Newt Gingrich's Positions - Comprehensive list with sources - Spread this around

This list was originally compiled here, and not by me

Here is a comprehensive list of all the reasons to oppose Newt Gingrich. Please distribute and share this list freely. I will add things as I find them. Please tell me if you have anything that I have missed, and give me a source if possible. Point out any errors and I will try to correct them.

Short list: Newt Gingrich is a political chameleon that has inexplicably managed to fool conservatives for 30 years. He is a globalist to the bone and supports every opportunity to erode American sovereignty and the constitution. He disguises his statist positions with an abundance of flip-flopping and pandering as needed. He has a long history of expanding the Federal Government and deficit spending. He is the very definition of an Establishment Insider.

05/04/1979 – He voted for a federal land grab that put tens of millions of acres of land in the hands of Washington bureaucrats.
09/20/1979 – He voted to raise the debt ceiling for the first time.
09/27/1979 – He voted to establish the Federal Department of Education.
06/04/1980 – He voted to raise the debt ceiling for the second time.
02/05/1981 – He voted to raise the debt ceiling for the third time.
06/28/1984 – He voted to raise the debt ceiling for the fourth time.
04/02/1987 – He cosponsored the 1987 Fairness Doctrine (anti 1st Amendment legislation)
02/22/1989 – He cosponsored the Global Warming Prevention Act of 1989.
10/22/1991 – He voted for an amendment that would create a National Police Corps.
03/–/1993 – He was “passionately in favor” of sending $1.6 Billion in foreign aid to Russia.
11/19/1993 – He voted for the NAFTA Implementation Act.
11/27/1994 – He supported the GATT Treaty giving sovereignty to the U.N.
12/25/1994 – He was quoted as saying that his wife was “not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.”
04/10/1995 – He supported Federal taxdollars being spent on abortions.
06/–/1995 – He wrote the foreword to a book about tearing down the U.S. Constitution and implementing a Fascist World Government.
08/27/1995 – He suggests that drug smuggling should carry a death sentence.
01/06/1996 – He himself conceived a secret CIA mission to topple the Iranian leadership.
04/18/1996 – He voted for Federal restrictions on laser sighting devices.
04/25/1996 – Voted for the single largest increase on Federal education spending ($3.5 Billion)
06/01/1996 – He helped a “Clinton Clone” Democrat switch parties in an attempt to defeat constitutionalist Ron Paul in the 1996 election.
09/16/1996 – He voted for the anti-gun Brady Campaign’s Lautenberg Gun Ban, which took away gun rights for people involved in certain misdemeanors.
09/25/1996 – Introduced H.R. 4170, demanded life-sentence or execution for someone bringing 2 ounces of marijuana across the border.
09/28/1996 – He voted for the “Gun Free School Zones Act” which resulted in schools being easier targets for shooters, and disarming law-abiding citizens.
–/–/1996 – He earned a “D” rating from the Gun Owners of America.
01/22/1997 – Congress gave him a record-setting $300,000 fine for ethical wrongdoing.
11/05/1998 – He resigned from his House seat three days after being elected to his 11th term.
10/13/2005 – He called for “universal but confidential” DNA testing of citizens.
09/07/2006 – He stated that Congress should declare WWIII, and wants a “dramatically larger budget” for war, new homeland security agencies, and attacks on Iran, Syria, North Korea, & Lebanon.
11/29/2006 – He said that free speech should be curtailed in order to fight terrorism. Wants to stop terrorists from using the internet. Called for a “serious debate about the 1st Amendment.”
11/29/2006 – He called for a “Geneva Convention for terrorists” so it would be clear who the Constitution need not apply to.
02/15/2007 – He supported Bush’s proposal for mandatory carbon caps.
04/04/2007 – He says that there should be a clear distinction about what weapons should be reserved for only for the military.
04/11/2007 – He had a public debate with John Kerry on global warming, in which Newt agreed with Kerry and his views on the environment, praised his book, and almost hugged him.
04/20/2007 – He praised NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg; said that he “takes his hat off to the mayor for proving government can be effective.”
04/24/2007 – He praised the corporatist business-model of Freddie Mac, saying it would be effective for space travel to Mars.
04/24/2007 – He said about Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs): “conservatives should embrace [them] and want to extend as widely as possible.”
05/20/2007 – He would bypass the court system by establishing a “military tribunal system to lock people up the way Abraham Lincoln would’ve done it.”
