Gingrich Campaign Steals From Songwriters

Newt Gingrich’s campaign has repeatedly violated copyright law by improperly using “Eye Of The Tiger” at campaign events, says the song’s co-writer and publisher, who is now suing the campaign:

After months of attempting to deal with Gingrich’s campaign, a Palatine-based music publishing company owned by Survivor lead guitarist Frankie Sullivan has filed suit seeking damages and an injunction to block the Republican contender from using the song at appearances and in campaign videos.

“This has nothing to do with politics. This is a copyright issue,” said Annette McGarry, Sullivan’s lawyer. “We’ve tried to deal with them for months, and they’ve been trying to ignore it.”

Since at least 2009, Gingrich has entered rallies to the pulsing guitar riffs of the song, which was the background track to Rocky’s training montages in the 1982 film “Rocky III.”

Despite complaints from Sullivan, Gingrich still was using the song at events in South Carolina this month, and the song is featured in several campaign videos posted on the Internet, McGarry said. Polls show Gingrich trails rival Mitt Romney by double digits in the Florida primary.

This is so typical of assholes like Newt Gingrich. Is it so hard to ask a songwriter for permission to use their copyrighted material to sell your campaign? Apparently it is. Especially if you’re too cheap to pay to use licensed material. C’mon, Newt: ask Sheldon Adelson to cough up a few thousand more so the songwriters you’re stealing from don’t get ripped off.

Here’s the money quote:

“He likes to walk in like a fighter entering the ring,” she said. “He should have to pay for it.”

That’s exactly right. Gingrich selected this song for marketing reasons, the same way a beer brand picks a classic pop song to burnish its brand’s image. The same way Sarah Palin chose Heart’s “Barracuda” to be her theme song. Music is a cultural touchstone and it’s as crucial for branding a politician as it is a box of detergent. For Newt, “Eye Of The Tiger” evokes images of a fighter, the guy who won’t back down against all odds, the come-from-behind winner. But if Anheuser-Bush has to pay to use a song like that in its advertising, Newt does, too.

But nooo, God forbid he should pay for something when he can just steal use it for free. This is so indicative of how the Gingrich’s of the world operate. Like bullies and thugs, offering nothing but an “Oh yeah? Make me!” to people whose work they’re happy to use but not pay for. And the audacity to do this at campaign events where he spews crap about how poor black kids don’t want work, “unless it’s illegal” — when you’re effectively stealing!

Here’s a thought: roll up your sleeves and go to work, Newtie. Write your own damn theme song, asshole.

How Can We Encourage This?

Sarah Palin, the cover girl of Republican politics with an IQ hovering around that of a box of hammers, on why Republicans need to vote for Newt Gingrich:

“So, if for no other reason to rage against the machine vote for Newt, annoy a liberal.”

Yes, rage against that machine! The one that oppresses you on your Medicare-financed Hoveround! Remember, every time you push the lever for Newt, a hippie gets punched!

Ha ha ha ha ha ….

Could Newt be threatening to go rogue, use all of that Sheldon Adelson casino money to launch a third party run? With that ginormous ego of his, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Run, Newt, run! And bring Savior Sarah with you! Gingrich/Palin 2012!

Republicans Are Too Angry To Get Elected

I’m so old, I remember when it was taken as general wisdom that people don’t vote for angry candidates. I remember sitting in a crowded Belcourt Theater in 2006 and getting scolded by Harold Ford Jr. for being “too angry.” I remember Tweety and Bobo devoting vast amounts of airtime and column inches to concern-trolling about “the angry left.”

I’m so old, I remember this:

The latest example of the anger strategy came Sunday, when Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said on ABC that Clinton “seems to have a lot of anger.” He cited comments she made in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day in which she likened the Republican-led House to a “plantation” and called the Bush administration “one of the worst” in history.

[...]

Other examples of the anger strategy abound. Last summer, with chief White House political adviser Karl Rove under investigation in the CIA leak case, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, denounced Democrats’ criticism of Rove as “more of the same kind of anger and lashing out that has become the substitute for bipartisan action and progress.”

Last month, after Gore criticized the president for approving warrantless eavesdropping on terror suspects, Schmitt retorted: “While the president works to protect Americans from terrorists, Democrats deliver no solutions of their own, only diatribes laden with inaccuracies and anger.”

Bush himself touched on the anger theme in his recent State of the Union address, saying: “Our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger.”

Ah yes, those were the good ol’ days, I guess. Now we have Newt Gingrich exploding at debate moderators and three conservative Supreme Court justices so peevish about some perceived slight from last year that they boycotted the president’s State of the Union address. Last night President Obama struck an inspirational, motivational tone while his Republican detractors sat on their hands and scowled. Well, all except Mitch McConnell. I hope someone in the GOP remembered to pick up the wax figure they had sitting in McConnell’s place. I’m sure these rentals from Madame Tussaud’s ain’t cheap.

