The Ron Paul campaign blasted out a devastating new video to conservative email lists yesterday, detailing a number of problems Newt Gingrich will face now that he is the new frontunner in national polls.
The video does not hit Newt over his recent support for amnesty, but does detail: 1) Newt’s partnership with Nancy Pelosi in support of climate change legislation; 2) Newt’s support of TARP; 3) Newt’s attack on Paul Ryan’s budget as “right-wing social engineering; 4) the fact that Newt took more than $1.5 million from Freddie Mac to lobby Congress; and 5) the fact that Newt’s think tank took $37 million from the health care companies that support individual mandates.
Paul Ryan is quoted in the ad saying, “With allies like that, who needs the left?” And Rush Limbaugh clips are prominently featured, including his claim that Newt’s attack on Ryan “supports the Obama administration.”
The video is way too long to ever be put on television, but the Paul campaign says it will be sent to as many conservatives as possible in key early voting states. You can watch the whole video here.
Around the Bigs
The Wall Street Journal, Central Banks Move to Calm Fears: Six of the world’s largest central banks – the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank – announced yesterday they would all provide cheap, emergency U.S. dollar loans to banks in Europe and elsewhere, to prevent another financial crisis. Stocks and gold surged on the news, the dollar plummeted.
The Washington Examiner, GOP offers plan to extend payroll tax cut: Senate Republicans offered their own plan to extend the ‘temporary’ payroll tax cut yesterday. The plan would offset the current payroll cut, Democrats wanted to double its size, by freezing federal government worker pay for two years, and reducing Medicare and unemployment inusrance benefits to those who make more than $750,000 a year.
The Wall Street Journal, Fannie, Freddie Spend $640,000 on Conference: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent more than $640,000 this fall to send 100 employees to a Chicago mortgage-industry conference and to host events there.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Machinists reach tentative deal with Boeing: In exchange for dropping their complaint against Boeing with the National Labor Relations Board, the International Association of Machinists union won a generous new contract from aerospace manufacturer yesterday. Under the agreement Boeing is allowed to keep 787 production at its new South Carolina plant.
The Los Angeles Times, Jerry Brown to pitch tax plan to voters: Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to announce a $7 billion dollar tax hike on the rich soon. The plan calls for: an extra 1% tax on individual income above $250,000 a year, individuals making between $300,000 and $500,000 would be taxed an additional 1.5%, And those making more than $500,000 would see an additional 2% hike. Brown also wants to increase the state sales tax by half a cent.
The New York Times, Early Results in Egypt Show a Mandate for Islamists: Early election results show that the party formed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, will take about 40% of the put in Egypt’s first Parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. The ultraconservative Islamists Salafis also did well, guaranteeing a decisive Islamist majority.
Campaign 2012
Romney: The Washington Examiner’s Phil Klein flags a new Congressional Research Service report, prepared in response to a request by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., detailing why Romney’s promise to “grant a waiver on day one ” repealing Obamacare will be impossible to implement: “Even if a Romney HHS appointment were confirmed at a lightning pace, the actual language in the health care law pertaining to state waivers is quite limiting. Romney says he would grant a waiver to all 50 states, but the law specifies that the state itself has to apply for a waiver. Can we expect liberal states to apply?”
Huntsman: The Washington Examiner‘s Tim Carney looks at Jon Huntsman plan to end big-bank bailouts: “Huntsman lags badly in the polls, and he’ll never match the frontrunners in fundraising. But his conservative distrust of the banks is spreading.”
Bloomberg: Sounding an awful lot like someone who was contemplating a third-party presidential run, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg told a packed house at MIT Tuesday, “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have.”
Campaign 2013
VA GOV: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is expected to announce his intention to run for governor in 2013 sometime next week, according to The Washington Post.
Righty Playbook
The Corner‘s Jim Geraghty puts together “a slew of ideas and comments that… probably would not be helpful if one were hoping to win the votes of conservative Republicans in a GOP presidential primary.”
The Weekly Standard‘s Mark Hemingway notes that the Obama administration has sealed all court records pertaining to the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry who was killed with a gun connected to the Obama administration’s Fast and Furious gunrunning program.
The Enterprise Blog‘s Desmond Lachman explains why the six central bank bailout will not solve the impending European financial crisis: “If we should have learnt anything from Greece’s experience over the past two years, it is that severe fiscal austerity in a Euro straightjacket, which precludes exchange devaluation to promote exports, is a sure recipe for a deep recession.”
Lefty Playbook
Talking Points Memo reports that Occupy DC plans to protest a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser where the cheapest ticket is $5,000.
Many liberal bloggers, like Charles Pierce, are attacking The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus for her scolding of high school anti-Sam Brownback tweeter Emma Sullivan. “The whole Mommy Knows Best section there at the end would be an embarrassment to the middle-school parents listserv.”
Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer warns that the detention provisions in the latest Defense Department appropriations bill could someday land you in Gitmo.