05/20/2007 – He would “establish a nationwide ID card with biometrics so you can actually track everybody in the country.”
04/17/2008 – Made a commercial with Nancy Pelosi on Climate Change.
04/28/2008 – He said that allow some terror to happen, to keep the people afraid.
04/28/2008 – He wants yet another new Federal agency to be “very aggressive” against “terrorists” and have “extraordinary abilities” that are not restricted by the constitution.
09/28/2008 – Says if he were in office, he would have reluctantly voted for the $700B TARP bailout.
10/01/2008 – Says in an article that TARP was a “workout, not a bailout.”
09/28/2008 – He says that McCain’s vote for TARP bailouts rivaled President Eisenhower’s pledge to send troops to Korea.
12/08/2008 – He was paid $300,000 by Freddie Mac to halt Congress from bringing necessary reform.
03/31/2009 – Says we should have Singapore-style drug tests for Americans.
10/16/2009 – He angered conservatives by endorsing super liberal Dede Scozzafava.
06/10/2010 – He’s cozy with VeriChip/PositiveID, a company that specializes in human-microchipping.
07/30/2010 – Says that Iraq was just step one in defeating the “Axis of Evil”.
08/03/2010 – Advocates attacks on Iran & North Korea.
08/16/2010 – Opposes property rights of the mosque owner in NYC.
08/16/2010 – Compares mosque supporters to Nazis
11/15/2010 – He defended Romneycare; blamed liberals
12/02/2010 – He advocates a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens.
12/05/2010 – He said that a website owner should be considered an enemy combatant, hunted down and executed, for publishing leaked government memos.
01/30/2011 – He lobbied for ethanol subsidies.
01/30/2011 – He suggested that flex-fuel vehicles be mandated for Americans.
02/02/2011 – He says we are “losing the War on Terror”; the conflict will be as long as the Cold War
02/10/2011 – He wants to replace the EPA instead of abolishing it.
02/13/2011 – He criticized Obama for sending less U.S. taxdollars to Egypt.
02/15/2011 – His book said that he believes man-made climate-change and advocated creating “a new endowment for conservation and the environment.”
03/09/2011 – He blames his infidelity to multiple wives on his passion for the country.
03/15/2011 – Says that NAFTA worked because it created jobs in Mexico.
03/19/2011 – He has no regrets about supporting Medicare drug coverage. (Now $7.2T unfunded liability)
03/23/2011 – He completely flip-flopped on Libyan intervention in 16 days.
03/25/2011 – He plans to sign as many as 200 executive orders on his first day as president.
03/27/2011 – He says that America is under attack by atheist Islamists.
04/25/2011 – He’s a paid lobbyist for Federal ethanol subsidies.
05/11/2011 – His campaign video said that he wants to “find solutions together, and insist on imposing those solutions on those who do not want to change.”
05/12/2011 – He was more supportive of individual health-care mandates than Mitt Romney.
05/15/2011 – Said GOP’s plan to cut back Medicare was “too big a jump.”
05/15/2011 – He backed Obama’s individual mandate; “All of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care.”
05/16/2011 – He also endorsed individual mandates in 1993 when Clinton pushed Universal Health Care.
05/17/2011 – He has an outstanding debt to Tiffany’s Jewelry of between $250K – $500K.
06/09/2011 – His own campaign staff resigned en masse.
07/15/2011 – His poorly managed campaign is over $1 Million in debt.
08/01/2011 – He hired a company to create fake Twitter to appear as if he had a following.
08/11/2011 – He supported the United Nations before he was against it.
09/27/2011 – He says that he “helped develop the model for Homeland Security“
10/07/2011 – He said he’d ignore the Supreme Court if need be.
11/12/2011 – He advocates assassinating Iranian scientists and covert war with Iran.
11/19/2011 – He said Barney Frank should be arrested for his close ties lobbying for Freddie Mac, just one month before it became public that Gingrich was also lobbying for them at the same time.
11/20/2011 – He has been outed as a paid lobbyist for drug companies, but he still denies it.
11/22/2011 – He supports the Patriot Act and would like to see it strengthened.
11/22/2011 – He says that matters of National Security should not be encumbered by giving Due Process to the accused.
11/28/2011 – He thinks its the job of the Federal Government to ban medical marijuana.
11/28/2011 – He is a Pharmaceutical lobbyist, and coincidentally thinks that non-Pharma drugs like medical marijuana should be banned by the Federal government.
11/28/2011 – He said he wants to be “aggressive” with Cuba topple their government before 2014.
11/28/2011 – He praised draconian drug penalties in Singapore for the second time.
12/01/2011 – His comments about warning Freddie Mac of its “insane” business model are proven false when his laudatory interview from 2007 surfaced again.

