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A top U.S. Navy admiral on Monday called for a swift and thorough investigation into Monday's collision of the USS John S. McCain into an oil tanker near Singapore-- marking the second deadly mishap that occurred in the Pacific in the past three months.

 Adm. John Richardson ordered an operational pause in all the fleets around the world while the Navy works to determine the factors behind the collision. Richardson tweeted that the Navy will conduct a wide investigation, including a review into the possibility of "cyber intrusion or sabotage."

 Adm. Phil Davidson, the head of the Navy's Fleet Forces, will lead the investigation.

 Richardson made clear that there is no evidence of a hacking at this point, but some cyber experts have raised to possiblity given the location of the warships.

 Jeff Stutzman, an ex-information warfare specialist in the Navy who works at a cyber threat intelligence company, told McClatchy that “there’s something more than just human error going on."

 "When you are going through the Strait of Malacca, you can't tell me that a Navy destroyer doesn't have a full navigation team going with full lookouts on every wing and extra people on radar," he said.

 Richardson called for a review of the 7th Fleet’s maintenance, personnel and equipment in the region. He called on a new focus on surface warfare training, which includes tactical and navigational proficiency.

 The USS John S. McCain suffered “significant damage” to its hull after a collision with an oil tanker on Monday near Singapore.

 The 7th Fleet said in a statement that damage to the guided missile destroyer's hull flooded nearby compartments including crew berths, machinery and communications rooms.

 Ten sailors are missing and four were hospitalized in Singapore with injuries after being evacuated by helicopter. A multinational search and rescue effort involving Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the U.S. is underway.

 On June 17, the USS Fitzgerald was badly damaged in the collision off the coast of Japan. The waters off Japan are considered congested and considered to be challenging to navigate.

 The seas were relatively calm, and visibility was unrestricted. The bow of the container ship, the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal, slammed into the Fitzgerald's right side above the waterline, quickly flooding several areas inside the ship, including a berthing, or sleeping, area.

 Seven sailors drowned.

 The New York Times reported that there were radar officers working on the bridge and combat information center below and “should have spotted the freighter’s image on their screens.” One sailor wrote the paper: “All I can say is, somebody wasn’t paying attention.”

 The top three leaders aboard the USS Fitzgerald were removed from duty.

 Aside from the USS McCain and USS Fitgerald incidents, the Navy cruiser USS Antietam ran aground dumping more than 1,000 gallons of oil in Tokyo Bay in February. In May, another cruiser, USS Lake Champlain, hit a South Korean fishing vessel.

 Itay Glick, the founder of a cyber security firm called Votiro, told News.com.au that his initial reaction to news of the USS McCain collision was that it may have been hacked. Glick worked in the cyber-warfare unit of the Israeli intelligence agency and pointed to the possibility of involvement from Russia and China.

 “I don’t believe in coincidence,” Glick said. “Both USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald were part of the 7th Fleet, there is a relationship between these two events and there may be a connection.”

 The Associated Press contributed to this report

 Edmund DeMarche is a news editor for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @EDeMarche.

  ||||| The destroyer USS John McCain has arrived at Changi Naval Base in Singapore after a collision with a civilian oil tanker. Pictures show a large, gaping gash in the warship's port side, which caused extensive flooding. Ten sailors remain missing and five were medically evacuated in the second collision in two months involving a U.S. Navy destroyer and a civilian tanker,.

 And where there's a pattern—there's a conspiracy.

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 The McCain collided with the Liberia-registered Alnic MC, a 600 foot long, 30,000 gross ton tanker, in the early morning hours of August 21st, resulting in a large gash on the destroyer's port (left) side. The hole flooded the ship's interior, including crew berthing, machinery, and communications rooms. Damage control teams on the ship reportedly prevented further flooding. Navy divers are on scene at Changi and further assessing damage.

 Closer view of the damage. Note eight Harpoon missile launchers on deck. Getty Roslan Rahman

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 The Strait of Malacca waterway is one of the busiest waterways in the world, with 80,980 transits by ships of all kinds , military and civilian, in 2015. The strait enables ships plying the route between Europe and Asia to shave three days and 1,000 miles off their trip, and traffic has exploded with the growth of China's economy.

 The USS John McCain is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer. Based at Yokosuka, Japan, it is part of the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet and one of several destroyers modified to shoot down ballistic missiles. The destroyer was returning from a freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea, during which it sailed within six nautical miles of Mischief Reef, an artificial island created and claimed by China.

 Singaporean Navy frigate RSS Intrepid escorts USS McCain into Changi Naval Base. Getty Roslan Rahman

 Already, conspiracies are beginning to make the rounds that the USS McCain—and the USS Fitzgerald earlier this summer—were the victims of GPS sabotage. The theory goes that some unfriendly power interfered with the U.S.-owned, satellite-based Global Positioning System. Military and commercial ships worldwide utilize GPS to determine their locations in relation to other ships. So-called "GPS spoofing" causes GPS trackers to misidentify a ship's location, presumably confusing ships and causing accidents.

 GPS sabotage does exist. America's potential adversaries, realizing the U.S. military's dependence on the system for everything from daily navigation to weapons targeting, have been working to devise ways to jam or spoof GPS signals.

 North Korea periodically jams GPS signals in South Korea , interfering with ship and aircraft navigation, while drivers in Moscow have reported GPS problems in the central part of the Russian capital. Even more ominously, in a case of actual "spoofing," last month sailors in the Black Sea reported that their GPS-based systems were misreporting the location of their ships 25 nautical miles from their actual location. The spoofing was reported off the coast of Novorossiysk, Russia.

 Could the McCain's collision be the result of GPS spoofing? It's very unlikely. Assuming a hostile power wanted to spoof the American destroyer, the signal it would have to broadcast to cause an accident would be wide enough to affect dozens, if not hundreds of ships in the region and someone would have noticed it. (After all, it was ordinary civilian mariners on the Black Sea that reported the spoofing campaign off Novorossiysk.)

 There are enough nearby islands that a meaningful deviation from what ships crews were seeing with their own eyes would have been glaringly obvious. Furthermore, the conspiracy ignores the fact that GPS is not the only means U.S. Navy ships use for navigation. Watchstanders on the McCain should have been posted to keep an eye out for unexpected obstacles, ships not broadcasting an AIS transponder signal, and other potential hazards. ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| THE collision of a second US warship this year points to the possibility of cyber espionage, an expert has warned.

 The US Navy ordered an investigation Monday into its entire 7th Fleet, based in the Pacific, after the USS John S McCain was involved in a run-in with an oil tanker near Singapore.

 The incident left a gaping hole in the destroyer’s hull, injured five sailors and left 10 sailors still missing.

 It was the second major collision in the last two months involving the 7th Fleet. Seven sailors died in June when the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship collided in waters off Japan.

 US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis announced a pause in operations of the fleet so officials can take a deeper look at its performance, including personnel, navigation capabilities, maintenance, equipment, surface warfare training, munitions, certifications and how sailors move through their careers.

 Navy Admiral John Richardson later clarified in a Twitter post that the review would include the possibility of cyber intrusion or sabotage, although there were “no indications right now”.

 “But review will consider all possibilities,” he said.

 Speculation has been building that the USS McCain was hacked ever since news broke about the collision.

 Itay Glick, founder of cyber security firm Votiro said he had immediately become interested in the potential for cyber interference when he heard about the accident yesterday.

 “I don’t believe in coincidence,” Mr Glick told news.com.au.

 “Both USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald were part of the 7th Fleet, there is a relationship between these two events and there may be a connection.”

