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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."
I think it's a bit of a dirty trick regardless of your politics.
In this day and age it is the responsibility of a public person (or a company) to protect their name, which includes domain names. The fact that Mr Gingrich has been in politics for a long time and didn't bother to purchase the domain says a lot about his understanding of how some things work in this day and age.
Then why the fuck should I vote for you?
"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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's perfect, since Gingrich never was a conservative, he is quite liberal or progressive or corrupt, take your pick.
You can't handle the truth.
Just tried the link http://newtgingrich.com/ and up comes freddiemac.com, which you may recall is the organization that paid newt 50,000 per hour for consulting. Now Newt considers this a feather in his cap and a good example of how his intellectual abilities are well appreciated. So it hardly seems like this is sandbagging him. He'd approve of this recommendation.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It's sad what we have come to expect from politicians. On one hand, this is a dirty low down trick. On the other hand, Newt is a lying, cheating ass, so it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. But so are all the other Washington politicians, lobbyists and PAC executives, on both sides of the aisle. So on some primal level I get entertained when it happens to someone I don't like a lot, like when I'm watching professional wrestling or a soap opera. And this is where our government has degenerated to.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
When a politician says he intends to pass Bill X, you expect him to pass Bill X. And yet these scumbags never do what they say.
Why should anyone be in the least bit shocked that politicians are being dishonest?
Have we really still not learned that as long as we maintain representative democracy, we will maintain corruption?
Is nobody yet ready for trying something new?
Try it a few times: http://newtgingrich.com/
There is already a law in place to deal with this.
Newt can own this domain by the end of the week, once he brings in a good lawyer.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Then why the fuck should I vote for you?
Our form of government is intentionally set up to display adversarial behaviour. Unlike a monarchy where there is a single voice and perhaps no free press. In the US we set up a system where opposing parties could say whatg was wrong with the other team. Newspapers could shine sunlight and free speech assured no one could supress these opposition messages. It helps keep politicians honest and the people informed when they are not up holding the ideals they promote.
Your implied condemnation is not quite appropriate in this case. It's a good thing to have the opposition offer up the case for why the opponent is weak. Where it goes off track is when it mucks around in things that are salacious and irrelevant or distorts the truth. Pointing out that Gingrich favored freddies mac while being paid to do so, and then condemning when his payments stopped is fair.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How about it is an amusing dirty trick. I like the political horse race and I guess it is my spectator sport, but this is pretty dirty, but at the same time I find it amusing as hell. Gingrich isn't my candidate but tactics like this just distract from the real issues, but unfortunatly the 2 most important factors in an election tend to be BS and wedge issues to get your base out.
Time to offend someone
It's probably still for sale because that's not how his name is spelled.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Shortly before a San Francisco Mayoral election a friend by the name of Andy Hasse registered the .coms of all of the expected candidates. One such candidate, upon finding that his domain was cyberly squatted upon, asked what he could do about it. Andy pitched his web consulting services then was hired by that candidate to do his site.
Andy was at the time a recent graduate of UC Santa Cruz and was living the Bohemian lifestyle in The Mission District. He was just starting out. Imagine his great surprise - and mine as well - when Andy made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle when the Willie Brown campaign discovered that willybrown.com was owned by one of the staff for a competing campaign.
That was a long time ago; I'm not sure that the article would still be online. Let me check... Ah! Here We Go!
Willie Brown is to San Frasncisco politics as the Kennedys were once to American politics. While Willie has many supporters in San Francisco, it's quite definitely old-skool big-city machine politices.
I suggested that Andy take advantage of his fifteen minutes by offering him some free hosting. The Willie Brown website is no longer online, with the registrant being hidden by a private registration service. But based on the creation date, that domain just has to still owned by Andy.
Let's ask The Wayback Machine... Service With A Smile.
Sometime later an incredibly right-wing guy by the name of Dan Lungren was running for California State Attorney General. "Did you register Dan Lundgren's domain?" I asked Andy.
"Yup," he replied. "Com, Net and Org."
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welcome Newt Gingrich's popularity in the GOP primaries.
It will make it a whole lot easier to reelect President Obama. The only down side is that it will make his campaign staff fat and lazy, as they will not have to work to find baggage to pull up on Gingrich.
Mitt won't win either. Enough Mormon fearing fundies and tea-bag purists will not vote for him in a general election that he is pretty much unelectable as a Republican nominee. So Newt sells more books and our nation is spared another Republican president. Win-win.
who controls newtgingrich.xxx?
"This domain has been reserved from registration."
Perhaps the registrar has an aversion to lawsuits. It might be educational to try various $NameOfPublicFigure.xxx domains.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
A lot will depend on how google handles it. If you google "gingrich" and hit "I'm feeling lucky" or just look at the first result returned, what page will it be?
No matter how bad newtgingrich.com turns out, it can't possibly be as bad as what you get when you google Santorum
https://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=santorum...
Or can it?
I see it as amusingly dirty.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Do you know what Corporate Welfare is?
