It doesn't matter if it was a "fine, or an "assessment" , or a "penalty". What's important is Gingrich lied under oath to the Ethics committee. That's the only "deception" that matters.
Interesting piece published in The Hill. The short answer is “Yes”.
The article included him as one of the worst VPs.
The hatred of Kamala Harris is unwarranted. Was mike pence a good vp what did he do? What about Angnew. Get over the fact that we have a black VP who is a woman. You will soon have a woman president
Get used to it!!!
People like him have smeared her non-stop so it's no wonder her poll numbers are bad.
Her race and gender don’t factor into my dislike of her. In fact if I had my way, the 25th Amendment would be invoked and she would be president tomorrow.
Agnew was also listed in the linked article as one of the worst VPs.
I’m hoping for a first women president in the future, maybe as soon as 2024? Maybe Nikki Haley or Condi Rice?
There is no reason to invoke the 25th amendment. That is just bullshit after all the incredibly stupid things trump has done. He is a traitor still colluding with the Russians.
Maybe there’s something about her that strikes fear in him, maybe he watches too much FOX, who knows.
You can tell he’s the ring leader of the “Hate Kamala” club..
Trump put him in charge of shepherding the implementation of operation warp speed to create the vaccination that you got because it was available in record time. You should thank him. Now I will ask you . . . . what has the cackling cocksucker done? Even ONE example of something would be nice.
Why should we be thanking Mike Pence? Given his bad public health record as governor of Indiana he was certainly a very trumpian choice. All he did was to spearhead trump's failed COVID 19 agenda that focused on downplaying the pandemic, deferring actions to the state governors, and urging the country to reopen rather than contain the disease. We should be thanking Pfizer and Moderna for developing the life saving vaccines not Pence and certainly not trump.
Dems and the mainstream media were saying it would take three years to get the vaccines approved. With Trump-Pence managing the effort, it got done in less than a year. You seem ungrateful for a guy who probably got the vaccine as soon as you were eligible. Got Hypocrisy?
Pence and trump had little, if anything, to do with the alacrity of the doctors, scientists, and leadership at Pfizer and Moderna plus the emergency use authorizations of the FDA. I am very grateful to the actual people who expedited development, testing, and emergency implementation of the vaccines. I just acknowledge who they are and WHO THEY ARE NOT.
You really don't know how govt policy sets the wheels in motion, do you?
For something of the magnitude and scale of getting a world-wide vaccine out in one year, takes major govt action.
Moderna, PFE, JNJ, etc.....would in NO way have done it themselves. Why? Because of the massive amounts of $$$$ it takes. No company is going to put that amount of money on ONE vaccine without a GUARANTEE of getting paid, even if it fails. Ever wonder why Fauci commanded so much power as head of NIAID?
Operation Warpspeed gave the HUGE injection of $$$$$ to get it started and then it was off to the races.
Take your incessant hatred of Trump or Pence, or whomever and learn how the world spins, Jazzyboy.....
-- Modified on 3/31/2022 1:42:22 PM
I imagine you think you have 'inside info' but so doesn't someone who engages in rectocrancial inversion.
Pfizer refused all Warp Speed money for their R&D and production so they DID do it themselves. Both Pfizer and Moderna did their R&D and production and were in clinical trials (which were already working well) -- "the wheels were motion" -- long before Trump started pushing for the Warp Speed program. (I have previously likened it to Trump placing a bet on a horse race AFTER the horses were already into the final turn.)
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The allocation of Warp Speed funding is listed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed#Companies_receiving_research_funding
Zilch for Pfizer.
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When it came time to start distribution of the final vaccines in late 2020, Trump's man in charge, General Gustave Perna, found himself in charge of poorly set up program that did not properly coordinate shipments with many recipient states. Actual distribution fell far short of the hoped for 100 million doses. Perna accepted responsibility and did not shift the blame up the chain to Pence, Azar, or others.
You really don't know how govt policy sets ****the wheels in motion****, do you?
For something of the magnitude and scale of getting a world-wide vaccine out in one year, takes major govt action.