 Mr Glick worked in the cyber-warfare unit of the Israeli intelligence agency for seven years and he believes countries like Russia and China may have the capability to launch an attack on the warships.

 “China has capabilities, maybe they are trying things, it is possible,” he said.

 He believes there are two main ways the warship could have been interfered with, including an attack on its GPS that impacted its navigation, or a malware attack on its computer network that gave it incorrect information which may stopped it from seeing the tanker.

 Some have dismissed the idea the warship could have been subjected to a GPS spoof as unlikely, because the signal would have to be wide enough to affect dozens, if not hundreds of ships in the region.

 But Mr Glick said there had already been evidence of this type of technology being used to set at least 20 ships off track in the Black Sea near Russia, and experts have speculated there is potential for it to be isolated to just one target.

 “There is already a lot of interest in cyber protection of cars and autonomous vehicles, we can deduce from that, there might be a way to control ships and airplanes,” Mr Glick said.

 “Whenever control of the vessel is done by computer, or navigation is done by computer, there is a big risk for a cyber attack on that computer.”

 While investigation of the USS Fitzgerald’s collision in June has not been completed, it has already pointed to some human error. The captain has since been relieved of his command and other sailors were punished after the Navy found poor seamanship and flaws in keeping watch contributed to the collision.

 But Mr Glick said unless the warships were at a high readiness level, they were probably relying more on the computer for navigation than on human eyes.

 “Blaming a human is often easier than considering the possibility of a cyber attack,” he said.

 He believes the latest collision strengthens the case for the possibility of cyber espionage.

 “There might definitely be, because it’s not the first incidence.”

 The USS McCain had been heading to Singapore on a routine port visit after conducting a sensitive freedom-of-navigation operation last week by sailing near one of China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea.

 The accident happened at the start of a designated sea lane for ships sailing into the Singapore Strait, one of the world’s busiest.

 Admiral Richardson, the chief of naval operations, said the comprehensive review of the 7th Fleet would look at operational tempo and trends in personnel, matériel, maintenance and equipment.

 2 clarify Re: possibility of cyber intrusion or sabotage, no indications right now...but review will consider all possibilities — Adm. John Richardson (@CNORichardson) August 21, 2017

 Adm. Richardson wants to ensure there aren’t bigger problems in the fleet that may be masked by the high pace of operations and budget uncertainties, according to a Navy official.

 He has directed Admiral Phil Davidson, head of the Navy’s Fleet Forces, to lead the investigation.

 “This review will be on a very tight timetable,” Richardson said.

 “I want to get frequent updates. This requires urgent action and we need to get to it and take corrective action.”

 — With AP

 charis.chang@news.com.au | @charischang2 |||||

– As the Navy tries to figure out what caused its latest collision, two of the most common theories involve human error or some kind of electrical glitch in the navigation system. But another idea has surfaced as well, and the Navy isn't ruling it out: hacking. "2 clarify Re: possibility of cyber intrusion or sabotage, no indications right now...but review will consider all possibilities," tweeted Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, per Fox News. The idea is that some foreign power, perhaps China or Russia, interfered with the USS John S McCain's GPS navigation, and perhaps did the same before the deadly June collision involving the USS Fitzgerald. Here's a look at what experts are saying: 'Very unlikely': At Popular Mechanics, Kyle Mizokami tosses cold water on the idea that "GPS spoofing" is to blame. For one thing, broadcasting such an interference signal would likely have affected dozens of ships in the area, not just the USS McCain, and there's no indication of that. Plus, Navy ships don't rely solely on GPS: Human spotters should have seen the hazard. It's fishy: "There’s something more than just human error going on," a former information warfare specialist for the Navy tells McClatchy, referring to the string of Navy accidents. The story notes that on June 22, hackers appear to have manipulated the GPS signals of 20 ships in the Black Sea, the first such instance of GPS misdirection, or spoofing. The ships' GPSes actually told them they were on land, and the best guess is that the interference came from Russia. It's fishy, take II: "I don’t believe in coincidence," a former member of Israel's cyber-warfare unit tells news.com.au. In addition to interfering with GPS signals, hackers also could have planted malware in the ships' computer network, he says. "China has capabilities, maybe they are trying things, it is possible." The USS McCain had been returning from a patrol in the South China Sea, where it sailed by one of China's contested man-made islands, when the collision occurred. Remains of some of the 10 missing sailors from the USS McCain have been found on the ship itself.


The first day of McDonald's national roll-out of its all-day breakfast is here, but before you get your hopes up, here's what you can and can't order.

 The long-awaited menu for breakfast fans will vary by location. For those who love McGriddle sandwiches, you're out of luck. That item isn't a part of the all-day breakfast menu in any markets, so you'll be skipping on those 450 to 570 calories. Bagel sandwiches, cinnamon melts and "Big Breakfast" platters aren't included in the all-day menu either.

 1. In most markets, you can order:

 - sausage burrito

 - "Fruit ‘N Yogurt" parfait

 - "Fruit & Maple" oatmeal

 - hash browns

 - hotcakes

 - hotcakes with sausage

 Susanna Kim/ABC News

 2. In markets that offer McMuffins, you can't get the Egg White Delight or the steak, egg and cheese McMuffin, but you can get:

 - egg McMuffin

 - sausage McMuffin with egg

 - sausage McMuffin

 3. In markets that offer biscuits, you can't order the "southern style" chicken biscuit, but you can order:

 - bacon, egg and cheese biscuit

 - sausage biscuit with egg

 - sausage biscuit ||||| Breakfast

 With so many options, breakfast has never been tastier. We know you've been asking, so the All Day Breakfast menu is here. You can enjoy Hotcakes, a savory Sausage McMuffin with Egg or Sausage Biscuit any time you want.* You can still enjoy our full breakfast menu every morning, which includes favorites like the signature Egg McMuffin or the sweet McGriddles.

 * Menu items vary by location. Deliciousness doesn't. |||||

Write a summary.

– The highly anticipated all-day breakfast menu at McDonald's is debuting nationwide Tuesday, but not everyone's morning favorites have made the cut, ABC News reports. Those who are jonesing for the chain's hash browns, hotcakes, fruit and yogurt parfaits, oatmeal, and sausage burritos are in luck—as are those who want a plain egg or sausage McMuffin and most egg-and-biscuit sandwiches. What aren't included: two specialty McMuffins (the Egg White Delight and the steak-egg-cheese variety), the "Southern style" chicken biscuit, bagel sandwiches, cinnamon melts, and, alas, the maple-infused concoction known as the McGriddle. And those who have a huge appetite may need to supplement their breakfast sandwich with a Big Mac as the day drifts by: "Big Breakfast" platters aren't an all-day offering, either. (There's something else you should know about McMuffins.)


– The New York Daily News will this week become half of what it once was, at least in terms of staff. Parent company Tronc, which acquired the paper in September for $1, on Monday announced in a memo that it would be cutting its editorial staff by roughly 50% to focus more on digital news and "address the significant financial challenges we have faced for years." The AP reports revenues sank 22% between 2014 and 2016, and prior cuts had taken place. Those ousted include editor-in-chief Jim Rich, who NPR reports communicated his displeasure on Twitter, where he changed his bio to "Just a guy sitting at home watching journalism being choked into extinction." The New York Times, which reports the newsroom staff had numbered 75 to 100, notes he tweeted the following at 1:40am Monday, "If you hate democracy and think local governments should operate unchecked and in the dark, then today is a good day for you." Robert York, editor of the Tronc-owned Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., will fill the slot. The memo says editorial efforts will be refocused around breaking news, "especially in areas of crime, civil justice and public responsibility. ... We will, of course, continue to cover local news, sports and other events, but our approach will evolve as we adapt to our current environment." Those given the boot will receive 90 days of severance. Marcus Baram worked for the paper in the late '90s and reports on how low morale was prior to these cuts in a piece for Fast Company.

