. According to Weisskopf and Maraniss, on the eve of the debate 20 major corporate groups advised lawmakers that “this was a key vote, one that would be considered in future campaign contributions.” On the day of the vote lobbyists on Capitol Hill were still writing amendments on their laptops and forwarding them to House leaders.

The Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, famously told the lobbyists: “If you are going to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules.” Tom DeLay became his enforcer.

The rules were simple and blunt. Contribute to Republicans only. Hire Republicans only. When the electronics industry ignored the warning and chose a Democratic Member of Congress to run its trade association, DeLay played so rough – pulling from the calendar a bill that the industry had worked on two years, aimed at bringing most of the world in alignment with U.S. copyright law – that even the House Ethics Committee, the watchdog that seldom barks and rarely bites, stirred itself to rebuke him – privately, of course."

more at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0224-20.htm

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Reposting unrederenced material from article page.--Bob Burton 22:19, 4 August 2007 (EDT)


 * He is one of a very few futurists connected to the Republican Party, and is a close friend of Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler, having authored some works with them on politics. Some of these amount to pro-technology propaganda, but not all.  Newt has also debated Ralph Nader publicly and agreed with some of the latter's Concord Principles for promoting grassroots democracy.  Whether they agree on what that means is open for debate.