Moderna, ****PFE**** [Pfizer], JNJ, etc.....****would in NO way have done it themselves.**** Why? Because of the massive amounts of $$$$ it takes. No company is going to put that amount of money on ONE vaccine without a GUARANTEE of getting paid, even if it fails. Ever wonder why Fauci commanded so much power as head of NIAID?
Operation Warpspeed gave the HUGE injection of $$$$$ to get it started and then it was off to the races.
Take your incessant hatred of Trump or Pence, or whomever and learn how the world spins, Jazzyboy....
they had a purchase guarantee and a fast-track-to-approval guarantee from Trump. That was enough to get them to use their own money for R & D. So what. It was still out in record time during Trump's presidency. Biden just inherited it and then didn't know what to do with it. Every decision he made turned out to be wrong, and that's why Covid hung around so long. How many more would have died if Trump had not gotten the vaccines to market during his tenure. Even WITH the vaccine, Biden managed to have more people die on his watch than Trump did, after saying during the campaign that any president with the number of deaths Trump had on his hands does not deserve to be president. Got Hypocrisy?
The problem was,
1) Covid kept mutating in other countries.
2) Neanderthal Trump supporters wouldn't get vaccinated and kept getting sick.
Covid has long been "the epidemic of the unvaccinated." Only a political hack would blame Biden for that.
Trump had neither the power nor the authority to guarantee a fast track to approval. The vaccines went through the FDA which, like any normal agency in such circumstances, gave Covid stuff high priority. Trump, who has ZERO idea of how drug approvals work, was begging the FDA to approve the vaccines quickly saying, "We need them approved before the election." by which he meant, "I and my campaign need them approved before the election." NOT that Americans needed vaccinations to fight Covid ASAP.
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Trump did not understand that a 90-day trial takes 90 days. With 10x as many test subjects, it should only take 9 days, right? NO, it doesn't work that way. You need 9 months to study human gestation. You can't just find 10x more pregnant women and study them for 1 month.
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Trump contradicted medical experts repeatedly.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-says-without-evidence-vaccine-could-be-ready-election-day-n1236029
Trump says, without evidence, vaccine could be ready by Election Day. When asked if a vaccine could be ready by Nov. 3, Trump said, "I think in some cases, yes, possible before, but right around that time," contradicting health experts.
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Trump cried that the FDA slowed down the approval process on purpose, to hurt Trump.
http://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-fact-check-donald-trump-business-virus-outbreak-108077c4b716db604ee49b42c6d64af0
AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s claims on vaccine, election are wrong.
"Refusing to concede a presidential election he lost, President Donald Trump sought falsely to take full credit for drugmaker Pfizer Inc.’s announcement that its COVID-19 vaccine may be 90% effective, ***** wrongly asserted the vaccine news was delayed until after Election Day to undermine him ***** and repeated baseless claims of voter fraud."
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http://www.science.org/content/article/fact-check-no-evidence-supports-trump-s-claim-covid-19-vaccine-result-was-suppressed
Fact check: No evidence supports Trump's claim that COVID-19 vaccine result was suppressed to sway election.
"ScienceInsider looks at tweeted conspiracy claim and other confusing matters on the Pfizer/BioNtech announcement."
they had a purchase guarantee and a fast-track-to-approval guarantee from Trump. That was enough to get them to use their own money for R & D. So what. It was still out in record time during Trump's presidency. Biden just inherited it and then didn't know what to do with it. Every decision he made turned out to be wrong, and that's why Covid hung around so long. How many more would have died if Trump had not gotten the vaccines to market during his tenure. Even WITH the vaccine, Biden managed to have more people die on his watch than Trump did, after saying during the campaign that any president with the number of deaths Trump had on his hands does not deserve to be president. Got Hypocrisy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/trump-covid-vaccine-pfizer.html
Trump administration officials passed when Pfizer offered months ago to sell the U.S. more vaccine doses.
