Gingrich Drew $600,000 From Ethanol Lobbyist

Energy Growth is a major ethanol lobbying group. It originally reported that it had paid Newt Gingrich $312,000 but has now revised that number upward to $600,000. He remained on their payroll for the first few months of this year.
Gingrich was paid to offer advice on “strategy and communication issues” and to “speak positively on ethanol related topics to the media.” Does everybody have that straight? Newt was not a lobbyist. He was a consultant working for a lobbyist. And it just keeps getting better! From a Wall Street Journal article, Professor Cornpone;

The former Speaker blew through Des Moines last Tuesday for the Renewable Fuels Association summit, and his keynote speech to the ethanol lobby was as pious a tribute to the fuel made from corn and tax dollars as we've ever heard. Mr. Gingrich explained that "the big-city attacks" on ethanol subsidies are really attempts to deny prosperity to rural America, adding that "Obviously big urban newspapers want to kill it because it's working, and you wonder, 'What are their values?'"

Big urban newspapers are not the only ones wanting to kill ethanol. House Republicans have attempted to end this green energy boondoggle and having a prominent Republican "consultant" on the side of the Obama administration has not made that task easier. You won't hear the other Republican candidates making much of this until the Iowa caucuses are behind them. Iowa is the wrong state to campaign against corn but we will surely be hearing more on this later. The former Speaker is very much a Washington insider. What are his values?

Read more here, here, and here.