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Democratic Super PAC Buys Newtgingrich.com

netbuzz writes "The purchase of newtgingrich.com by a Democratic Super PAC — and the use of it to highlight Newt Gingrich's political weaknesses — is either amusing or a dirty trick, depending on your politics and your view of the Republican presidential hopeful. In either case, however, it is a cautionary tale about the importance of controlling your brand online, a task that is about to get more difficult for everyone thanks to the impending expansion of generic top-level domains."

17 of 630 comments (clear)

  1. Dirty trick by crdotson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's a bit of a dirty trick regardless of your politics.

    1. Re:Dirty trick by DataDiddler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The purchase of newtgingrich.com by a Democratic Super PAC — and the use of it to highlight Newt Gingrich's political weaknesses — is either amusing or a dirty trick

      Can't it be both?

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    2. Re:Dirty trick by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A political stance against big government control, isn't evil.
      Most politics are not based of evil, it is based on people thinking what is best.

      The Hard Noes republicans, who are against all sorts of government services such as welfare and unemployment, are not for it because they want to watch people suffer in poverty, but feel the government need to give them some tough love to get them off their butts and work for themselves.

      The Hard Noes democrats, who are all for massive government services and expenditures, are not for it because such costs could bankrupt the United States, but feel there is a set of services that all people in a wealthy country such as the United States should all get.

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      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:Dirty trick by F69631 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Summarizing republicans as "against big government" is a bit misleading. It's more of a "Against big government, except where it pleases us, our sponsors or enforces our belief system". Or would you honestly say that republicans oppose farming subsidies or military spending? Or support limiting the federal government's ability to spy on its people? Or demand more secularization of the federal government?I think that republicans ideologically being against big government is a myth and instead they are for it or against it depending on what benefits them in each individual case. (And I want to be very clear here: I don't consider that approach to be a bad one. I just think it shouldn't be combined to "small government" rhetoric.)

      That said, I actually think that Newt is the best one republicans have to offer at the moment. He's not one of the craziest ones* and he has a lot more consistency than many other candidates. I do disagree with him in most issues but I think he's relatively respectable when it comes to acting as a politician.

    4. Re:Dirty trick by makomk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      feel the government need to give them some tough love to get them off their butts and work for themselves

      This is being far too kind for them. They feel that the only reason that someone could be unemployed in the current economic climate is because they deserve to be - despite 10% unemployment or even higher in some areas, despite even minimum-wage jobs at McDonalds having dozens of applicants for each position, despite all the copious evidence that the work just isn't there.

      What's more, the reason they're so keen on this idea is not because they have a reasonable belief that it's true but because it justifies cutting taxes and spending in ways that benefit their wealthy friends and screw the poor. After all, so their reasoning goes, the only reason the poor aren't as wealthy as their rich friends is because they're lazy and don't deserve to be - never mind the fact that America has some of the worst class mobility in the world and that pretty much the only reason the rich are so much better off is because their parents were too, or just how much harder the poor have to work.

  2. amusing or a dirty trick, depending on your??? by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "amusing or a dirty trick, depending on your politics??"

    I am not a fan for Newt Gingrich but this is a dirty trick.

    People who want to learn about the candidate will want to go to their web site to see their official stance on things. This is an attempt to keep the public misinformed by the opposition.

    Mr. Gingrich has a sorted political past, and if you go to the others web sites they will tell all about it. You really need to hear his side too for people to get a full picture of who you should be voting for.

    Lets all complain how stupid the voters are and they don't do their research, then in the same breath we reward and pat on the back members of your political beliefs their attempt to misdirect the public to only see their views.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:amusing or a dirty trick, depending on your??? by brusk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People who want to learn about the candidate will want to go to their web site to see their official stance on things. This is an attempt to keep the public misinformed by the opposition.

      You can still do that. It's at newt.org. And how does this use of the URL "misinform" anybody"? It redirects to media reports about him, organizations he has worked for, a public-service video he appeared in with Nancy Pelosi, etc. How is any of this "misinformation"? It's information he doesn't want to emphasize in his current campaign, sure, but that doesn't make it false or even deceptive.

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      .sig withheld by request
  3. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because real life has to compromise. In that though you should be a big supporter of those Tea Party Republicans who will vote down any tax raises. They are standing by their guns and sticking to their promises even though they are obviously bad for the United States.

    For the most part politicization have a list of things they really want, a list of nice to get, and a list they can take it or leave it.
    When they are compromising for a bill they will try to put it all out in the table (both sides) then they will slowly take out the lower priority items as the other side does the same, until you get a bill that both sides doesn't really want but it is better then nothing.