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The contracts to purchase vaccines was a part of Warp Speed and wasn't put into place until Pfizer and Moderna R&D were in the home stretch on the way to FDA approval. Other countries were also striking deals with the drug companies to deliver vaccine before there was a final, approved vaccine product.
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As other countries were contracting to snap up vaccine from Pfizer, Pfizer offered the Trump administration the chance to lock in millions more doses, in addition to the original contract, before they went to other countries. TRUMP DECLINED and the doses went elsewhere.
they had a purchase guarantee and a fast-track-to-approval guarantee from Trump. ... Got Hypocrisy?
of vaccine while Trump was still president, only under Biden, but I do recall news reports of vaccine being thrown away that had expired around March and April of 2021 because Biden did not set up enough distribution centers. He was too busy the first week of his presidency with executive orders to kill the US energy businesses.
I recall* that the US was running out of vaccine on the day Trump left office. The vaccine supply was running low on January 21, 2021. IOW, Donald Trump, the most incompetent president in history, left the vaccine cupboard bare for Biden. After losing the election in November, 2020, Trump brooded and sulked for the rest of his term. Trump didn't give a shit about anything except overturning the election. Biden was too busy the first week of his presidency NOT with executive orders to kill the US energy businesses, but with cleaning up the mess that Trump left.
http://www.statnews.com/2021/01/21/covid-19-vaccine-supply-biden-hopes-to-fix-that/
Of course, you can prove that I am a liar by doing something quite simple...actually providing a link that the US ran out of vaccine under Biden.
*No, I didn't "recall" it. I actually looked it up to determine what the FACTS are...instead of using "poetic license."
...under Biden. Also waiting for CDL's buddies to rush to his defense as they usually do to provide a link on his behalf.
"In October 2020, Alex Azar, at that time the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, predicted a hundred million available doses by the end of the year.[68] The Trump administration later reduced the goal to twenty million doses. As of January 6, 2021, the CDC was reporting 17,288,950 doses distributed, but only 5,306,797 actually administered to a person.[69] Of those, 3,416,875 were distributed and 511,635 administered through the Federal Pharmacy Partnership. ..."
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17,288,950 - 5,306,797 = 11,982,153 vaccine doses flushed down Trump's Toilet due to delivery screw-ups, improper handling, etc.. And Trump had to flush the toilet, like, 10 times because it was all clogged up with shredded official documents.
of vaccine while Trump was still president, only under Biden, but I do recall news reports of vaccine being thrown away that had expired around March and April of 2021 because Biden did not set up enough distribution centers. He was too busy the first week of his presidency with executive orders to kill the US energy businesses.
Trump was doing nothing or worse than nothing. He was telling people to wait, don't worry, Covid will disappear after Easter, like a miracle. Fortunately, scientists got their programs in gear within hours of China releasing the genetic sequence of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. The mRNA companies were generating test sequences within hours and had mRNA vaccine candidates very quickly. Other companies got their regular vaccine programs targeting Covid VERY quickly.
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Trump-Pence did NOTHING to manage the vaccine efforts ... except pose for photo ops.
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For 4 straight years, Trump tried to cut the NIH, NSF and other research budgets. Congress restored the budgets each time. For decades, those agencies had been funding basic research into mRNA and other vaccine programs that built up core competencies that enabled the drug companies to react to Covid quickly. If Trump's budget cuts had not been restored, which missing pieces would have slowed down or derailed the vaccine programs?
Dems and the mainstream media were saying it would take three years to get the vaccines approved. With Trump-Pence managing the effort, it got done in less than a year. You seem ungrateful for a guy who probably got the vaccine as soon as you were eligible. Got Hypocrisy?
I am a fan of Ms. Harris and I believe the Republican push back against her is ridiculous at times, but your argument is faulty. Per your standards, no women or POC could ever be criticized with that gender and race shield you seemingly want to place over them. I am sorry but when someone steps into the political arena and possesses certain powers they are open to critique, regardless of any of their immutable characteristics.
Important points, Robert.
And when her reign of incompetence
Negligence
Apathy
Irresponsibility
Lies
Cackling …………….etc.
Is over she will be deemed the worst VP ever.
