Nazi Nancy

Democratic Minority Leader Pelosi has advised us that she has some sludge to sling at former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.  Her problem is that she dredged it up from a confidential swamp: a 1990's era ethics probe of the former speaker.

As Noman vaguely recalls, charges were ginned up against Gingrich about the shell of a 501(c)(3) tax exempt entity that he appropriated to accept donations for a politics class he taught--or something like that--and in which he recruited Republican activists.  Democrats from Harvard Law School to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts were shocked, SHOCKED! to learn that there was political activism occurring on college campuses.  Since it was Republican activism, maybe they really were shocked.

Even more vile were the facts that Gingrich had taken in $10-$20 million in contributions to GOPAC over the course of seven years, some of which he used on himself, and that he got a $4.5 million book advance from Rupert Murdoch.  These offenses were beyond the pale.  By the time that Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) $8 million book advance was approved by the Senate's Ethics committee, and her husband (D-AK) had enriched himself through political campaigning and honoraria, standards had changed.  Or, should Noman say doubled?

The linked Meet the Press interview by Tim Russert (Jan. 5, 1997) of David Bonior (D-MI) and John Boehner (R-OH) gives an indication of how Democrats play rollerball politics.  It is instructive and well worth watching.  Bonior was the hit man, Gingrich the marked man, Pelosi the gun moll and Boehner the morgue attendant whose job it is to preserve the corpse from further desecration at the hands of the trash-talking assassin.

Gingrich's violations were of the run-of-the-mill variety rampant among politicians.  How else would they get rich while sitting in Congress?  Ask Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi.  Gingrich's brashness and venality merely made it easy to assail him for greed.  

His real crime in Democrats' eyes was political: engineering the Republican's complete takeover of Congress in 1994, something they hadn't been able to pry away from Democrats' death grip in the prior forty years.  They hated him for beating them.  For that, a determined hit squad of the least principled partisans was loosed on him.  Given time, resources, infinite indulgence by the media, and manic zeal, Bonior, Pelosi et al got their man.  

Tactics used went so far as for Democratic activists to illegally intercept and record Gingrich's cell phone calls, turn the recordings over to a Democratic member of the Ethics Committee, Jim McDermott (D-WA), who passed them along to the New York Times, which printed the illegal transcripts in a front-page hit piece on the Speaker.  Nothing of consequence happened to any of them, except the Republican, Gingrich.

Bypassing her own culpability in the sordid affair, Pelosi recently commented on Gingrich's rise in the polls:

One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi told Talking Points Memo. “When the time is right. … I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.

This reminded Noman of nothing so much as Artie Johnson's Laugh-In Nazi.  "Vee haf infurmashun abou chu!"  Whether Pelosi's intimations are more interesting than stupid, Noman can't decide.  But, it is creepily gestapo-like for a sitting politician to issue extortion threats and make allusions to an opportunistically timed smear.  Such is the high character of politicians on the Left.

For his part, Gingrich fired back: 

"I want to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift," Gingrich said at a press conference in Manhattan Monday. 

Gingrich denounced the threat from Pelosi, who is now the minority leader in the House, as "a fundamental violation of the rules of the House," and said that if Pelosi were to disclose details of the investigation, it would expose the "tainted ethics process the House was engaged in." He also called for the House to condemn Pelosi if she were to reveal anything from the ethics probe.

That kind of moxy is why Gingrich has taken the lead in the polls.  Republicans, conservatives and even independents are sick of the unjust double standards by which Democrats survive, and love candidates who don't take guff from unprincipled interlocutors, especially reporters and smarmy politicians.  Had Newt thrown more punches and nuzzled up less to Lefties over the years (e.g., global warming ad with Nancy Pelosi; taking GSE payola), he'd be more credible, and formidable, now.

Nancy Pelosi is a flawed politician herself, though one who doesn't mind living in a glass  house.  She made a twenty-point gain on the VISA IPO in two days, while killing legislation on the floor of the House that would have hurt profits at credit card companies.  (By the way, the practice of allotting hot IPO shares--which regular people cannot get--to VIP's who can reciprocate the largesse by engaging in a quid pro quo is called "spinning," which is what got superstar banker "Frank Quattrone" in trouble with the law).  

Her response:

Following the report, Pelosi's office released a statement saying that "Congress has never done more for consumers nor has the Congress passed more critical reforms of the credit card industry than under the Speakership of Nancy Pelosi."

Spokesman Drew Hammill added in the statement that "it is very troubling that 60 Minutes would base their reporting off of an already-discredited conservative author who has made a career of out attacking Democrats."

The "60 Minutes" report used as its starting point Peter Schweizer's book on soft corruption. Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University. But "60 Minutes" independently verified the information and also highlighted transactions of Republicans - Speaker of the House John Boehner and Rep. Spencer Bachus - both of whom deny using non-public information improperly.

We learn more daily about what Speaker Pelosi's House did for consumers as the cost of banking services rises, credit dwindles, and banking activity flees to more hospitable shores.  Her reforms of the credit card industry--after safely pocketing her stock market winnings--served to drive up costs and limit supply.  Yet her response is to say that her profiting through crony connections and by using her power to direct legislation is non-discussable because of good (to her mind) she has done, and because the source of the revelations is partisan.  As Gingrich might say, what's sauce for the goose...

