Sam Stein at HuffPo finds The Grifter Supreme, disgraced former Speaker Newt Gingrich, still at his favorite scam:
Physicians across the country were greeted these past few weeks with a mysterious fax purporting to be from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
There was some good news to share. Gingrich had settled on the 100 or so doctors who would receive his "2010 Champions of Medicine." An email informing his staff as to who had "made the cut" was pasted onto letterhead and sent to the award winners. The subsequent pages included an invitation from Gingrich's conservative group, American Solutions, to an election night event in Washington D.C., were recipients could take in returns and toast the beginning of the end of the president's health care law.
[...]
With the promise of proximity to power and the allure of mutually shared disgust for Obamacare, the invitation is framed as a celebration of the private health care over government intrusion. It's also a bit of a sham. There is no mention of the fact that attendance at the event costs $5,000. Nor, for that matter, is there an explanation as to what merits qualifies someone for the 2010 Champions of Medicine" honor; or that hundreds, if not thousands, have received the same fax.
I hate to borrow so heavily from Sam, but he sets it up very well. Well enough that some of you might find the story familiar.
I certainly did.
One (in a long, interconnected chain) of Newt's PACs, 527s and non-profit organizations, American Solutions for Winning the Future, has not once but twice "accidentally" invited sex industry mavens to receive his oh-so-selective "Entrepreneur of the Year" awards.
The two selections were indeed "accidents" in the sense that Gingrich likely had no idea the two businesses, "Pink Visual" and "The Lodge" were a porn film production company and a strip club. In hindsight it seems kind of obvious, but the thing is, there was no kind of "sight" at all, fore or hind.
That's because what Gingrich is running here is a scam from top to bottom, and an old and hackneyed one at that.
How old and hackneyed? Old and hackneyed enough that I also wrote about it in April of 2005:
ABC News's Brian Ross reports on the National Republican Congressional Committee's "Physician of the Year" fundraising scam:
The good news reached the Jamestown, N.Y., office of Dr. Rudolph Mueller in a fax from a congressman in Washington. Mueller had been named 2004 Physician of the Year.
"My secretary came running in and said, 'Dr. Rudy, look at what you've won, you're Physician of the Year,' " said Mueller, an internist.
But to receive the award in person at a special two-day workshop in Washington last month, Mueller found out that he would have to make a $1,250 contribution to the National Republican Congressional Committee. It was a disturbing discovery, he said.
[...]
Mueller soon found he was not the only winner. There were hundreds of Physicians of the Year present, many of whom found the criteria for being selected equally as opaque.
As I said the last time I addressed this:
The scam is the same. And at the heart of it? Basically just picking businesses at random and telling them they're "Entrepreneur of the Year." Picking doctors at random and telling them they're "Physician of the Year." And that results in things like, well, picking a bong maker at random and telling him he's the "Businessman of the Year," or hell, picking a random guy who's going to prison for sex crimes involving children and telling him he's the "Republican of the Year."
And really, why bother rewriting this story when Newt hasn't bothered to rewrite the scam?
So you tell me: has the renowned shabu shabu king Newt Gingrich reformed himself since being drummed out of the Speakership for his smarmy non-profit self-dealing and double-dipping? Not in the least. He's even got his old bagman, Joe Gaylord, still making the pick-ups.
Check out the HuffPo's copy of the email Newt's operation is using:
Who's picking up the cash? Joe Gaylord.
There's nothing new in Newt's world. Though it has been kind of funny watching someone who considers himself an intellectual and a professor of sorts compete for airtime by making the day's most outrageous statement with yahoos like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann (who fancies herself something of a lecturer now, as well). It'd be sad, if he wasn't skimming such a luxe living from it.
Oh, and trying to milk it for enough cash to become your president.