The extreme right-wingers hate her because she is a Democrat, a woman, and black. The trifecta of right-wing hate.
When it comes to worst VP of my lifetime objectively you must include 1) Dick Cheney who lied to the American people about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that resulted in the invasion of Iraq and an 8 year armed occupation, and 2) Spiro Agnew who accepted bribes while serving as VP, pleaded guilty to tax evasion, and resigned from office.
Play the race card and woman card so much you have rendered it meaningless.
There have been some fuckups on both sides but if you were honest and had any integrity you would admit kuntmala will
go down (so to speak) as the worst.
Add this one to the Worst VP Ever Column….
"If you want a strong reason to pray for the health of the president of the United States, you are reminded again today that the reason is the vice president," Gingrich told Fox News host Sean Hannity. "She's not only totally incoherent. He may or may not have cognitive decline problems at his age but at her age, she's just dumb. Let's be clear. Kamala Harris may be the dumbest person ever elected vice president in American history. And that's why people keep resigning."
Also, my nominee for dumbest President ever: George W. Bush.
And both of them are Republicans. Go figya.
The two of them rank right up there among the dumbest VPs ever.
Ross Perot, Quayle would have likely served two terms as VP.
-- Modified on 4/4/2022 9:51:44 AM
Excellent point. Harris, on the other hand, could be one of the key reasons Biden is another one term president.
Has no moral authority in judging anyone but himself. He's the guy who impeached Bill Clinton for lying about an extra-marital affair while Newt was having an extra-marital affair. Newt blasted Democrats as corrupt while he was laundering political donations through charities and lying to the ethics committee. Newt resigned in disgrace as Speaker after serving for only 3 years.
lying under oath, i.e., perjury. You make no claim that Newt lied under oath, so what does the fact that he was having an affair have to do with Clinton's perjury? We should call you the "rubber-band-man" because your overreach has just set a new record for distance from the facts.
If you insist. Gingrich lied under oath to the House Ethics Committee. As you have stated that's perjury. So Gingrich is a perjurer, an adulterer, a corrupt politician, and a hypocrite. As I stated earlier, he has no moral authority to be judging the political fitness of anyone including the current Vice President.
Gingrich’s negative history doesn’t negate his experience dealing with politicians over a long career, and his observations Re Kamala Harris’s intellectual shortcomings should be taken seriously:
Oh please. Incorrect. His "negative history" of being a corrupt perjurer who resigned in disgrace makes his opinions not very credible except to his fellow far-right extremists. Gingrich has always been a smug, condescending, self-righteous, sanctimonious hypocrite and political flamethrower.
Using your logic, wouldn’t both Gingrich and WJC be disqualified from offering political judgments based on their past sins?
against Newt much less a conviction, so it appears you are talking about an allegation that was not prosecuted. In Clinton's case, a special prosecutor was appointed and put together the evidence that proved Clinton was a perjurer. That fact that he wasn't convicted by the Senate after being impeached in the house did not stop the Bar Association from disbarring him as an attorney.
ethics violations? Do you "recall" that the House of Representatives "convicted" Newt by a vote of 395-28? Do you "recall" that the penalty for his "conviction" was an unprecedented fine of $300,000?
http://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/feb/07/restore-our-future/did-newt-gingrich-pay-300000-ethics-fine-back-1990/
If CDL doesn't "recall" something, that means in his mind it didn't happen.
Cute use of quotes, but you neglect to note that the link you posted did not rate the report of a $300,000 fine as “True”. Is that why you didn’t put “True” in quotes?
For those who don’t want to bother following BigP’s deceptively placed link, Congress did not fine him, they assessed him $300,000 for investigation costs.
"EDITOR’S NOTE: We originally ruled this claim True. A short time later, we were contacted by an attorney who represented Gingrich during the ethics proceeding and who disputed that Gingrich was "fined" by the ethics committee. The lawyer said Gingrich had paid a "cost assessment." We decided to take a second look at the issue and decided to change the ruling to Mostly True."
