OWS: Gingrich "Rolling Around In Dirty Money"

Occupy Wall Street is taking aim at Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich after the former Speaker of the House publicly advised the demonstrators to “get a job, right after you take a bath” during a GOP forum Saturday.

“It is Gingrich who is truly filthy from rolling around in dirty money,” a statement from the OWS reads.

The Occupy movement cited Gingrich’s post-Congressional work, including his stint at Freddie Mac, an $840,000 payment from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, $312,500 from the ethanol lobby as well as his think tank jobs.

“One of the 1%’s most successful and moneyed lobbyists, Gingrich is now running for President to more fully institutionalize inequality and the entrenched plutocratic system,” the statement says.

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators plan to play off of Gingrich’s remarks by protesting outside of a Manhattan fundraiser Monday while wearing robes and shower caps.

GE Aviation Kills F-35 Engine

GE and Rolls Royce announced Friday that they are abandoning plans to fund the development of the F136 Alternative Engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The engine was a source of friction between lawmakers and the Defense Department. While the Pentagon argued that the engine was both costly and unnecessary, members of Congress, primarily those whose districts the engine would have been made in, pushed aggressively to maintain funding.

In a statement, the President of the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team, Dan McCormick, thanked the supporters the program had garnered over the years.

“GE and Rolls-Royce are deeply grateful to our many Congressional supporters on both sides of the aisle over these many years as well as the military experts who have supported competing engines for JSF,” McCormick said.

Congress scrapped funding for the engine earlier this year.

Lawmakers To Honor Staffer Killed In Tucson Shooting

The House is voting Wednesday on a resolution to name a room in the U.S. Capitol’s visitor center after Gabriel Zimmerman, a Congressional staffer killed in January’s shooting in Tucson.

The resolution was brought to the floor by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a close friend of Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.). The room will serving as a meeting space.

Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmerman was a community outreach director for Giffords and had worked for the Arizona Democrat since 2006. He was the first Congressional staffer to be killed while serving in his position.

White House Defends Obama’s Travel Schedule

The White House defended President Barack Obama’s travel schedule Monday, arguing that the President’s apparent habit of visiting swing states was not political.

During his daily briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that a recent report from the Wall Street Journal claiming that Obama has visited more swing states than President Bush was skewed due to shifts in the political landscape.

“Increasingly we’ve seen that more and more states find themselves on the political map as potential battleground states,” Carney said.

Carney specifically pointed to Virginia, which due to its proximity to Washington, D.C. has been a frequent destination for Presidents but has just recently been classified a swing state.

The Press Secretary added that barring the President from visiting states that could be considered battleground states would place an unfair restriction on Obama and also set up a poor precedent for future administrations.

Perry Calls On Congress To Criminalize Insider Trading

Following a 60 Minutes report alleging that lawmakers have benefited financially from using privileged information from the industry’s the regulate, Presidential hopeful Rick Perry is pushing to outlaw insider trading among members of Congress.

“Any Congressman or Senator who uses their insider knowledge to profit the stock Market ought to be sent to jail,” Perry said in a campaign video released online Monday. “Congress ought to pass a law that says so right now.”

The 60 Minutes segment specifically named House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

In a campaign speech in Iowa, Perry took the message even further, saying that Washington’s culture needs a “complete overhaul,” including slashing Congressional salaries by half, limiting Supreme Court appointments to 18 years and mandating a balanced budget.