    The US Government isn't designed to run fast, it is designed to be slow and offer small solutions.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My assumption was that he was talking about tax raises on the wealthy. You can balance a budget by taking in more money or cutting spending, and one party is okay with doing both, while the aforementioned tea party is not.

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    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  5. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The government takes in more as a percent of GNP that it has since WWII

    Is that per capita or total amount? Since the tax rate is the lowest its has ever been since the IRS was formed, I have my doubts about your statement.

    And don't give any me bullshit about Bush. Obama makes Bush look like a tightwad.

    Bush got us into two global conflicts consisting of large troop deployments, large expenditures on tactical support, AND large amounts of money going to infrastructure in the name of "nation building". During which the Bush administration lower the tax rate on a (*cough* *cough*) temporary basis which is unprecedented in US history. Normally we would sell bonds earmarked for the cause or raise taxes to pay for the war effort.

    That my friend is no bullshit.

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  6. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by TheSpoom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Representative democracy can be done right. The way the US is currently operating... isn't it. The problem is corruption, not the system. The system simply needs more checks to prevent the corruption in the first place.

    Start with making campaign finance taxpayer-funded and make campaign donations illegal. That alone would cause a shift in the sort of people who want to be politicians because it would remove a lot of the profit motive.

    The real problem is that in order to put these checks into place, we'd need our current, mostly corrupt politicians to agree to them.

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    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  7. Re:Waste of money by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think (in the general election) that what Romney loses in extremists he will more than make up for moderates (including moderate Democrats who voted for Obama last time).

    Of course, Huntsman would be an even better general election candidate, but he really is unelectable in the primary.

    Finally, keep in mind that Gingrich more-or-less invented the ultra-adversarial tactics that are causing the gridlock in D.C. that lots of citizens (including Republicans) are so pissed off about right now. Hopefully, folks keep that in mind on election day.

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    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  8. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The same could be argued against cutting Public Radio or the national endowment of the arts funding. Every cut you make will be a drop in the bucket. Every tax raised may also be a drop in the bucket. But, but collecting those drops into a bucket, it gets filled up.

    There isn't a good argument to not raise taxes on the higher income brackets. Just hand waving and mumbling about "job creators".

    Is it too much to really ask for compromise? Some Tax raises and some cuts?

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    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  9. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by lambent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    your scale here is way off. public radio and nea funding are ridiculously small drops. it's absurd to even talk about cutting their funding to help balance the budget.

    people really need to start talking about the biggest money suckholes of them all: defense, medicare, and social security.

    wasting your time talking about penny ante stuff like npr and the nea is pointless. you're missing the big picture, and will literally accomplish nothing trying to take care of this problem by going after the smallest budget items.

  10. My ex is Canadian. Taxes are very high there by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Her very first impression of the United States upon her very first visit here was the appalling condition of our roads. I was surprised at this, as I had always figured our roads were just fine, but upon my next visit to her home in Nova Scotia, I just had to agree. I later lived in Canada for several years and just had to agree that the roads everywhere I went were in immaculate condition.

    Contrast this to the United States: in the October 1989 Loma Prieta quake, the top deck of the two-deck portion of Interstate 880 through Oakland collapsed onto the bottom deck, killing I think sixty-nine people. Some poor woman had her legs pinned under many tons of concrete. The only hope of saving her life was to use a power saw to cut both her legs off without the use of any anesthesia of any sort.

    More recently the bridge on an Interstate highway between Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota collapsed, killing I think eleven people in an incredibly cruel way by dropping their cars from a great height into a deep river.

    The authorized widely broadcast requests that anyone that had ever taken photos of that bridge turn them into the civil engineering authorities for their post-mortem. Careful examination found that some of the bolts in that bridge had been stretched noticably out of place as long as five years before!

    I mentioned this to a friend who is a Professional Engineer - that's the proper term for a Civil Engineer. The fact that people get killed when people like him screw up is the reason that it would be a criminal expense for him to even claim to be a Professional Engineer without the proper license.

    "That's impossible," he said. "Every bridge is inspected every two years."

    I don't doubt that bridge was inspected every two years, but nevertheless it did fall down and kill a bunch of people.

    If America were willing to tax itself enough to properly maintain its infrastructure, all those deaths and permanently crippling injuries just never would have happened.