Expand this summary.

Copies of the New York Daily News are for sale at a news stand in New York, Monday, July 23, 2018, after the paper told employees that the newspaper is reducing its editorial staff by 50 percent. (AP... (Associated Press)

 Copies of the New York Daily News are for sale at a news stand in New York, Monday, July 23, 2018, after the paper told employees that the newspaper is reducing its editorial staff by 50 percent. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) (Associated Press)

 Copies of the New York Daily News are for sale at a news stand in New York, Monday, July 23, 2018, after the paper told employees that the newspaper is reducing its editorial staff by 50 percent. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) (Associated Press) Copies of the New York Daily News are for sale at a news stand in New York, Monday, July 23, 2018, after the paper told employees that the newspaper is reducing its editorial staff by 50 percent. (AP... (Associated Press)

 NEW YORK (AP) — The New York tabloid Daily News will cut half of its newsroom staff, saying it wants to focus more on digital news.

 The paper was sold to tronc Inc. last year for $1, with the owner of the Chicago Tribune assuming liabilities and debt.

 In an email sent to staff Monday, tronc said staff at the Daily News will focus on breaking news involving "crime, civil justice and public responsibility."

 Revenue and print circulation have been sliding at the newspaper for years, even as it provided critical coverage of health issues in public housing and for first responders after the Sept. 11 attacks.

 Revenue slid 22 percent between 2014 and 2016, and the paper had already been letting people go.

 "Since the year began, we've worked hard to transform the New York Daily News into a truly digitally-focused enterprise - one that creates meaningful journalism, delivers it more quickly and more frequently, and develops new approaches to engage our readers," an email sent to staff said. "We've gained a deeper understanding of our readership. We've redefined our structures. But we have not gone far enough."

 Editor-in-chief Jim Rich and Managing Editor Kristen Lee are both included in the layoffs.

 Robert York, editor of Tronc-owned The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania, will take over as editor of The Daily News.

 Tronc Inc., based in Chicago, owns the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, and other media operations. ||||| Ambitious projects like the series on New York Police Department’s abuse of eviction rules — for which The News shared a Pulitzer Prize with ProPublica in 2017 — would seem difficult to pull off with an even smaller staff. Sarah Ryley, the reporter on the series, who left The News last year, said it had taken three years to complete because she and the rest of the staff were stretched thin after the layoffs under Mr. Zuckerman.

 “You used to go into the office and feel the energy,” said Frank Isola, a sports columnist at The News for nearly 25 years, who was among those laid off on Monday. “I’ve probably been in the office, I would say, maybe three times in the last three years. People tell me: ‘Don’t come in. It’s depressing.’”

 Since Tronc bought the ailing tabloid from Mr. Zuckerman in September 2017 — for a reported $1; yes, one dollar — the company has been working to transform The News into something more digital.

 “But we have not gone far enough,” the company said in a memo to the staff that announced its decision to reduce “the size of the editorial team by approximately 50 percent” and to shift its focus to breaking news.

 Some News employees started packing last week, after the media newsletter Study Hall reported that the company planned to lay off a large portion of the staff.

 Although daily print circulation had sunk to roughly 200,000, Mr. Rich breathed new life into the paper. During two stints as editor — a 13-month run that ended in 2016, and an encore that began in January — he regularly published front pages that captured the staccato energy of social media.

 He was typically combative in a Twitter post on Monday: “If you hate democracy and think local governments should operate unchecked and in the dark, then today is a good day for you,” he wrote. Mr. Rich also dropped the Daily News affiliation from his Twitter bio. “Just a guy sitting at home watching journalism being choked into extinction,” it reads. ||||| Tronc Slashes 'New York Daily News' Staff By Half

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Drew Angerer/Getty Images Drew Angerer/Getty Images

 The newspaper publishing company Tronc has moved to slash the New York Daily News newsroom, announcing cuts of 50 percent to the paper's editorial staff, according to an internal memo obtained by NPR and other news outlets.

 The staff learned of the cuts Monday morning from a memo emailed from the paper's "talent engagement" account. It said the moves were necessary to seize the opportunities of digital news and financial challenges ahead. A Tronc spokeswoman confirmed the veracity of the memo.

 Tronc said in the memo that the Daily News would be "re-focusing much of our talent on breaking news — especially in areas of crime, civil justice and public responsibility."

 Tronc purchased the famed New York City tabloid last fall for $1 in a reunion of sorts; the paper was founded by Tronc's corporate predecessor, the Tribune Co., in 1919 and sold off in 1991. The Daily News endured waves of cuts under subsequent owners and declining paid circulation in recent years though it has remained on most lists of top 10 circulation papers in the U.S.

 Tronc is the owner of other papers in Chicago, Baltimore, Hartford, Florida, and Virginia, among others. Tronc's continuing cuts and shift in emphasizing quick-turn pieces for digital audiences led to successful unionization drives at both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, then its two largest papers, earlier this year. Tronc subsequently sold the LA Times.

 Last fall, the Chicago Tribune called Tronc's acquisition of the Daily News "a stunning and bold bet on the future of newspapers." Tronc's CEO (and now chairman) Justin Dearborn said at the time, "We expect it to benefit greatly from becoming part of the Tronc ecosystem."

 The move now to gut the Daily News's newsroom will be a blow to local watchdog journalism in the nation's largest city. It has retained a punch in local news at a time when the The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have retreated from metro coverage.

 The Daily News won a Pulitzer Prize last year, its 11th, with ProPublica, for its exposure of how the New York Police Department used an obscure civil enforcement law to evict hundreds of poor people from their homes without their being able to challenge the move first. The paper has also made a meal of the Donald Trump presidency from the populist left, depicting the New York-based real estate developer, long familiar to readers of its gossip pages, as a malevolent, autocratic and cartoonish figure.

 Former Daily News editor-in-chief Jim Rich was rehired as the tabloid's editor after Tronc acquired it last September. Rich and Managing Editor Kristen Lee are out as part of the cuts. Rich made his anger toward the cuts known on Twitter, first by tweeting early Monday morning: "If you hate democracy and think local governments should operate unchecked and in the dark, then today is a good day for you."

 He subsequently changed his Twitter bio to this: "Just a guy sitting at home watching journalism being choked into extinction."

 Tronc has appointed a new editor-in-chief, Robert York, previously editor and publisher of the smaller Tronc sister paper, the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call.

 Below is the Tronc memo: ||||| To put a twist on one of the most famous front pages in history: “Tronc to New York Daily News: Drop Dead!”

 That’s what it feels like today in the wake of the publisher’s decision to lay off half the editorial staff at the storied tabloid, leaving a skeleton crew to run a newspaper that covers national news, issues, and events impacting the biggest city in the country. The rumors started circulating last week, and on Sunday, Tronc sent an email to staffers prepping them for “an important message from Grant Whitmore,” Tronc’s eastern region general manager.

 This morning, the axe dropped:

 “We are fundamentally restructuring the Daily News,” says an email from Tronc to staff. “We are reducing today the size of the editorial team by approximately 50 percent and re-focusing much of our talent on breaking news — especially in areas of crime, civil justice and public responsibility.”