Over at Balloon Juice, mistermix has posted some similar thoughts, contrasting the optimism that Obama displayed with the glum, sour puss firmly attached to every Republican in Congress. If this strikes you as a bit of a double standard, well, what else is new? IOKIYAR rules our discourse.

But there’s a reason anger works for Republicans and not Democrats. Back in 2008, following Fred Thompson’s spectacular flameout, My Wingnut Friend™ told me he’d probably hold his nose and vote for John McCain. And then he pounded his fist on the table and said, “I just want someone who can kick some butt!” At whom, or what, he didn’t say. I think it goes without saying that it didn’t matter.

And this is your modern conservative voter in a nutshell. They want someone who embodies the inchoate rage they all feel at being wrong about everything since forever. There really isn’t any more to it than that. They’re angry because they can’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, hippie-punching, raghead-bombing troglodytes and not get called on it. They’re angry that they’ve lost. They’re angry that they’re culturally irrelevant, regardless of their political and material power. Their anger reflects a psychological problem, not a political one.

Newt Gingrich knows this, which is why he can “kick some butt!” at debate moderators and not suffer any negative consequences. My only question is why these things are never issues with the punditry unless Democrats are doing them. Why don’t we have Tweety and Bobo soberly musing about how Republicans are too angry to get elected? How come there’s no concern-trolling about what a turn-off this is to voters?

Maybe that will come as Newt continues to exceed expectations in the primaries. We shall see.

How Dare Those Uppity Plebes Forget Their Place

When I first read Felix Salmon’s “Ben Stein’s Top 10 Lines About DSK” I thought these were humorous “summaries” of Steins’ column defending Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

They were not. They were direct quotes.

And oh my God. Without further ado:

Was Riker’s Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn’t he earned slightly better treatment than that?

No, he has not. Justice wears a blindfold.

If he is such a womanizer and violent guy with women, why didn’t he ever get charged until now?

I dunno, maybe because we have douchebags like Ben Stein telling mere “hotel maids” that they should keep their lips buttoned when the powerful elite assert their dominance in unpleasant ways?

The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn “forced” the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He’s a short fat old man.

I have nothing to say to this except that Ben Stein is a horrible toad of a man. That comment alone should get him banned from the networks forever. Go talk to some rape victims, you asshole. Then you might learn something about how a woman can be forced.

People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid?

Ah yes. A mere hotel maid. That’s the crux of it. If the accuser were Countess Lady Gotsalot that would make all the difference, wouldn’t it?

You know, didn’t we fight a revolution to rid ourselves of attitudes like this? Wake up and smell the class warfare, people. Yesterday we read that Newt Gingrich ran up a $500,000 tab on his Tiffany’s credit card (in other news, Tiffany’s offers credit cards?) Well good for him, with three wives and Lord knows how many girlfriends he probably needs it. But don’t for a minute try to label my side of the political aisle “limousine liberals” and “out of touch” and “elites” and all the rest.

It’s really hard to present yourself as some kind of budget-conscious populist when you’re racking up the big debt on your Tiffany’s credit card. And it’s really hard to present your ideas as some kind of rational, pragmatic conservatism when you rally to the defense of a powerful French banker by attacking the victim.

Asshole.

>Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Or STFU

>Arson is suspected at the Murfreesboro mosque construction site because, you know, construction machinery doesn’t just torch itself.

So Newt Gingrich, Charles Krauthammer and the rest of you yahoos who contend you aren’t Islamophobes, you just don’t want those people worshipping on our hallowed ground! … I just have two words: pony up.

Come to Tennessee and embrace the mosque in Murfreesboro. We’re hundreds of miles from Ground Zero. This ain’t hallowed ground, it’s Rutherford County.

Come tonight for the candlelight vigil sponsored by Middle Tennesseans for Religious Freedom. There will be TV cameras there. I know that’s important to you.

Tell your rage-filled minions that Muslims have a right to worship in America, not just legally and Constitutionally but morally, as well. Control your hateful rabble before some innocent person gets hurt. You will have blood on your hands if this escalates. I will blame you for stoking a torch and pitchfork mob.

And when you’ve finished embracing the Muslims in Tennessee you can go to Jacksonville, Florida, where a pipe bomb was found at a mosque. And then take it to Arlington, Texas, where a mosque playground was set on fire. And then take it to Madera, California.

If your beef is really about how special Ground Zero is, fine. You should be the biggest supporters of Islamic community centers and houses of worship in the rest of the nation.

That you stay silent is very, very telling. It’s all the proof we need supporting our contention that you’re just hateful bigots stoking fear among your ignorant followers.