Separately, thirty million dollars of the Democrat's $800 billion stimulus fund went to protect wetlands in Pelosi's district.

House Republicans are challenging Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim that the massive stimulus spending bill contains no pet projects after uncovering in the bill more than $30 million for wetlands conservation in her San Francisco Bay area district, including work she previously championed to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse. 

“This sounds like spending projects that have been supported by a certain powerful Democrat in the past,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. 

“It certainly doesn’t sound like it will create or save American jobs,” he said. “So can Speaker Pelosi explain exactly how we will improve the American economy by helping the adorable little” critter? 

A spokesman for Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said the claim was “fabricated” by Republicans. 

“The speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. This is yet another contrived partisan attack,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. “Restoration is key to economic activity including farming, fisheries, recreation, and clean water.” 

The criticism of hidden pet projects, or earmarks, in the economic rescue comes as Capitol Hill leaders rush to finalize a roughly $800 billion package in closed-door negotiations. President Obama boasts the stimulus plan contains no earmarks since Congress technically did not use the earmark process for lawmakers to request and drop in specific spending items. 

However, much the legislation was written behind closed doors and Republicans question how the projects were chosen.

“One of the proudest boasts of Democrats supporting their trillion-dollar spending plan is that it doesn’t contain earmarks,” Mr. Steel said. “But it seems like powerful Democrats will still find a way to bring home the bacon.”

And, how!  Thirty million dollars for the salt marsh harvest mouse.  And, her response is to blame Republican partisans for bringing it to the public's attention.  Does Noman detect a pattern here?

To Pelosi, anyone who questions her is a partisan.  Personally, Noman doesn't care if the claim is contrived by Martians.  He'd like her considered answers to charges that under her leadership her Party larded troughs with nearly a trillion dollars of give aways doled out from behind closed doors while the American public was in a state of shock and the opposition party was effectively hand tied.

Investors Business Daily opines that Minority Leader Pelosi would be wise to drop her attack on former Speaker Gingrich given the back room machinations that it took to pass ObamaCare.

Moreover, Speaker Gingrich was vindicated in the Democrat's witch hunt by a source as unlikely as the IRS.  The vendetta served only to remove him from the helm of the Republican revolution, which, of course, was the main objective all along.  There is something about his combination of speculative and practical intellect that terrifies the Left, despite his obvious character defects.  What amazes Noman is that Newt Gingrich still terrifies Democrats to the point of their sicking their German Shepherd on him.

Pelosi sat on the panel that investigated Gingrich's alleged violation of federal tax law in using tax-exempt monies to fund Gingrich's allegedly political college course, "Renewing American Civilization."

After a 3 1/2-year ordeal, and a $300,000 fine paid to the House Ethics Committee for providing inaccurate information, the IRS finally ruled that the sponsoring organization, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, "did not serve the private interests of Mr. Gingrich" and was both apolitical and completely legal.

Gingrich, who had led the charge against another House speaker, Jim Wright, in 1988 for ethics violations, said the current threat shows just how politically motivated the ethics investigation of him was.

He notes that 83 of 84 ethics charges "were repudiated as false." The 84th was simply dropped in 1998. Gingrich acknowledged that his "one mistake was one letter by a lawyer that I didn't read carefully."

Pelosi helped ram through the nationalization of health care known as ObamaCare behind closed doors, telling us we'd have to pass it to find out what's in it. Perhaps she would like to tell us how ethical the Cornhusker kickbacks and Louisiana purchases necessary to get it passed were.

Noman wouldn't pay much attention to what Minority Leader Pelosi said if he didn't fear for his life, liberty or property whenever she opened her mouth.

But, he is thankful for her recent outburst, which gives him occasion to tinker with the Beatle's song "Sexy Sadie."  The sobriquet, "Nazi Nancy," first suggested itself to Noman as she unilaterally blitzkrieged the crisis-shocked American people with one legislative outrage after another.

Nazi Nancy should be sung to the tune of Sexy Sadie.

Nazi Nancy:

hoNazi Nancy what have you done
You made a fool of everyone
You made a fool of everyone
Nazi Nancy ooh what have you done.

Nazi Nancy you broke the rules

You laid it down for all to see

You laid it down for all to see

Nazi Nancy oooh you broke the rules.

One sunny day the world was waiting for a leader

She came along to scam on everyone 

Nazi Nancy the greatest of them all.

Nazi Nancy how did you know

The world was victim just for you

The world was victim just for you

Nazi Nancy oooh how did you know.

Nazi Nancy you'll get yours yet

However big you think you are

However big you think you are

Nazi Nancy oooh you'll get yours yet.

We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table

Just a smile would lighten everything

Nazi Nancy she's the latest and the greatest of them all.

She made a fool of everyone

Nazi Nancy.

However big you think you are 

Nazi Nancy.

However big you think you are, Minority Leader Pelosi, it's only an illusion fostered by slavish media devotion.  In the real world, your Liberal self righteousness and utter disregard for contrary opinion gave rise to the tea parties, and the 2010 midterm Waterloo for your Party.  

Perhaps an even worse shellacking in 2012 will at last free the country from your grinning tyranny.