He didn’t lobby, it was just a hobby!

From Joan Walsh at Salon:

Another day, another story about Newt Gingrich profiteering. Well, three stories, actually.

The Washington Post reported this morning that a Gingrich “think tank,” the Center for Health Transformation, collected at least $37 million from health care industry groups, who were promised “access to Newt Gingrich” and “direct Newt interaction” in exchange for their cash. Also in exchange for their cash, perhaps, Gingrich took some interesting positions on health care reform: He supported the “individual mandate” that Americans buy insurance (or post a bond to cover unanticipated illness) as well as measures to encourage “end of life” planning. He ditched both positions, of course, once he realized they were unpopular with the Republican base.

Original DVD cover

The New York Times had a related story about Gingrich preaching the virtues of a Wisconsin health care consortium that took the lead in “end of life planning” in a July, 2009 Washington Post op-ed. Once Sarah Palin started insisting that encouraging such planning amounted to “death panels,” Gingrich backed away and equated it to “euthanasia.” It turns out the firm he praised in the Post was one of his clients at the Center for Health Transformation, which he failed to disclose.

Then there’s the Wall Street Journal story about Gingrich taking money from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But heck, it was only $840,000, chump change next to the $1.8 million or so he got from Freddie Mac (for his historian’s perspective), and that $37 million from the health care industry. The Journal also noted that in a recent poll, Gingrich had the most support from Tea Partiers, with 29 percent. But Tea Partiers aren’t big fans of the Chamber of Commerce, it turns out, because the Chamber supported the Obama stimulus bill (to some extent.)

…snip…

Gingrich continues to insist he wasn’t paid those many millions to “lobby,” so he didn’t have to register as a lobbyist. He may be correct, according to the letter of the law, but not its spirit.

One more thing about this fat-faced shithead.  Newtie had this to say about the Occupy movement:

That is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country, and why you need to reassert something by saying to them, ‘Go get a job right after you take a bath.’

You want to talk about a moral system, Newtie?  You’re the expert on morality?  Lemme tell you something.  Just because Callista, the woman you dated for 6 years while you were still married, wiped her chin after blowing you in you car, that doesn’t make either one of you classy.  Maybe you’re the one who needs to take a bath (though I doubt anything will get rid of your stench) and get a real job for a change.