I know water boarding is bad and all but can we please do it just one last time?

Gingrich is an idiot, doesn't this conflict with Obama's Faith Based Initiative policy? Where he's strengthening churches?

Doesn't Newt have another wife to leave hanging?

Newt's a Catholic now right? So his previous divorces/affairs don't matter and he's allowed to be back up on his high horse again. Like Vitter had to say ten Hail Mary's and all was forgiven in his case, the Religious Right seemingly wants to be exploited politically.

Newt is pathetically transparent. The folks he's pandering to should be insulted.

Or is he just making a BS argument to pander to the religious right?

Um...let me think about this for 13 milliseconds.

The answer is YES!

So people's donations to churches are for purely tax deduction purposes, Newt? How's that for principled?

What I really liked about Obama's answer on this at the presser was, why should my donation be more deductible than someone making less? As you move up the tax rate scale, so too do your deductions move up the scale. So a person in the 35% bracket writes off something just under 35% of the contribution whereas someone in a 25% bracket only gets to write off 25%.

I don't have particularly strong feelings about this but the argument for it is pretty sound.

If the wealthy Christians that Newt is talking to--and this only affects the wealthy and nobody else--can't bring themselves to give to the Christian charity of their choice without a sufficiently high tax break (not a measly 28%), what kind of Christians are they? Piss poor, I'd say.

Funny thing though, Obama’s proposal to limit deductions would affect organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood no less than churches. So, just as Obama is hurting churches he is hurting our Constitutional rights to godless heathenism, abortion, and fornication. From Newt’s worldview that should be a good thing, right Newt? Or does it not all balance out?

Gingrich: A has-been with a bad idea every minute. It's all the GOP has for "vision". Now he's back to his lexicon of derogation about Democrats.
When did he get religion? I don't recall him being very devout when he was cheating on his wives.

Gingrich is one Machiavellian slimeball. You can be pretty sure this message has been analyzed and tested by a team of psychologists.

1. Yes, this stirs up the religious right.
2. Mostly because he's guaranteed to have help from the religious right leaders, because this deduction reduction DIRECTLY ATTACKS THEIR BUSINESS MODEL.
3. And think about all those right-wing think tanks that now support the otherwise unemployable right-wingers, and where they get their funding.

I would argue that tax deductions are an inefficient way to support social programs, because most tax-deductible contributions go to organizations that do not feed the hungry, etc. Many of them are lobbying groups in disguise. How much money to churches goes to helping the downtrodden?

Poor Newt. It's not easy getting attention when you're competing with a full-blown loon like Bachmann. She just sucks all the oxygen out of the GOP's nutty tent.

There is already a governemnt bureaucracy by having the government involved in tax relief for religious charity. The free exercise of religion doesn't exist when the federal government incentivizes tithing. Indeed, I would say it co-mingles Ceasar with God and is a clear injunction against the law as delivered by Christ.

Wasn't Gingrich the one who broke with the Pope so he could marry Anne Boleyn when Catherine was suffering from cancer?

So wait, Republicans only give to charity for the tax write off?

*GASP!*

OneNewsNow, huh

*ding ding ding ding*

Salivate, dogs, salivate!

Gingrich is P T Barnuming the religgies again. I can remember one time when this didn't work for the Rethugs - the Schiavo fiasco. I was SO surprised! It almost gave me hope.

And this comes just DAYS after converting to Catholocism. I wonder if there is any coincidence.....

The idea of Newt styling himself as a champion of Catholic rectitude is hilarious. He and his hypocrite wife are the kind of Catholics that give Catholics a bad name.

I had a huge argument with Sister Mont Marie in 2nd grade when she told us that sinners who repent on their death bed go to heaven, but since we had the 'advantage' of being born Catholic, we had to be good all our lives to get there. Didn't buy it then, don't buy it now. Newt, et al. better burn in Purgatory at a minimum, ideally in hell.

It really sickens me that people like this are even paid attention to.

Why is there a deduction at all for giving to churches? So rich jerks can spend on high-end sound and lighting systems for their daughter's Sunday "American Idol" moment and get a tax write off out of it? These megachurches are scam tax shelters, not charities.

In a new appeal to the Christian right, Newt Gingrich told OneNewsNow that President Obama's proposed changes to the charitable deduction for top earners amounts to a "war against churches and charities," deliberately designed to discourage the successful from donating money to churches and make us all dependent on the government.

Well, that may come as a surprise to well-known secularist Jesus Christ.

In the 6th chapter of Matthew he says:

""1": Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

"2": Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

"3": But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

"4": That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."

So if Gingrich is trying to appeal to people who follow the teachings of Christ, he's barking up the wrong tree -- they don't take the charitable contribution deduction in the first place. They give in secret.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader just how many people claim to be Christian, yet take no heed of Christ's teachings.

Gingrich has been making ethically charged statements all over the airwaves. This display of ethos does jive with the $302,000 he was charged for
Congressional ethic violations at which time several Repubs said that it was not enough. Remember this is a man who left Congress in disgrace. Ethic charges were raised shortly after or shortly before
his "Contract with America" speech. Repub controlled
congress did not even review the charges for 14 months, even with some Repub charges sprinkled in at the latter stages. $302,000 still stands today as the largest amt ever charged for ethics violations Congressional history.

Government-dominated system? I heard Obama was also going to eliminate weekends and birthdays in Red States, and use the savings to fund socialism and black helicopters.

That must be because Obama is a Muslim, right? Newt and the GOP wing nuts sure like the war stuff. War on Christmas, War on the Right to Life, War on the Flag, War on real Americans, War on Family Values, War on Fiscal Reponsibility, World War III on seating Senator Franken, War on Peace, War on Truth. Thank goodness, we have Newt holding up the rights moral, Christian values.

We now where the fig newton stands, but he doesn't Which religion is he now? And when will he officially become a MORmON?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry or scream - it just NEVER ENDS with these people. I'm just so tired of it. After 8 years of bush I thought maybe it might get a little better with him gone and dems in charge, but I guess I was being naive. Repubs are even more insufferable when they're not in charge. It's just day after day after day of this kind of insane nonsense from these people. And it scares me and saddens me to know that so many of my fellow americans believe whatever insanity limbaugh & hannity & newt etc. tell them without question.

Newt is an all-purpose professor: a professor of history (pity his classroom victims), marital vows to women he dumps, and a professor of faith that is clearly belied by his sociopathic opportunism. His transparent appeal to the bible-thumpers in his silly assertion that Obama, an actual practicing and believing Christian, is trying to destroy churches is a cynical political ploy, just what we have all come to expect from him. He is not just any kind of reptile. He's a newt.

Didn't we get rid of this moron once before ?? Like ALL republicans, he is a huge liar !! Hopefully his third party will be a success and split the republicans in two !!! By 2012 there won't be any republicans left anywhere !!!!