You neglected to note that the link I posted originally rated the report TRUE. After Newt's lawyer cried like a baby, the rating was changed to MOSTLY TRUE.
Newt's lawyer whined Gingrich was only asked to reimburse the House $300,000 to offset some costs of the Committee’s investigation and that no "fine" was ever levied against Newt.
If you had bothered to actually READ the article before rushing in to White Knight for CDL, you would have read that lawyers with expertise in political law warned against interpreting the levy as merely a reimbursement, saying it’s hard to view it as anything but a penalty against Gingrich.
"I think it is fair to say that the $300,000 was assessed as a punitive measure, and there would have been no such assessment if the ethics committee thought he was free from wrongdoing," Kenneth A. Gross, the head of the political law practice at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. "It really is matter of characterization and even semantics. It was not a fine in a legal sense but a punitive measure."
"The payment was meant to penalize Gingrich personally for lying to Committee investigators, so it could fairly be called a ‘penalty’ from a layman’s point of view," said Brett Kappel, a counsel with the firm Arent Fox LLP.
Also, the head of the committee that investigated and reprimanded Gingrich said at the time that, although the committee didn’t officially call it a fine, she personally considered it to be a FINE:
Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn: "I see it personally as a FINE."
Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley said it’s FAIR for a media outlet to describe the fee Gingrich paid as a "FINE" or to write that Gingrich was "fined":
"Some people distinguish fines and charges for costs, but the verb 'fine' is also routinely used as including costs. The implication that since the penalty charged Gingrich was not a ‘fine’ there was no imputation of guilt or violation of ethics rules is simply false: People are not held responsible for costs if the charges are found groundless."
http://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/feb/07/restore-our-future/did-newt-gingrich-pay-300000-ethics-fine-back-1990/
You really should pick your battles more wisely, CKS. Now go wipe that egg off your face in light of all the brilliant legal minds contradicting Newt's lawyer.
"It was not a fine in a legal sense but a punitive measure." So he was assessed costs, but not convicted of anything. I believe I said he was not convicted of anything. Maybe you should read my post again. I also note that your Berkeley "linguist" is not a lawyer, but nice try anyway. He would not be allowed to teach at Berkeley unless he was an accomplished liar. Anyone knows THAT.
There must be a conviction in order to assess a fine. Haven't you ever had a traffic ticket? If they don't find you guilty, you don't pay a fine. It's not complicated.
...civil law and criminal law. Newt was investigated civilly by the House Ethics Committee and was ordered to pay $300,000. That is the civil equivalent of a criminal conviction. To show what a stiff penalty it was, broke-ass loser Newt was going to borrow the money from Bob Dole. That's as humiliating as having to go to jail. This link refers to the 300K as a "penalty":
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1997/rt9704/970418/04180076.htm
Later, Gingrich didn't have to borrow the money from Dole as he finagled it from someone else.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/09/14/gingrich/
The latter link also says:
The full House voted 395-28 to approve the House Ethics Committee's PUNISHMENT of a reprimand plus a $300,000 PENALTY. Sounds like a "conviction" and a "fine" to me.
Excellent points. BigP tried to use links cover up his original deception, but those links only further exposed the deception.
The bottom line is that BigP claimed Newt was fined, and the PolitiFact link he placed clearly showed it was not a fine, but an assessment. His follow up links only prove he’s trying to play semantic games, and ignoring the legal realities of the situation.
It doesn't matter if it was a "fine, or an "assessment" , or a "penalty". What's important is Gingrich lied under oath to the Ethics committee. That's the only "deception" that matters.
Is that whether it was a fine or an assessment, Newt’s been around long enough to accurately assess the intelligence, or more to the point, the lack of intelligence, of our sitting Vice President.
Gingrich hates everyone on the left. He is no more capable of giving an honest assessment than he is at telling the truth under oath. He's a devisive, flamethrowing, political hack.
a political hack who turned the House Republican while Bill Clinton was President. Political hacks usually can't do that unless the other party is so fucking dumb, they can't get anything done. Fast forward to 2022, and we'll see if the House will turn Red again under Joe's watch.