MORE SOURCES
The Grinch Who Stole Conservatism
Newt World Order Gingrich supported GATT, NAFTA and WTO while in Congress
Gingrich, Toffler, and Gore: A Peculiar Trio
Newt’s Contract with the Earth: Pseudo-Science, Big Government
Newt Gingrich: The Establishment’s Conservative
Newt Gingrich: The “Anti-Romney” or the “Other Romney”?
Slideshow: The Many Flip-Flops of Newt Gingrich
‘Newt’worthy or Not? Is Newt Gingrich the Best Candidate for President in the Republican Primary?
Good Newt, Bad Newt
Newt Gingrich and his Record
Newt Gingrich, Drug Warrior Extraordinaire
Ron Paul’s sincerity versus Newt Gingrich’s hypocrisy
Newt Gingrich on Guns: A Mixed Record
Club For Growth’s Presidential White Paper #1: Newt Gingrich
Third Way Contract: Gingrich & Toffler
Newt Gingrich Said What?
A Capitol Chameleon : What Will Newt Gingrich Do Next?
Gingrich’s Great Global Warming Flip-Flop: From Cap-And-Trade To Drill-Baby-Drill
Limited government, Gingrich-style

QUOTES
“The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.” – Newt Gingrich

“[O]ur government, at all levels, must be modernized to successfully partner, let alone compete, with the private sector.” — Newt Gingrich, A Contract with the Earth (p.196)

“The U.S. government operates endowments for the humanities and the arts…Perhaps, it is time we consider a new endowment for conservation and the environment.” — Newt Gingrich, A Contract with the Earth (pp. 115-116)

“We agree that there is plenty of evidence that global climate change is occurring…While humanity is certainly causing its fair share of the change, scientists are still not able to precisely pinpoint the extent of the change, or the margin of error in their estimates.” — Newt Gingrich, A Contract with the Earth (p. 200)

“In spite of the demonstrated liberal leanings in academia, we have nothing but respect for the nation’s scientists. They represent America’s best hope to protect the environment. We support a dramatic increase in science and technology research and development because we desperately need to understand global climate change and other environmental phenomena.” — Newt Gingrich, A Contract with the Earth (p. 201)

“If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs, it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this.” — Newt Gingrich (source)

“What we’re being told is that free trade with Mexico would devastate the U.S. economy. With its low wages, Mexico would unleash a flood of cheap imports into our markets. There would be a mass exodus of U.S. factory jobs, as hordes of American companies fled across the border…. All this is scare talk.” — Newt Gingrich, on the House floor 9/22/1993. (source)

Q: “Will you rally the troops for GATT and the World Trade Organization?”
A: “Yes. In the first place, the Administration has accepted amendments of Senator Dole and myself giving Congress dramatically more oversight of the WTO, including the right to bring up a vote on withdrawal every five years in perpetuity, so at any point that we think it is out of control or inappropriate, we can simply withdraw.” — Newt Gingrich, 11/11/1994 (source)

“The American challenge in leading the world is compounded by our Constitution. Under our [constitutional system] – either we’re going to have to rethink our Constitution, or we’re going to have to rethink our process of decision-making.” He went on to profess an oxymoronic belief in “very strong but limited federal government,” and pledged, “I am for the United Nations.” — Newt Gingrich, July 1995, speech at the Center for Strategic & International Affairs (source)

“I think we’re seeing around the world an emerging Third World War from North Korea to Pakistan to India to Afghanistan to Iraq and Iran to the increasing alliance between Venezuela and Iran to the British terrorists who are getting trained in Pakistan.” — Newt Gingrich, 2006, interview with Greta Van Sustren

On executing people for drug offenses: “The first time we execute 27 or 30 or 35 people at one time, and they go around Colombia and France and Thailand and Mexico, and they say, ‘Hi, would you like to carry some drugs into the U.S.?’ the price of carrying drugs will have gone up dramatically.” — Newt Gingrich, 1995 (NY Times)