    I vastly preferred living in Canada for the specific reason that the Canadians are only too happy to tax themselves to provide for the common good. I always told people that Canada was the way America should be, and could be, but isn't.

    I lost my immigration when Bonita divorced me. For quite a long time I wanted to return, and there are other ways I could still become a Canadian Landed Immigrant, and eventually a Canadian citizen.

    One reason I don't, and chose eventually to remain in the United States, is so that I could work towards someday putting a stop to damnfool ignorant people such as yourself who are driving my Mother Country into the ground.

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  11. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by AngryDeuce · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only way raising taxes would work is to actually start having everyone pay income tax.

    Great! So let's start paying people a living wage and let the wealth trickle-up. Our economy was at it's strongest when our middle-class was at it's strongest, after all.

    Oh, wait, never mind, you meant let's squeeze more out of the people that are already struggling, didn't you? Yeah, good call. Then we can use the Michele Bachmann unemployment solution: dump the current minimum wage so that the "Job Creators" can move the sweatshops over here. It'll be great! No more unemployment, everyone can get a job for $2 an hour! And think of all the money the "Job Creators" will save not having to ship their crap over here from China! And once we get rid of those awful child labor laws, we finally can get back to the real American Dream of being put to work in grade school! Well, the poor kids, anyway, but who cares about them, right?

    The whole "everyone should pay something" idea sounds fair on paper but will accomplish jack fucking shit in terms of improving the state of our economy. The phrase "A rising tide lifts all boats" is absolutely true. But taking more money from the people that have the least to give, just so we can continue keeping tax breaks on the books for those that can most afford them, is more of that trickle-down Reaganomics horseshit that has done nothing but harm our country since that corporate shill took the oath of office in 1980.

    We're 30 years into this stupid fucking shit and the only times this country has done well financially was during the Dot Com boom, and as soon as that retard George W. Bush got elected they pissed all of the progress we made then right down the fucking drain so they could give rich people another fucking tax cut and continue the trickle down bullshit for another generation. Then, to make matters even worse, we get involved in a massive, nebulous war effort all over the middle east that costs us tens of billions of dollars a month to fund without raising taxes to pay for it at all.

    It's not taxes and regulations that are responsible for the unemployment rate, despite what you hear over and over and over again on conservative talk radio and Fox News. It's the lack of demand for the goods and services these companies put to market. These companies aren't hiring because they don't need to hire anyone, they're making just as many widgets as they need to meet demand. The rich assholes aren't buying them; no matter how large their bank account is, they still only need one widget, just like everyone else. People are trying to make it seem like making it cheaper for these "Job Creators" to operate is going to increase demand for their product...how? Seriously, how is that even fucking logical? When everyone is poor, who the hell is buying a new car? Or a new home? Or going on vacation? Or going out to eat? Or going to the movies?

  12. Re:Expecting honesty from politicians?!???!?!! by KhabaLox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you declared a law that everything over 200k a person makes would go to the government it would be about 2 trillion dollars or enough to run the country for less then 2 months

    OK, there is a lot wrong with this statement. First of all, Federal outlays in the 2011 budget were $3.6 trillion, so the $2 trillion you cite would last 6.6 months.

    But the $2 trillion is wrong (the other way). Those earning over $200k made 17.5% of the total US income of $7.723 trillion, or $1.35 trillion. That amount of money would last us 4.5 months.

    But the most egregious part of your statement is the implicit assumption that taxing all of the income over $200K would replace every single other source of revenue for the federal government. No one is suggesting reducing the income tax rate for under $200k to 0%. Not only are those suggesting higher marginal rates for the very rich not suggesting lower marginal rates for the rest, they are also not proposing cutting non-income taxes and revenue.

    Federal income tax makes up about 45% of total Federal revenue. Payroll taxes make up the second biggest chunk of revenue at about 36% (perhaps lower with the current holiday), while corporate income tax (which some say should be higher) makes up 12%. These other sources would continue if we raised taxes on the rich.

    So, not only do you use inaccurate numbers to make your argument, you are arguing against a strawman.

    A sensible debate on this issue would reveal that we need to have a comprehensive approach to solve the deficit and debt problems we face. Cutting spending alone, or raising taxes alone, will not solve the issue. The combination of decreased tax revenue (due to the Bush tax cuts and the deregulation of the financial industry which directly led to the bank bailouts [increased spending] and recession [decreased revenue], and the increased spending due to the War on Terror (not only Iraq and Afghanistan, but also DHS) has out us in a fine mess, and we need to reverse course on both those fronts to climb out of the hole we are in.

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