 The realignment of the priorities of the paper, which has a largely working-class readership and a history of uncovering municipal corruption and City Hall scandal, aroused outrage from many commenters, including former News reporter Tom Robbins:

 Just some of the stories broken by the @NYDailyNews in past few weeks:

 –A mini race-riot among FDNY members in the Bronx;

 –NYPD failure to discipline officers despite blatant evidence;

 –NYPD move to charge Pantaleo in Garner death;

 –Non-stop exclusives re NYCHA scandal. — Tom Robbins (@tommy_robb) July 23, 2018

 It’s just the latest round of cuts at the financially struggling Daily News, which Tronc bought last summer for $1, promptly terminating some roles at the paper and moving some functions to the publisher’s Chicago headquarters. |||||


In the increasingly rough Republican campaign, no candidate has wrapped himself in the mantle of Ronald Reagan more often than Newt Gingrich. “I worked with President Reagan to change things in Washington,” “we helped defeat the Soviet empire,” and “I helped lead the effort to defeat Communism in the Congress” are typical claims by the former speaker of the House.

 The claims are misleading at best. As a new member of Congress in the Reagan years — and I was an assistant secretary of state — Mr. Gingrich voted with the president regularly, but equally often spewed insulting rhetoric at Reagan, his top aides, and his policies to defeat Communism. Gingrich was voluble and certain in predicting that Reagan’s policies would fail, and in all of this he was dead wrong.

 The fights over Reagan’s efforts to stop Soviet expansionism in the Third World were exceptionally bitter. The battlegrounds ranged from Angola and Grenada to Afghanistan and Central America. Reagan’s top team — William Casey at CIA, Cap Weinberger at DOD, and George Shultz at State — understood as he did that if Soviet expansionism could be dealt some tough blows, not only the Soviet empire but the USSR itself would face a political, technological, and financial challenge it could not meet. Few officials besides Ronald Reagan predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union entirely, but every one of us in positions of authority understood the importance of this struggle.

 But the most bitter battleground was often in Congress. Here at home, we faced vicious criticism from leading Democrats — Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, Jim Wright, Tip O’Neill, and many more — who used every trick in the book to stop Reagan by denying authorities and funds to these efforts. On whom did we rely up on Capitol Hill? There were many stalwarts: Henry Hyde, elected in 1974; Dick Cheney, elected in 1978, the same year as Gingrich; Dan Burton and Connie Mack, elected in 1982; and Tom DeLay, elected in 1984, were among the leaders.

 But not Newt Gingrich. He voted with the caucus, but his words should be remembered, for at the height of the bitter struggle with the Democratic leadership Gingrich chose to attack . . . Reagan.

 The best examples come from a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986. This was right in the middle of the fight over funding for the Nicaraguan contras; the money had been cut off by Congress in 1985, though Reagan got $100 million for this cause in 1986. Here is Gingrich: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail. . . . President Reagan is clearly failing.” Why? This was due partly to “his administration’s weak policies, which are inadequate and will ultimately fail”; partly to CIA, State, and Defense, which “have no strategies to defeat the empire.” But of course “the burden of this failure frankly must be placed first on President Reagan.” Our efforts against the Communists in the Third World were “pathetically incompetent,” so those anti-Communist members of Congress who questioned the $100 million Reagan sought for the Nicaraguan “contra” rebels “are fundamentally right.” Such was Gingrich’s faith in President Reagan that in 1985, he called Reagan’s meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.” ||||| Former Speaker of The House Tom DeLay tells syndicated radio talk show host Michael Berry that Newt Gingrich isn't a true conservative, and compares him to Bill Clinton:

 Listen To The Full Interview Here: ||||| South Carolina Republicans delivered what former president George W. Bush once called a “thumpin’” to Mitt Romney. Republicans have too many misgivings about Romney — misgivings we share — to give him a shortcut to the nomination. He will have to earn it, if he can. So far he has been content to deliver lifeless platitudes, apparently under the impression that saying he “believes in America” is the way to clinch an argument rather than begin or summarize one. Instead of projecting strength, he has wilted under challenge. For a while there, his position on releasing tax returns was starting to look as convoluted as the tax code itself. He has done little to persuade conservative voters that he will fight for our priorities.

 But attention must now turn to South Carolina’s big winner, Newt Gingrich. If the question before South Carolinians was whether to declare the nomination contest over by choosing Romney, the question before Floridians is whether to make Gingrich the front-runner. Romney is now running a sharply negative campaign in order to capitalize on this distinction. Since neither Gingrich nor Romney can make the case that he is a purebred conservative or a world-beating political talent, both are now essentially relying on a negative argument: The other guy is unreliable and unelectable. There is enough truth in both indictments to explain the continued appeal of other candidates’ joining the race.

 Among the present candidates, we continue to prefer Romney and Rick Santorum over Gingrich and Ron Paul. Our opposition to Paul is based on our disagreement with a foreign policy based on what we consider a dangerously naïve and narrow conception of U.S. interests. Our opposition to Gingrich, by contrast, is not based on any philosophical disagreement. Among Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum, we find only minor ideological differences. None has been a consistent small-government conservative in office; all are running on conservative, and similar, platforms this year.

 Thus it seems to us that the key question is which candidate can best make that platform a reality by first beating Obama and then governing successfully. Exit polls suggest that South Carolina Republicans considered Gingrich the most electable candidate. He argues that he would make the strongest Republican nominee because he would be able to beat Obama in debates — a claim that his strong performance in the Republican debates so far reinforces.

 Gingrich’s best moments in the debates have come when he has hammered the press for liberalism and triviality. Republicans have responded positively, in part because they think, as we do, that the mainstream media has had too much influence over the Republican nomination contest because of all of these media-sponsored debates. The general election will be very different. It is unlikely that the debates will be as numerous or will matter as much; they rarely do.

 The public at large dislikes the media too, but not with the same intensity that conservatives do: Gingrich as nominee would have to train his fire on Obama, who will be able to fight back as John King could not. Nor will the public at large be as impressed by Gingrich’s willingness to attack Obama as a clueless radical as Republicans are. (If voters decide in 2012 to reward the most slashing or sardonic debater before them with the presidency, it will be a first.) When Republicans found themselves in tight spots during the Reagan presidency, they waited for their leader to give a speech to show them the way forward and rally the troops. When Gingrich was Speaker, Republicans never sought him to intervene in legislative debates to turn the tide.

 There is much more to general elections than debates, and there is much more to the presidency than giving speeches. On an intellectual level Gingrich knows this, but he has little experience either in contesting elections with large numbers of voters of varying views or in running large organizations. Romney has executive experience, unlike Gingrich or Santorum, and in past elections voters have seemed to value that experience. But at least Santorum, like Romney, has been elected to statewide office before, and like Romney has shown himself able to reach beyond the Republican base in doing so. Santorum’s record in this regard beats Romney’s, since Santorum won statewide in Pennsylvania twice. Only Gingrich has never been elected to office from anything larger than a congressional district; only Gingrich has never had to reach beyond the Republican base vote to win an election.

 Gingrich has been a nationally known figure for a long time: when the economy was booming and when it has been in a slump; when Republicans were on top and when the public disliked them; when the national mood was sunny and when it was sour. Amid all the tumult of the last 18 years there has been this constant: Gingrich has never been popular. Polls have never shown more than 43 percent of the public viewing him favorably at any point in his career. Gingrich backers say that he is inspiring. What he mostly seems to inspire is opposition.

 It should go without saying that Gingrich also offers more material than the other candidates for Democrats to drive his numbers in the wrong direction. Any Republican nominee will draw criticism for being too biased toward the rich. Not every Republican nominee will be attacked for cruelty in his personal life.

