Nick Gillespie on Redeye W Greg Gutfeld Talking TSA, OWS, & More

On Tuesday morning (around the 3am ET mark) I appeared on Fox News' Red Eye With Greg Gutfeld. The topics that Andy Levy, Bill Schulz, Julie Banderas, and Joe DeRosa and I kicked around like a soccer ball made of rancid animal skins included the Transportation Security Administration, bossy flight attendants, imperious celebs (read: Alec Baldwin), Occupy Wall Street, Mitt Romney's $10,000 bet, Newt Gingrich's lunar colony, and so much more (read: less).

Take a look by clicking above. About 40 minutes.

Comments

[Almanian]

Again, appreciated the warning that The Hair is as lethal a weapon as The Jacket.

Forewarned is forearmed.

[A Jacket]

Has anyone told you lately that you're an idiot?

[GILMORE]

I watched last night.

I want my 40 mins back.

[flush Gingrich]

For shame, Nick! Is no one in the punditocracy honest? Gingrich was NOT fined $300,000 for ethics violations.

For those too young to remember, here is what happened in the mid-1990s:
1. Gingrich politically engineered the first Republican control of the House in 70 years.
2. Gingrich was targeted by a vast smear campaign by the Old Media and by Democrat politicians and operatives who wanted to cut off the head of what some were calling the "Gingrich revolution". The smear campaign focused on branding Gingrich as "extreme" even though the policies he espoused at the time were supported by a strong majority of Americans in virtually every poll.
3. The Republican establishment, which did not like Gingrich, did not defend Gingrich and, in some cases, cooperated with the smear campaign against him.
4. The Democrats in the House cooked up a list of more than 70 alleged ethics violations against Gingrich and conducted Congressional investigations of those alleged violations.
5. Gingrich was slapped with multiple subpoenas and Gingrich, in contravention of the usual behavior of politicians, honored the subpoenas fully and without hesitation.
6. Gingrich was hauled before a congressional committee for hearings, the proceedings of which were televised, creating the image of wrongdoing on the part of Gingrich.
7. The committee quickly absolved Gingrich of any wrongdoing on all but one of the alleged ethics violations.
8. The Republicans on the committee cut a deal with the Democrats on the committee. Under the deal, investigation of the last charge against Gingrich, one which involved Gingrich's political action committee, GOPAC, would be turned over to the IRS. Also as part of the deal, Gingrich would be required to pay $300,000 to 'recover part of the cost of the hearings'. [Think about that for a minute, Gingrich was specifically not FINED, he was charged for some of the cost of the hearings investigating his alleged violations, hearings which turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.] There was some talk about the constitutionality of charging a congressman in this way for the cost of hearings.
9. After the hearings, the Democrats universally said that Gingrich had been "fined" $300,000. Some went so far as to say he had been fined for his ethics violations, in spite of the fact that he had not been found to have been in violation of any ethics rules. Some of the Republicans on the committee tried, halfheartedly, to point out that Gingrich had not been fined, but charged with some of hearings cost. That weak defense of Gingrich didn't last long. Soon every one in the media and in the political class was saying that Gingrich had been fined for ethics violations.
10. After 3 years of investigation, the IRS cleared GOPAC and Gingrich of any wrongdoing.

So Gingrich was never found to have done anything wrong. He was the victim of a smear campaign, sold-out by his own party and slapped with a financial punishment for purely political reasons.

And Nick has helped to reinforce the lies concocted by Gingrich's political enemies. Aren't there enough things to hound Gingrich about without engaging in that kind of deceit? I get so tired of the lies, whether they come from Team Red, Team Blue or Team Purple.