>Waving The Middle Finger

>File this under “broken record department”: the day before Thanksgiving, I bought gasoline for $1.76/gallon.

Wow.

What a difference two months makes. Gas prices have dropped over $2/gallon in just eight weeks.

This is a delightfully satisfying wave of the middle finger to OPEC , for whom I have no sympathy:

As Oil Prices Fall, Tensions Among OPEC Members Seem to Deepen

For the first time in a decade, oil producers are facing a real test of their unity.

As the OPEC cartel meets in Cairo on Saturday, exporters are being pummeled by a triple whammy of lower prices, falling demand and declining revenue. The group, whose members account for more than 40 percent of global oil exports, is desperately seeking ways to stop the drop in prices, which have fallen from their summer peaks at a record pace.

Oh, I’m so sorry. You poor dears.

It’s also a delightful wave of the middle finger to Newt Gingrich, whose book on “energy independence” was rendered obsolete on its release date (September 23, 2008). Ha ha. What a maroon.

Since “drilling here” has had nothing to do with the dramatic plunge in gas prices, the past two months prove how intellectually bankrupt Gingrich and his cohorts truly are. Because what we have here is proof that the best way to lower gas prices is to reduce demand. But that puts ExxonMobil and the rest of the oil industry, to whom Gingrich and the rest of the GOP are beholden, in a tight pickle. They don’t give a crap about “paying less,” if they did they’d be screaming for conservation reforms at the top of their lungs. But conservation doesn’t help ExxonMobil’s bottom line, does it? Of course not.

But here’s another fact: you can give the oil companies all of the Arctic wildlife preserves and miles off-shore that you want, as long as oil remains at $55/barrel, not one drop is going to be pulled out of the ground. Got that? Not one drop.

There’s a reason that stuff hasn’t been drilled yet. It’s expensive. It’s some of the most inaccessible, unprofitable oil we have. That’s why it’s still there. And with oil at $55/barrel, there’s no profit in drilling it.

So as long as demand remains low, I get to wave my middle finger at ExxonMobil too. Ha ha.

Of course, with gas at $1.76/gallon, the morons in Nashville, Tennessee are already pulling their Hummers out of the moth balls. I saw three shiny behemoths barreling down Thompson Lane on Wednesday, in the space of about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, sales of SUVs and pickups are on the rise.

Boy, people can really be idiots. Here’s a wave of my middle finger at you, too. You’re basically perpetuating the same dynamic that created September’s gas crisis. You’re like children who stomp your little feet and cwy if you can’t have your toys.

Grow up, people. Quit acting like children. You know better. You can’t have your pudding if you won’t eat your meat.

>The Stupid Vortex

>Yesterday I got behind a Cadillac Escalade with a McCain-Palin sticker and one of those “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” bumper stickers. The Cadillac Escalade gets 12/19 mpg.

Today I got behind a BMW X5 with a “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” bumper sticker. The BMW X5 gets 15/21 mpg.

You people are both assholes. Yes, you know who you are. You’re the eeedjuts who bought Newt Gingrich’s bullshit suckup to the bloated oil industry. Aaron Tippin is the asshole who wrote the theme song. All three of you make me laugh.

When I see those bumper stickers and hear that song, all I can think is: you folks are morons. Listen, I don’t feel sorry for anyone who can’t afford to fill up their Cadillac Escalade. Don’t drive it, then. Get a clue.

Here’s another clue: this week I filled up at $2.02/gal. On Sept. 29 I purchased gasoline for $3.89. So gas prices have dropped $1.90 in eight weeks. Did we drill here, drill now in the past eight weeks? No we did not. And yet, we are paying less.

Wow. Imagine that.

Why? Because demand fell.

Here’s another clue: with the price of oil dropping like a rock, oil companies will not “drill here, drill now” now matter how many bumper stickers you plaster on your SUV. Why? Because the oil that is left in America is too expensive to pull out of the ground (or ocean) at $56/barrel.

And then of course we have the greatest clue of all: drilling here, drilling now does not mean you will pay less, because oil is a global commodity traded on the global market. We do not have a nationalized oil industry in this country, which means ExxonMobil, Chevron and everyone else who drills here is free to sell it wherever they like. Chances are that will be China.

Suck it up, assholes.

Newt Gingrich knows this. He’s not a stupid man. And yet, he will push this fraudulent campaign on uninformed Americans who think drilling “our” oil makes sense, because they think it’s like making widgets or something.


And now we have the latest news most Americans won’t read from OPEC:

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) — OPEC, supplier of more than 40 percent of the world’s oil, will probably announce plans to lower supply for the third time in as many months to prevent prices plunging toward $50 a barrel, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Hilarious! So, no matter how much we drill here, now, whenever, wherever, it won’t impact the price at all because OPEC, which controls 40% of the global oil supply, will cut production to keep prices high.