“See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.” — Newt Gingrich, 8/8/1996, Wall Street Journal (source)

When asked if he would change or repeal the Patriot Act: “No, I would not change it. I’m not aware of any specific change it needs. And I’d look at strengthening it, because I think the dangers are literally that great.” — Newt Gingrich, 11/22/2011, CNN Debate (source)

“This is, by the way, one of the great tragedies of the Bush Administration. The more successful they’ve been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we’re in danger. And therefore the better they’ve done at making sure there isn’t an attack, the easier it is to say that there was never going to be an attack anyways. And its almost like they should, every once in a while, have allowed an attack to get through, just to remind us. Think about the psychology. Why do we wrap up so many people? Well, because we wiretapped. And again, I’m going to be a little controversial. I would divide the FBI into two agencies. I would have an anti-domestic-crime FBI which was very cautious, very respectful of civil liberties. You are innocent until proven guilty. And I would have a small but VERY aggressive anti-terrorism agency. And I would frankly give them EXTRAORDINARY ability to eavesdrop. And my first advice to civil libertarians is simple: Don’t plot with terrorists.” — Newt Gingrich, 4/29/2008 (source)

In March 1993, I got an assistance program I could support: $1.6 billion in direct aid to help Russia stabilize. Although a public poll said that 75% of the American people were opposed to giving Russia more money, and we were already in a hard fight for the economic plan, I felt we had no choice but to press ahead. American had spent trillions of dollars in defense to win the Cold War; we couldn’t risk reversal over less that $2 billion and a bad poll. To the surprise of my staff, the congressional leaders, including the Republicans, agreed with me. At a meeting I convened to push the plan, Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, strongly endorsed the aid package. Newt Gingrich was passionately in favor of helping Russia, saying it was a “great defining moment” for American and we had to do the right thing. — Bill Clinton, 2004 (My Life, p. 506-507).

“Professor Gingrich hopefully will never be called upon to teach a course in the proper role of our federal government. His rare votes against bloated big government usually have been prompted by the partisan wrangling of the moment, not by any great respect for, or understanding of, the Constitution.” –James Toft of “Tax Reform Immediately” (TRIM)

- Card-Carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a globalist think tank
- “Distinguished member” of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (neocon, pro-interventionism group)
- Member of Bohemian Grove
- Member of the World Future Society
- Described himself as a conservative in the Alexander Hamilton-Teddy Roosevelt tradition.
- Voted for NAFTA, a blatant circumvention of Congress’ exclusive power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Took power from American people and put it into the hands of unelected Binational panels, made mostly of foreigners.
- Supported GATT
- Supported WTO
- Continually supported increased federal spending.
- Supported the National Endowment for the Arts;
- Voted for the creation of the Federal Dept. of Education in 1979 under Jimmy Carter.
- Big supporter of Foreign Aid — even to Soviets through the Export-Import Bank.
- In one year (1994-1995) Gingrich voted for nearly $45 billion in foreign aid.
- He helped push through Federally-funded loan guarantees to Communist China.
- He voted to raise the debt ceiling four times (one, two, three, and four).
- Urged the House to repeal the War Powers Act and give the Presidency more power.
- Urged Clinton to expand military presence in Bosnia.
- Supports Afghan War
- Supports Iraq War
- Calls for Iran War
- Supported Clinton’s welfare programs, education programs, labor programs, and environmental programs, as well as most of his foreign affairs programs.
- Supported spending $30B for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that shackled gun owners with new restrictions, federalized a number of crimes, and handed the feds police powers that the Constitution reserves to the states.
- Voted to give billions of dollars to United Nations “peacekeeping” operations;
- Pushed for a School Prayer Amendment
- Mentored by Henry Kissinger
- Bailed out savings and loan institutions in 1991. $40B Bank bailout
- He was a draft-dodger during the Vietnam War, yet pushed aggressive foreign interventionism his entire political career, and did say that Vietnam was the “right battlefield at the right time.“
- He cheated on one of his wives while she was suffering from cancer, delivered divorce papers to her in the hospital.
- Worked on the Rockefeller presidential campaign in 1968. Was a Rockefeller State Chairman.
 

This man is unelectable.