 None of these candidates can be guaranteed to beat Obama (or run a successful White House), and under the right circumstances any of them could. For Republicans to choose Gingrich, though, would be a gamble, with everything from the Supreme Court to Obamacare to our nation’s alliances riding on the outcome. ||||| How long have I been saying it? At least for 15 years, but in private I have been aware of it longer. Newt Gingrich is conservatism’s Bill Clinton, but without the charm. He has acquired wit but he has all the charm of barbed wire.

 Newt and Bill are 1960s generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, has a proclivity for girl hopping. It is not as egregious as Bill’s, but then Newt is not as drop-dead beautiful. His public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out.

 If I have heard of some, you can be sure the Democrats have heard of more. Nancy Pelosi’s intimations are timely. Newt up against the Prophet Obama would be a painful thing to watch. He might be deft with one-liners but it would be futile. There are independent and other uncommitted voters to be cultivated in 2012 — all would be unmoved by Newt’s juggling of conservative shibboleths.

 Newt and Bill, as 1960s generation self-promoters, share the same duplicity, ostentatious braininess, a propensity for endless scrapes with propriety and the law. They are tireless hustlers. Now Newt is hustling my fellow conservatives in this election. The last time around he successfully hustled conservatives in the House of Representatives and then the conservatives on the House impeachment committee.

 He blew the impeachment and in fact his role as Speaker. He backed out in disgrace. He now says Republicans in the House were exhausted with his great projects. Nonsense, I knew many of them, and they were exhausted with his atrocious leadership. He is not a leader. He is a huckster. Today Mitt Romney has 72 Congressional endorsements. Newt has 11. Possibly the 11 have yet to meet him.

 Now he has found his key for hustling conservative electorate. He is playing the liberal media card and saying he embodies conservative values. Like Bill with his credulous fans, Newt is hoping conservatives suffer amnesia. Possibly some do. Perhaps they cannot recall mere months ago when this insufferable whiz kid was lambasting the great Congressman Paul Ryan for “right-wing social engineering” — more evidence of Newt’s not-so-hidden longing for the approval of the liberal media.

 After his Ryan moment Newt’s campaign was a death wagon, and it will be so again — hopefully before he gets the nomination. Conservatives should not climb onto his death wagon. He is a huckster, and I for one will not be rendered a contortionist trying to defend him. I did so in his earliest days and learned my lesson.

 After Newt’s and Bill’s disastrous experiences in government both went on to create empires, Bill in philanthropy and cheap thought, Newt in public policy and cheap thought. As an ex-president Bill has wrung up an unprecedented $75.6 million since absconding from the White House with White House loot and shameless pardons. I do not know how much Newt has amassed, but he got between $1.6 million to $1.8 million from Freddie Mac, and he lobbied for Medicare Part B while receiving, according to the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney, “Big Bucks Pushing Corporate Welfare.” Now after a lifetime in Washington he is promoting himself as an outsider.

 Contending with Newt for the Republican nomination are Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney. All three are truer conservatives than Newt. I like them all. But John Bolton, former ambassador the United Nations, and John Lehman, President Reagan’s secretary of the navy, are for Mitt, and they are solid conservatives. Governor Christie and the economic pundit Larry Kudlow laud Mitt on taxes, on spending, and on attacking crony capitalism. Mr. Kudlow calls Mr. Romney “Reaganesque.” Ann Coulter seems to loathe Newt. That is good enough for me.

 Back in 1992 I appeared with Chris Matthews on some gasbag’s television show. Was it Donohue? At any rate, I said candidate Clinton had more skeletons in his closet than a body snatcher. It was a prescient line then, and I always got a laugh. I can apply the same line today to Newt, though he has skeletons both inside and outside his closet.

 Conservatives should not be surprised by the scandals that lie ahead, if they stick with him. Those of us, who raised the question of character in 1992, were confronted by an indignant Bill Clinton, treating the topic as a low blow. To listen to him, character was the “c” word of American politics. It was reprehensible to mention it. By now we know. Character matters. Paul, Santorum, and Romney have it. Newt has Clinton’s character. ||||| Newt Gingrich better hope voters who lapped up his delicious hits on the “elite media” and liberals don’t read the Drudge Report this morning.

 Or the National Review. Or the American Spectator. Or Ann Coulter.

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 reset VandeHei on anti-Newt attacks Gingrich fires back in Florida

 If they do, Gingrich comes off looking like a dangerous, anti-Reagan, Clintonian fraud.

 It’s as if the conservative media over the past 24 hours decided Gingrich is for real, and they need to come clean about the man they really know before it’s too late. This is just a sampling of what’s hitting Newt:

 • The overnight Drudge Report banner: “Insider: Gingrich repeatedly Insulted Reagan.” The headline linked to a devastating takedown by Elliott Abrams in the National Review, who wrote, among other things, that Gingrich had a long record of criticizing and undermining Reagan’s most transformative policies.

 • Drudge also linked prominently to the American Spectator’s R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s similarly harsh takedown of Gingrich over character: “William Jefferson Gingrich.” In it, Tyrrell writes: “Newt and Bill are 1960s generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, has a proclivity for girl hopping… His public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out.”

 Drudge runs hundreds of links to stories of all stripes about candidates, but has been seen by Republicans as favorable to Romney in the past.

 • Bob Dole issued a scathing statement Thursday that the Romney campaign provided to the National Review in which he said “it is now time” to rally to stop Gingrich, blamed the former Speaker for losing House Republican seats in 1996, and warned that it could happen again, at all levels of government.

 “I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late,” Dole said. “If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.”

 Dole added, “In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year.”

 • Conservatives are circulating a piece written by the editors of the National Review: “The Hour of Newt.” The editors, who have been extremely critical of Gingrich for weeks, waved conservatives off the Gingrich bandwagon. “Gingrich backers say that he is inspiring. What he mostly seems to inspire is opposition.”

 • Ann Coulter, the conservative columnist writing on her self-titled website, warns: “Re-elect Obama, Vote Newt!” She, too, gets Drudge promotion, with a column punctuated with this punch: “Hotheaded arrogance is neither conservative nor attractive to voters.”

 • Tom DeLay, a top deputy to Gingrich during the Republican revolution of the mid-1990s, joined the chorus of other conservative members breaking their silence about Gingrich’s erratic leadership style. In a radio interview with KTRH, DeLay said: “He’s not really a conservative. I mean, he’ll tell you what you want to hear. He has an uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up. But when he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined.” ||||| To talk with Gingrich supporters is to enter a world where words have no meaning. They denounce Mitt Romney as a candidate being pushed on them by "the Establishment" -- with "the Establishment" defined as anyone who supports Romney or opposes Newt.

 Gingrich may have spent his entire life in Washington and be so much of an insider that, as Jon Stewart says, "when Washington gets its prostate checked, it tickles [Newt]," but he is deemed the rebellious outsider challenging "the Establishment" -- because, again, "the Establishment" is anyone who opposes Newt.

 This is the sort of circular reasoning one normally associates with Democrats, Ron Paul supporters and people whom small-town pharmacists refer to as "drug seekers."

 Newtons claim Romney is a "moderate," and Gingrich the true conservative -- a feat that can be accomplished only by refusing to listen to anything Romney says ... and also refusing to listen to anything Gingrich says.

 -- Romney's one great "flip-flop" is on abortion. (I thought the reason we argued with people about abortion was to try to get them to "flip" on this issue. Sometimes it works!)

 Nearly two decades ago, when Romney was trying to defeat champion desecrator of life Sen. Teddy Kennedy, he sought to remove abortion as a campaign issue by declaring that he, too, supported Roe v. Wade.

 (Nonetheless, Kennedy ran a campaign commercial against him featuring a Mormon woman complaining that Romney, as a Mormon elder, had pressured her not to have an abortion, but to give the child up for adoption. Are you getting the idea that Massachusetts is different from the rest of America, readers?)

