Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told Occupy Wall Street protesters, "go get a job, right after you take a bath."
However it is Gingrich who is rolling around in dirty money. Since leaving the House of Representatives over a decade ago in a cloud of ethics violations, Newt has amassed a fortune of between $7.3 million and $31 million by the peddling of political influence:
- He was personally paid $840,000 by the Chamber of Commerce
- He was paid more than $1.6 million from Freddie Mac, which he claimed was for work as a "housing historian"
- In one year he made $312,500 from Growth Energy, an ethanol lobby
- His for-profit "think tank", the Center for Health Transformation, was founded to lobby on behalf of health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, such as Wellpoint and Pfizer.
- He was paid a monthly retainer by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, one of the largest lobbying organizations in the country
- His 527 group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, was funded by big oil and coal companies and worked to oppose climate change legislation and promote offshore drilling.
Newt Gingrich personifies everything that is wrong with how business is done in the nation's capital, and the corrupt relationship between corporations and our government. On Monday, Newt comes to New York to raise campaign $$$ from the 1%. OWS will show up to tell Newt that it is he who needs to "take a bath", to get the influence of dirty money out of our politics.
Where: 37th and Park
When: 11:30 AM, Monday December 5th
Be creative! (e.g. bathrobes encouraged)
Help spread with facebook: http://www.facebook.com/...
Twitter hashtag: #occupynewt
...and please let me know any facts about Newt that I might have missed.