Newt Gingrich’s selection for “Entrepreneur of the Year” came not only as a surprise to executive Allison Vivas but Gingrich’s supporters. You see, Vivas is the president of adult entertainment studio Pink Visual, a porn operation. It has now turned out to be little more than a one-night stand, as the group rushed to rescind the award.
Newt Gingrich’s 527 group sent a letter to Vivas congratulating her on winning its “Entrepreneur of the Year” award and inviting her to an “intimate event” with Gingrich. The letter includes a handwritten note saying “”Newt is looking forward to finally meeting you face to face — and get your thoughts on cap and trade and Obama’s tax policy.”
Vivas was delighted and released a statement that “I’m honored, and more than a little surprised, to receive this prestigious award. Rest assured, I’ll take the opportunity to inform Mr. Gingrich of some of the major challenges facing the adult entertainment industry in the current market .., from obscenity prosecutions to content piracy, I’ll make sure he walks away from that dinner educated about the realities of the online porn market.”
Gingrich’s group appears now to have a bit of a morning after regret and rescinded the award, releasing a statement saying “We have notified Allison Vivas that the notice she received was sent by mistake. We regret the error.”
For a copy of the letter, click here.
This really needs more press. Gingrich is much beloved by mainstream media types who constantly overlook his gaffes and his general lack of attention span (remember when he pushed orphanages–whatever happened to that).The more we can embarrass his Newtie-ness, the better.
I don’t see why Newt is upset. With a name and personality like Newt has demonstrated over the years, I’d think he’d be a valued customer of Pink Visual. The “volume discount” kind of valued customer. Especially since the Hooker’s Union placed a ban on servicing customers named after amphibians. Witness the recent denial of service to beloved New Orleans musician Clarence “Frogman” Henry. (Ladies, please! Cut Mr. Henry some slack . . . and I don’t mean Bobbitt style! He’s a good guy!) But I digress.
I thought Republicans were all for big business. Let’s be clear: Porn is BIG business. Some bigger than others. (rimshot!) Our beloved internet made it through the awkward post-DARPAnet childhood and into a profitable young and sexy adolescent business model on the backs of pornography. Or it that pornographers on their back made the internet into a profitable young business sexy model? It’s often so confusing discussing porn and economics at the same time since both usually involve someone getting screwed.
Oh, the humanity.
What’s a matter Newt-er-ino? All that dense material in your head finally create a situation where you can’t be a greedy suck up and a moralizing toad at the same time?
Oh, the inanity.
Democrats are the party of a paternalistic soft tyranny of government, they know what is best for us and republicans are the party of moralistic busy bodies thinking they can remake us all in Gods image.
And the average man or woman gets stuck with the bill for bad government.
I realize this is beside the point, but the “handwritten” note is clearly not.
Oh I love this. The truth be known, heck did the RNC receive an invitation along with Studio Pink? This is living proof of what they have been doing to the US for years. Now some evidence of proof wait long enough and the truth shall set you free. How many GOP members called for Clinton to resign because of the cohiba incident? I wonder if the them for the event was the devil wore a blue dress?
If I had been Vivas I’d have just kept my mouth shut and showed up at the dinner, think of the publicity 🙂
mespo727272: “We had two sensible parties with different traditions, constituencies, and orientations. The Democrats were the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Franklin Roosevelt. They saw themselves as representing the common man against larger economic interests, favoring, in the now-common characterization, equality over liberty. Republicans were the party of Hamilton, Lincoln, and McKinley. They saw themselves as representing business interests that would unleash the nation’s entrepreneurial energies, favoring liberty over equality. It was a nice balance,… ”
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Just off the top of my head here but, it was a nice balance unless you were black (or any racial minority), female, poor, working class, gay, liked clean water and air… The problem with having Republicans in office is the always favor business interests over citizens interest’s and we see where that gets us. The problem with having Democrats in office is they are now the Republican Lite party.
It’s not a liberty over equality question in that when vast numbers of a citizenry are oppressed and have less standing than others, those groups have less liberty based on their inequality. Liberty for the great majority of our country’s history meant the liberty to suppress, oppress and generally mess a majority of the citizenry over for the sake of God, business and sex/gender.