 Romney changed his mind on abortion -- not when it was politically advantageous, but when it mattered. As governor of liberal, pro-choice Massachusetts, he vetoed an embryonic stem cell bill and "worked closely" with Massachusetts Citizens for Life. The president of MCL recently issued a statement saying that, "since being elected governor, Mitt Romney has had a consistent commitment to the culture of life."

 He didn't defend his changed position by saying he was a "historian" (Newts excuse for his $1.6 million payment from Freddie Mac) or denounce people who raised the switch as "fundamentally" dishonest or asking "absurd" questions, or go back and forth and back and forth.He just said he changed his mind.Meanwhile, Gingrich, who has run for office only in a small, majority Republican, undoubtedly pro-life congressional district, lobbied President Bush to support embryonic stem cell research.-- Romney is now the only remaining candidate for president who opposes amnesty for illegals. (Ever since President Bush's amnesty plan cratered on the shoals of public opposition, no Republican will ever use the word "amnesty," despite wanting to keep illegals here -- just as Democrats refuse to say "abortion," while supporting every manner of destroying human life.)Romney supports E-Verify and a fence on the border. As governor he promoted English immersion programs for immigrants, signed an agreement with the federal government allowing state troopers to enforce federal immigration laws, and opposed efforts to give illegal immigrants in-state tuition or driver's licenses.At the same time, Romney says he'd like to staple a green card to the diploma of every immigrant here on a student visa who gets a higher degree in math or science.Gingrich supports importing a slave labor force from Mexico under a "guest worker" program and wants to create government "citizen review boards" to grant amnesty on a case-by-case basis (i.e. all at once) to illegal aliens.-- Romney supports entitlement reform along the lines of the Paul Ryan plan, as he has said plainly, but without histrionics, in the debates.Just last year, Gingrich went on "Meet the Press" and called Ryan's plan -- supported by nearly every House Republican -- "right-wing social engineering."He apologized for those remarks, then took back his apology, still later doubled down, calling the Ryan plan "suicide," and now -- currently, but it could change any minute -- Gingrich supports Ryan's entitlement reform efforts.For the latest updates on Newt's position on the Ryan plan, go to Twitter hashtag: #whatcheapshotgrandstandymovewillworknow?-- As for crony capitalism, Romney made all his money in the private sector by his own diligence and talent -- even giving away all the money he inherited from his parents. He's never lived in Washington or traded on access to government officials.Meanwhile, without the federal government, Gingrich would be penniless. He has been in Washington since the '70s, first as a congressman, then becoming a rich man on the basis of having been a congressman.Most egregiously, he took $1.6 million to shill for Freddie Mac, one of the two institutions directly responsible for the housing crash that caused the financial collapse. (Or one of three, if you consider Barney Frank an institution.)If the tea party stands for anything, it stands in absolute opposition to government insiders shoring up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the very time those institutions were blowing up the economy.-- Romney could not be more forceful in saying he will issue a 50-state waiver to Obamacare his first day in office and then seek its formal repeal. Whether you like a state-wide insurance mandate or not, it's a world of difference when the federal government does it. Conservatives, having read the Constitution, ought to understand this.It was on account of the difference between state and federal powers that the Supreme Court overturned the federal Violence Against Women Act. The court was not endorsing rape, but reminding us that states make laws about rape, not Congress.To act as if Obamacare is the same thing as "Romneycare" is just a word game, on the order of acting like a "gun" has the same properties as a "gunny sack," or "fire" is the same thing as a "firefly."Romney supported the idea of other states doing something along the lines of his health care bill, but always opposed insurance mandates from the federal government (just as I oppose the federal government issuing general laws about rape, but support state laws against rape.)For those of you who still think Romneycare is the worst possible sin a Republican candidate could commit -- even worse than taking money from Freddie Mac as it destroyed the economy -- that doesn't help Gingrich: He supported Romneycare.(While we're on the subject, the nation's leading conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, helped draft Romneycare. Indeed, Bob Moffit, Heritage's senior fellow on health care issues, can be seen in the picture of the bill-signing ceremony, standing proudly behind Romney.)But Gingrich did more than support Romneycare. As former senator Rick Santorum has pointed out, Gingrich supported a FEDERAL individual mandate to purchase health insurance from 1993 until five minutes ago -- i.e., at least until a "Meet the Press" appearance just last May.Asked by Maria Bartiromo in the CNBC debate last November to explain what he would do to fix health care, Newt attacked the question as "absurd" and said he would need a "several-hour period" to answer it.In a world where words have meaning, Mitt Romney is not the "moderate" in this race. He is the most conservative candidate still standing, with the possible exception of Rick Santorum, who is bad on illegal immigration. (Santorum voted in the Senate against even the voluntary use of E-Verify by employers, which means he doesn't want to do anything about illegal immigration at all.)Romney is "moderate" only in demeanor -- which is just another word game. His positions are more conservative than Gingrich's, but he doesn't scare people like Gingrich does. Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms were moderate in demeanor, too. No one would call them political moderates.Romney is the most electable candidate not only because it will be nearly impossible for the media to demonize this self-made Mormon square, devoted to his wife and church, but precisely because he is the most conservative candidate.Conservatism is an electable quality. Hotheaded arrogance is neither conservative nor attractive to voters.COPYRIGHT 2012 ANN COULTERDISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106; 816-581-7500 ||||| About this capture

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Write a summary.

– The conservative media have apparently figured out that Newt Gingrich could actually win the Republican nomination, and they are responding with a breathtaking collective attack on the candidate. Politico rounds up the highlights, noting that "this is just a sampling of what's hitting Newt." In the National Review, Elliott Abrams writes that Gingrich often undermined Ronald Reagan, in what Politico calls "a devastating takedown." In another recent National Review piece being circulated by conservatives, the editors ramp up their opposition to Gingrich and urge conservatives not to support him. R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. of the American Spectator compares Gingrich to Bill Clinton, calling them both "1960s generation narcissists" and noting that, for "girl hopping" Gingrich, "there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out." On her website, Ann Coulter minces no words: "Re-elect Obama, Vote Newt!" Her column blasts Gingrich's "hotheaded arrogance." The Drudge Report linked to the Abrams piece with a banner reading, "Insider: Gingrich Repeatedly Insulted Reagan." The site, which has been viewed as pro-Romney in the past, also linked prominently to Tyrrell and Coulter. Tom DeLay told KTRH, "He’s not really a conservative. I mean, he’ll tell you what you want to hear. … When he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined." A top figure in the conservative media tells Politico that Republican leaders and media are beginning to realize, "It could happen, and it would be a disaster. All of us who were around and saw how he operated as speaker—there’s no one who’s not appalled by the prospect of what could happen." Politico notes that dozens of GOP lawmakers, governors, and other VIPs have said the same, privately, in recent weeks. Click for more on why tonight's debate is crucial for Gingrich.


Here is a news article: I am a son of Detroit. I was born in Harper Hospital and lived in the city until my family moved to Oakland County.

 I grew up drinking Vernors and watching ballgames at Michigan & Trumbull. Cars got in my bones early. And not just any cars, American cars.

 When the president of American Motors died suddenly in 1954, my dad, George Romney, was asked to take his place. I was 7 and got my love of cars and chrome and fins and roaring motors from him. I grew up around the industry and watched it flourish. Years later, I watched with sadness as it floundered.

 Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama's management of the American economy are evident in what he did.

 Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses,Obama rewarded them.