This stuff isn’t rocket science, but it does require you to pay a little bit of attention, people. And that doesn’t mean watching only Fox News: it means consuming a wide variety of news from a variety of places.

I have no patience for teh stooopid.

>Disarray

>If Democrats acted like this, we’d be seeing another round of headlines like “Democrats In Disarray.”

Republicans, it seems, are just “leaderless”:

So who runs the Republican Party? Apparently nobody. Perhaps the most startling political development was the amazing lack of leadership on the GOP side of the aisle. Let’s run down the list of Republican leaders who attempted to persuade skeptical House Republicans: President Bush, John McCain, Dick Cheney, and John Boehner. (We’d add Newt Gingrich to this list, but no one is quite sure if his last-minute support was actually cover for his behind the scenes whipping against the bill.)

[...]

And then there’s John McCain, who last week decided to insert himself into the process and then (before the bailout failed) took credit for getting wavering House Republicans on board. Perhaps he did get a few wayward House GOPers on board — but it wasn’t enough.

Heh. Funny.

I also don’t understand why Newt Gingrich is acting like he’s still a Congressman. Excuse me, but who asked his opinion anyway? Why is he talking about how he’d “vote for the bill reluctantly”? Why is he calling for Henry Paulson’s resignation?

Among prominent conservatives who publicly assailed the administration’s proposal in recent days was former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But Mr. Gingrich said in a statement posted on his Web site Monday that he would “reluctantly and sadly” vote for the proposal if he were still in office.

“This bill is not the best proposal for solving the housing crisis. It is not even a good proposal for solving the crisis,” the statement said. “However, it is the only proposal Secretary [Henry] Paulson would support, and his support was essential in this setting.”

Mr. Gingrich then capped his tepid endorsement with a call for Mr. Paulson’s resignation, saying that “having a former chairman of Goldman Sachs preside over disbursing hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street is a terrible concept and inevitably will lead to crony capitalism and the appearance of — if not the actual existence of — corruption.”

That’s a great point but has anyone alerted Newt that he no longer holds office? Has anyone alerted the media?

Hey Newt! I’ve got a steaming cup of STFU with your name on it. If I wanted to hear from an ethically-challenged former Congressman I’d call Duke Cunningham.

Seriously, I find this whole thing truly bizarre.

>Gingrich 4 Sale?

>Looks like folks are onto Huckster Newt. It seems his “think tank,” The Center for Health Transformation, just might be willing to “think up” an idea to benefit your company for the price of $200,000 a year.

From the AP:

Among his ideas is a health system that lets consumers, not health maintenance organizations, choose the best doctors, medical treatments and hospitals. Such a goal would be accomplished with health savings accounts, which are sought by companies that fund Gingrich’s think tank. The accounts would encourage people to shop for cheaper care and forgo treatments they do not need.

A second idea, electronic records to keep better track of people’s medical care, is a potential boon to technology companies that underwrite the center.

Rarely does Gingrich acknowledge his opinions would benefit the drug makers, insurers and others who each pay the center up to $200,000 annually.

Critics say Gingrich is doing free advertising, not the free thinking he is admired for by conservative supporters. Gingrich aides say his ideas are aimed at helping all people and not a particular company.

“This is a massive financial conflict of interest: taking money from organizations that have a set of views, then using the weight of your name, Newt Gingrich, to advance the views of these organizations,” said Sid Wolfe, director of health research for Public Citizen, a liberal-leaning watchdog group.

Ellen Miller, an open-government advocate who runs the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, said: “It’s a phony think tank. He’s nothing but a corporate shill and everything he says about health care should be regarded with complete skepticism.”

Gingrich aides say companies give money because of Gingrich’s views, not the other way around.

And that makes him less of a corporate shill how?

Anyway, the article says there are more than 60 companies who are members of Gingrich’s “think tank,” paying $10,000 to $200,000 a year in dues each. The founding members include:

• Drug makers AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline
• Diabetes care leader Novo Nordisk and MedImpact, a pharmacy benefits management company.
• Insurance, health management and health support companies Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, GE Healthcare, Healthways, SHPS, UnitedHealth Group and ValueOptions
• Hospitals and hospital networks Cancer Treatment Centers of America and Sutter Health
• Electronics company Siemens and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton
• The Gallup polling organization
• General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler.

The Gallup organization?! Holy rigged elections, Batman!

This is important to know as Gingrich passes himself off as some kind of healthcare “expert,” a title the lazy media is increasingly inclined to bestow upon him. As an example of how the Gingrich snake oil can directly impact consumers, look at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The company has hired Gingrich, based on his Center for Health Transformation credentials, to advise them on what to do with a $400 million gift from a benefactor.

This is a story worth watching.