I like to think the Democrats were the party of liberty through equality. Today’s Republicans, they hate us for our freedom.
mespo727272: “Let’s not mince words here: We now have an entire political party that is not only dedicated to the mediocre. It is dedicated to the nearly deranged.”
On that we agree. The Democratic party is compromised by it’s big business ties and the Republicans are compromised by their base, a culturally radical coalition of voters desperately trying to turn back the clock to the good old days described above, if not all the way back to the 18th-19th century.
Here’s what should be mandatory reading for those interested in our sad political situation:
“The Extreme Republican Party
By Neal Gabler (Boston Globe) September 12, 2009
BACK IN 1970 when Richard Nixon nominated a little-known district court judge named Harold Carswell for the Supreme Court and Carswell’s opponents branded him “mediocre,’’ Republican Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska famously rose to Carswell’s defense. Even if he were mediocre, Hruska said, “mediocre people are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they?’’ With that ringing endorsement, Carswell’s appointment was soundly defeated by the Senate, but not even Hruska could have foreseen how his prescription would be adopted by our political system.
Let’s not mince words here: We now have an entire political party that is not only dedicated to the mediocre. It is dedicated to the nearly deranged.
We are long past the time when we can pretend there are two serious political parties in this country – one right of center and one left of center. That is the situation in virtually every other industrialized country. England has its Tories and Labor, France its Gaullists and its Socialists, Germany its Christian Democrats and its Social Democrats. These parties generally don’t agree on policy; they are, after all, political adversaries. But they are all serious, they all represent large constituencies and interests, and they all operate from a set of shared values, not least of which is that the other side is not treasonous or evil or ill-intentioned; it just has different prescriptions for solving problems. Typically, the differences between right and left in these countries are fairly small because in most democracies most people agree on the really big stuff. Even Tory leader David Cameron has vigorously defended England’s National Health Service.
But that is not the case here. We have one party that is severely compromised by its ties to big money, and another party that is just plain nuts. There is no other way to parse it. According to recent polls, a majority of its followers either believe that President Obama was born in Kenya or aren’t sure, believe there is no such thing as global warming, believe that the House health care bill calls for death panels to euthanize senior citizens, and believe that Obama is responsible for our economic woes (61 percent!). The only bright side is that according to a recent Pew poll, only 23 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans, which makes them not only a fringe in beliefs but also, thankfully, in numbers.
Republicans haven’t always been like this. For most of our history, America was pretty much like our European allies. We had two sensible parties with different traditions, constituencies, and orientations. The Democrats were the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Franklin Roosevelt. They saw themselves as representing the common man against larger economic interests, favoring, in the now-common characterization, equality over liberty. Republicans were the party of Hamilton, Lincoln, and McKinley. They saw themselves as representing business interests that would unleash the nation’s entrepreneurial energies, favoring liberty over equality. It was a nice balance, and it served the country surprisingly well for nearly two centuries.”
Wow! Now there’s truth that is harder than a diamond!
Vivas was delighted and released a statement that “I’m honored, and more than a little surprised, to receive this prestigious award. Rest assured, I’ll take the opportunity to inform Mr. Gingrich of some of the major challenges facing the adult entertainment industry in the current market .., from obscenity prosecutions to content piracy, I’ll make sure he walks away from that dinner educated about the realities of the online porn market.”
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What if we had a politician with the testicular fortitude to sit down with someone like Vivas and hear her out, listen to her take on “the major challenges facing the adult entertainment industry?”
Widely published traffic statistics indicate that pornography-based websites are among the highest rated online. Would it go to follow that our elected leaders should give an ear to a segment of the economic community that is clearly a favorite of the American electorate, at least those with computers and an internet connection?
Oh, I suppose Vivas doesn’t have a PAC and good, solid corporate board who can go out and sell a $25,000 table to the next big fundraiser. Don’t worry, though. Pfizer does. Blue Cross does. And there are lots of others just like them.