 A labor union that had contributed millions to Democrats and his election campaign was granted an ownership share of Chrysler and a major stake in GM, two flagships of the industry.The U.S. Department of Treasury — American taxpayers — was asked to become a majority stockholder of GM. And a politically connected and ethically challenged Obama-campaign contributor, the financier Steven Rattner, was asked to preside over all this as auto czar.

 This was crony capitalism on a grand scale. The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.

 My view at the time — and I set it out plainly in an op-ed in the New York Times — was that "the American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing." Instead of a bailout, I favored "managed bankruptcy" as the way forward.

 Managed bankruptcy may sound like a death knell. But in fact, it is a way for a troubled company to restructure itself rapidly, entering and leaving the courtroom sometimes in weeks or months instead of years, and then returning to profitable operation.

 In the case of Chrysler and GM, that was precisely what the companies needed. Both were saddled with an accumulation of labor, pension, and real estate costs that made them unsustainable. Health and retirement benefits alone amounted to an extra $2,000 baked into the price of every car they produced.

 Shorn of those excess costs, and shorn of the bungling management that had driven them into a deep rut, they could re-emerge as vibrant and competitive companies. Ultimately, that is what happened. The course I recommended was eventually followed. GM entered managed bankruptcy in June 2009 and exited it a month later in July.

 The Chrysler timeline was similarly swift. But something else happened along the way that was truly egregious. Before the companies were allowed to enter and exit bankruptcy, the U.S. government swept in with an $85 billion sweetheart deal disguised as a rescue plan.

 By the spring of 2009, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism, Obama-style.

 Thus, the outcome of the managed bankruptcy proceedings was dictated by the terms of the bailout. Chrysler's "secured creditors," who in the normal course of affairs should have been first in line for compensation, were given short shrift, while at the same time, the UAWs' union-boss-controlled trust fund received a 55 percent stake in the firm.

 The pensions of union workers and retirees at Delphi, GM's parts supplier, were left untouched, while some 21,000 non-union salaried employees saw their pensions slashed and lost their life and health insurance. And so on and so forth across the industry.

 While a lot of workers and investors got the short end of the stick, Obama's union allies — and his major campaign contributors — reaped reward upon reward, all on the taxpayer's dime.

 "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," is what Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, said as the economy went into free-fall. The auto bailout is a case study of Emanuel's maxim in operation. American taxpayers have been left on the hook for billions to benefit unions and the union bosses who contributed millions to Barack Obama's election campaign. Such a state of affairs is intolerable, and as president I would not tolerate it. The Obama administration needs to act now to divest itself of its ownership position in GM.

 The shares need to be sold in a responsible fashion and the proceeds turned over to the nation's taxpayers.

 We should not be back on a road like the one that brought us Freddie Mac and the housing crisis. It is a road with endless hazards. It is not the American way of making cars.

 The dream of the Motor City is and always has been one of ideas, innovation, enterprise, and opportunity. It started with Henry Ford and continued with visionaries like William Durant, Walter Chrysler, and the Dodge Brothers. These giants never envisioned a role for government in their business, but relied on the hard work and commitment of private individuals.

 Their dream is alive in all of us who have ever called Detroit home. And with a Detroiter in the White House, that dream can be realized once again.

 Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a Republican candidate for president. |||||

 President George W. Bush at the NADA Convention and Expo in Las Vegas last week. (Courtesy of NADA)

 But former President George W. Bush, most annoyingly, keeps coming to Obama’s defense, saying the bailout was essential to stave off complete disaster.

 He defended the move in his memoir and he popped up again last week at the Las Vegas convention of the National Automobile Dealers Association, saying he would “do it again.”

 “I didn’t want there to be 21 percent unemployment,” Bush told the 22,000 attendees. “Sometimes circumstances get in the way of philosophy.”

 “I said, ‘No depression.’”

 In his memoir he said the move was “the only option” to avert immediate bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM and the loss of a million jobs and $150 billion in tax revenues.

 So Bush, who might be able to beat Romney in Michigan’s Feb. 28 primary — Santorum leads by seven in a CNN poll -- forked over a cool $25 billion. Obama, who’s been criticized by Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler for overstating the success of the effort (the White House differs), forked over another $55 billion.

 It’s unclear what the auto dealers forked over to get Bush to appear. Ex-presidents usually get six figures for these appearances. And W got a standing ovation. ||||| Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.

 The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers , said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”

 Photo

 You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.

 The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

 Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.

 Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.

 Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet.

 It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

 But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

 The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

 Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Three years ago, Mitt Romney wrote that President Obama should "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," instead of bailing out the struggling auto industry, in a famous New York Times column. And today? Even with the American auto industry on the rebound, Michigan's GOP primary looming on Feb. 28, and Rick Santorum breathing down his neck in the polls, Romney still thinks bankruptcy would have been better than the president's "crony capitalism," he writes in the Detroit News. "I believe that without his intervention things there would be better," he writes. Romney's big complaint with the bailout? That "secured creditors" got screwed and non-union employees had their benefits slashed while a union-controlled trust got 55% of Chrysler and the unions had their pensions saved. "It is not the American way of making cars," writes Romney. None other than former President George W. Bush is taking the opposite side in the post-mortem, saying that he was responsible for the first $25 billion bailout, and it was definitely a good thing. “I didn’t want there to be 21% unemployment,” Bush told the National Automobile Dealers Association last week, reports the Washington Post. "Sometimes circumstances get in the way of philosophy.”


Article:
People who know nothing else about Cory Booker know that the 44-year-old Newark mayor is going big places.

 The next big entry on his résumé will very likely be junior U.S. senator from New Jersey, after Booker easily won Tuesday's Democratic primary for the special election to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). How easily? Booker took 59 percent in a four-person race against two U.S. congressmen and the speaker of the New Jersey State Assembly.

 Booker's opponent in the October election will be Republican Steven Lonegan, a former mayor of Bogota, N.J., who promises to run a vigorous "line-in-the-sand campaign between a conservative and an extreme liberal." That's an odd strategy to employ in New Jersey, which hasn't voted to send a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972.

 But such a campaign will also probably rankle a good number of liberals. Given that Booker will replace a Republican stand-in senator appointed by Gov. Chris Christie, and that Booker will be only the fourth African American elected to the U.S. Senate, "you would expect that progressives would be excited by Booker's candidacy and his eventual rise to the Senate," says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. You would be wrong.

 Salon's Alex Pareene wrote perhaps the most widely cited liberal takedown of Booker, but he's hardly alone. The liberal critique of Booker is essentially that he's too chummy with Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley moguls, is using those connections and his mayoral perch to enrich himself, and tries to hide his elitist and corporatist tendencies by relentlessly and narcissistically promoting himself as a liberal champion of the little guy.

 The progressives are basically right, says David Weigel at Slate. "A Booker victory will mean the replacement of a reliable, plodding progressive with a less reliable neoliberal." In fact, Weigel says, "the only progressive argument for Booker" is that he's black and "the long-term interests of a party that depends on huge minority turnout adding to white liberal turnout are served by promoting nonwhite stars."

 But not every liberal is so down on Booker. The Newark mayor "might vote like a Goldman Sachs executive and break John McCain's record for appearing on Sunday morning shows," says Martin Longman at Booman Tribune, but in the Senate, he'll get stuff done. If you're a liberal and "he agrees with you on an issue, he's going to be a valuable advocate."

 His parents were some of the first black executives at IBM, so Booker wasn't raised in the Hood. He also wasn't sent to any elite prep school. He was a star football player at a well-regarded public high school. He was good enough and smart enough to land a gig at Stanford University, where he became class president. He won a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at Oxford, where he received honors. Then he got a law degree from Yale. Along the way, he found time to do charitable work wherever he went. And then he won a seat on Newark's city council and started butting heads with some seriously corrupt politicians, including the joke of a mayor, Sharpe James.