The Republicans are all for Big Government provided it benefit the rich.
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Kind of died when the platform of both parties became "spend more, engage in more corruption, screw the little guy, blame the other side, and win the next election."
Just the owners of registered trademarks.
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Gingrich - isn't he the one that stole Christmas?
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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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The Republicans damn well knew that subprime loans were being repackaged into derivatives, but did nothing to stop that nonsense because the big investment firms were making money hand over fist as a result.
Do you have any concept of how many suicides have resulted directly from the subprime meltdown, or how many have died from exposure or from inadequately treated illnesses after having lost their jobs and homes?
If I were to knock over a liquor store for a couple hundred dollars, I'd be spending time behind bars and because of the popularity of background checks today, I would forever find it difficult to get any sort of decent paying work or housing.
But the people who caused the subprime crisis are still running the big investment firms. How many of them have been prosecuted? The closest one I can think of is Bernie Madoff, but that was for running a Ponzi Scheme, not for defrauding investors.
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In good times when you cut taxes on business they expand and hire more people, that's basic right wing (Republican) mantra and history mostly supports it. Unfortunately the rules change during a recession. In bad times when you give a corporation more money they put it in the bank. (just like you would.) Why? In good times they expand production so they can sell more. In bad times they have piles of unsold merchandise, and hiring more people to make more (unsold) merchandise is just throwing money away.
No, its not. The U.S. Government isn't the product of a design effort with a coherent objective. Its the product of centuries of individual compromises on specific issues between not merely diverse but -- from the outset -- radically opposed priorities.
It was designed at the outset (of the Constitutional system) both to run fast and have strong central power (one of the main motives for revising the Articles of Confederation to produce the Constitution) and to be hamstrung and dependent on the States. There are features -- in the text of the Constitution (original and in amendments), in the statute law, in the case law, in the bodies of federal regulations and other binding executive acts -- that represent far extremes and every conceivable point in between, implemented on narrow issues over the whole history of the Republic, with little in the way of rationalization over time.
To say that the US government is designed to do any one particular thing (other than be the US government) or to implement any one particular philosophy of the role, scale, or model of government is, well, fundamentally wrong and more misleading than useful.
So do the House Democrats. So do the Senate Democrats. So do the Senate Republicans. So does the President.
Democrats, disagree with Republicans, on other policies aside from the payroll tax holiday extension, some of which are directly related (e.g., offsetting tax increases or spending cuts to account for the lost revenue expected from extending the payroll tax holiday) and some of which are tangential but which parties are trying to use the popular payroll tax holiday as a lever to force the other side into agreeing to (e.g., accelerating approval timeline for the Keystone XL pipeline.)
The Senate, by an 89-10 vote, approved a 2 month extension of the payroll tax holiday along with a comprise mechanism for covering the cost of the short extension and with some agreements on some of the peripheral issues, to address the fact that the expiration of the tax holiday was rapidly approaching and to provide some time for more negotiations to reach a compromise on the remaining details to accompany a longer-term extension.
The Senate has already debated a full year tax break and failed to reach a consensus on the funding and other peripheral issues. They already know where the positions are of everyone in the Senate are right now on those issues, and know that neither the version of those issues in the House bill nor any other version has sufficient support to pass the Senate right now. Which is why, after extensive discussion and negotiation around the full-year extension requested by the President, the Senate passed the interim 2 month extension to provide time to reach a deal on a longer term extension, a goal which has nearly-universal support in the Senate, but where key differences on implementation details remain that would be fatal to any particular bill until they are resolved.
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.
No, a Professional Engineer in one licensed in his/her state. Most engineers are not, whether they are Civil Engineers, or any other type. Most of the Professional Engineers that I have met were Mechanical Engineers, as it happens, but could be Chemical, Electrical, Nuclear, Welding, Aeronautical, or whatever other type you can remember. However, it would be a criminal offense for your friend to claim to be a Professional Engineer in any of the subtypes other than Civil, just as my friends could not legally claim to be Professional Civil Engineers.
They ought to be helping Gingrich win the nomination. What the fuck are they smoking? He is the GOP's worst candidate.
I get the feeling half the people in this thread don't even know who this guy is. Seriously, read Wikipedia. He was charged with 84 Ethics violations, fined $300,000, and eventually kicked out of the House (forced to resign) by his own party. I quote Wikipedia:
Republicans lost five seats in the House in the 1998 elections—the worst midterm performance in 64 years for a party that didn't hold the presidency. Polls showed that Gingrich and the Republican Party's attempt to remove President Clinton from office was deeply unpopular among voters.[75] Gingrich suffered much of the blame for the election loss. Facing a rebellion in the Republican caucus, he announced on November 5, 1998 that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well. Gingrich made this announcement only a day after being elected to an 11th term from his district.
He's also a hypocrite:
In the mid-1990s, Gingrich began an affair with House of Representatives staffer Callista Bisek, who is 23 years his junior. They continued their affair during the Lewinsky scandal, when Gingrich became a leader of the investigation of President Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with his alleged affairs.[143]