 It's true that spending part of your life studying with kids at Stanford, Yale, and Oxford will color how you view things, but let's not pretend that Cory Booker hasn't been excellent at pretty much everything he's done so far in his life. [Booman Tribune]

 And even if many lefty columnists and bloggers still hate Booker, the Newark mayor probably doesn't need to worry. "Their sentiments don't seem to be shared by the voters," says Outside the Beltway's Mataconis. Booker's poll numbers have stayed consistently high despite attacks from his more liberal rivals. Credit Booker's name recognition and carefully curated "aura of celebrity," Mataconis says.

 ...there's something of a disconnect between these progressive pundits and the voting public. Much like pundits on the right have their ideal candidates, writers such as Pareene do as well, and Booker quite obviously doesn't fit into that definition. Perhaps it's because he hasn't said the magic words on NSA surveillance or some other issue.... Perhaps it's just because there was never really any suspense in this election and they needed something write about. Whatever the reason, the animus toward Booker on the left has been more than a little surprising especially considering that he is going to be a reliable Democratic vote for as long as he's in the Senate. Given that it's New Jersey and Booker is relatively young, could be quite a long time. [Outside the Beltway]

 That's why liberals are breaking out the Sturm und Drang now, says Elspeth Reeve at The Atlantic Wire:

 The point doesn't seem to be to stop his election to the Senate — that looks impossible — but to make the case for why he shouldn't climb any higher in Democratic politics.... For the Booker un-endorsers, what's at stake in the New Jersey special election is the idea of who the Democratic standard-bearer will be after President Obama. [Atlantic Wire]

 Booker, as it turns out, doesn't really seem to disagree with his liberal critics. Raymond Hernandez explains at The New York Times:

 As [Booker] campaigned, he portrayed what his opponents saw as a weakness — that he was insufficiently liberal on issues important to Democrats like gun control and unions — as a strength. He argued that his pragmatic brand of politics, favoring practical solutions over ideology, had enabled him to lift the fortunes of Newark, the state's largest city. [New York Times]

 Since he didn't have to fend of a strong primary challenge from the left, Booker did what most politicians would do positioning themselves for a general election: He ran as a uniter, not a divider. As we've learned, it takes two to unite, but few big-time politicians have ever been punished for pitching that ideal to the masses. ||||| Today New Jersey Democrats will decide who will be their nominee for the United States Senate. The winner of today's primary election will be the heavy favorite in the general election. If any New Jersey voters are reading, and they have not yet voted, consider this a desperate plea: Don't vote for Cory Booker. He's going to be a very annoying senator.

 It's fine if you like Booker. He's personable, charming, really good at Twitter, and he has done lots of stunts designed to make people aware of poverty, or at least to make people aware of Cory Booker's awareness of poverty. He is a Good Liberal on many issues.

 But he's also an avatar of the wealthy elite, a camera hog, and a political cipher who has never once proposed anything to address the structural causes of the problems he claims to care so deeply about. He represents the interests of both Wall Street and Silicon Valley, two very prosperous industries full of incredibly arrogant rich men who believe that the world's problems would be solved if arrogant rich men exactly like themselves were given free rein to make as much money as possible by any means necessary. They see, in Booker, a peer -- a smart man with the right qualifications and the correct worldview. Booker and his crowd believe that the charity of the benevolent elite -- people who know they are rich because of their innate skill, their brilliance, their work ethic, everything besides fundamentally inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities for economic advancement -- is the only acceptable and effective means of addressing the needs of the lower orders.

 Cory Booker became a millionaire because this is how the economy works for people of his class: Rich people give other rich people money to do nothing, simply because they "deserve" it. He is the worst sort of Democrat, and Democrats should be doing everything in their power to wrest control of the party away from people like him.

 But that is why Cory Booker is bad as a phenomenon. What about his fitness for the specific job he is running for? It is, admittedly, probably not the job he was hoping for. Governors get to have more fun. Time's Jay Newton-Small says Booker would miss retail politics and direct constituent interaction once he's a senator:

 Senators don’t fix potholes. Never mind flaming buildings–they rarely even kiss babies. Senators spend their days in meetings: with lobbyists, with interest groups, with other senators, with the administration, with fundraisers and with their leadership. They’re inside operators.

 OK, but how do we actually think Booker spends most of his time? Fixing potholes personally, or attending meetings with rich, influential and important people? (Like Jeff Zucker's teenage son?)

 In many ways, Booker is perfectly suited for the United States Senate. He won't be expected to accomplish anything. He will have so many more opportunities to spend time with even more rich people with elite backgrounds and worldviews similar to his. He will have much more access to television studios and Sunday shows and cable news cameras.

 He will, in short, be the worst kind of senator. The kind that has no power and no real desire to exercise power on behalf of the people the senator ostensibly represents, but the kind that always expresses opinions on television about whatever national issues people on television care about that day. He will be on "Morning Joe" and "Meet the Press" constantly. He has even already said that he might consider Rand Paul and Ted Cruz as models for how a freshman senator might make "big marks." Not "big marks" in the sense of any sort of lasting legislative legacy, because Ted Cruz does not care about legislation or policy, but "big marks" in terms of media attention and stunts designed to appeal to a core of supporters who prefer their senators brash and loud. Another one of those senators will not help anything.

 It's not like there aren't any other options. Rush Holt would be a fine senator. He's an actual physicist, which is neat. He cares very strongly about global warming, which is probably the single most pressing issue of our era. He will probably not use the Senate seat as a stepping stone to the White House, which means he may actually stick around long enough to gain seniority and someday actually achieve things.

 So don't vote for Cory Booker. ||||| By Ed Kilgore

 So despite facing two veteran members of Congress and arousing a lot of protests from progressive activists, Newark Mayor Cory Booker won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey by close to 40 points, winning 59% against Frank Pallone’s 19% and Rush Holt’s 17%. He’ll now face Tea Party activist Steve Lonegan (last seen challenging Chris Christie from the right in a 2009 primary) in a special general election on October 16, which is not expected to be close. Booker will, however, have to do it all over again next year, when the term Frank Lautenberg was elected to in 2008 expires.

 The bigger issue for a lot of observers is whether Booker has national ambitions. For admirers, he’s the next Barack Obama, a charismatic African-American pol with possible transpartisan appeal. To detractors, he’s an unholy combination of Harold Ford, Jr. and Joe Lieberman, beholden to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. So his first steps in the Senate will be watched closely. |||||Summary:

– Cory Booker now looks poised to become Senator Cory Booker in this fall's special election in New Jersey, a feat that would make the high-profile Newark mayor only the fourth black person elected to the Senate. So why are there so many raspberries coming from the left after last night's primary win? Because he "is loathed by some progressives in a way that's only now being noticed," writes David Weigel at Slate. "A Booker victory will mean the replacement of a reliable, plodding progressive with a less reliable neoliberal." Or as Alex Pareene at Salon put it, Booker is "an avatar of the wealthy elite, a camera hog, and a political cipher who has never once proposed anything to address the structural causes of the problems he claims to care so deeply about." He'll follow that same superficial path in the Senate, predicts Pareene. Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly sums up the Booker phenomena thusly: "For admirers, he’s the next Barack Obama, a charismatic African-American pol with possible transpartisan appeal. To detractors, he’s an unholy combination of Harold Ford Jr., and Joe Lieberman, beholden to Wall Street and Silicon Valley." The bigger issue for critics, he adds, is whether Booker has White House ambitions. For more on the liberal unease with Booker, see the Week.