Recent history...

As an 'historian', Newt should remember this...

 

and realize we may be momentarily distracted by snark and speeches, but people will recall his hypocrisy in the end....

The good, the bad and the daft

Gabby Giffords.  Grow strong and come back.  We need you.

The downward spiral of the European Union.

Chemists find new material to remove radioactive gas from spent nuclear fuel

Isn't it interesting that when scientists create something for military use, it is often turned against our own citizens? 6 Creepy New Weapons the Police and Military Use To Subdue Unarmed People

Is India investing in a future health crisis by importing asbestos from Canada?

The liberal media.

Gingrich wants the audience to be able to applaud.  Because everything is about him, isn't it?

The tide comes in, the tide goes out....

We all came from primordial ooze.... Which might explain the Republicans' desire to return to simpler times...

"In the race to take on Obama, playing dumb about foreign affairs is the politically clever thing to do"

How Newt is channeling “The Producers”

One who takes issue with Naomi Wolf's article about the DHS and the mayors involved with a nation-wide crackdown of the OWS.

I think I like this new generation... teen tweeter won't apologize to Brownback.  Update:  Brownback backs down.

The NYTimes and LATimes both came out against SOPA and PIPA.

It was so simple back then....

The rich were rich because they deserved it, the poor LIKED being poor.  Obviously!

Occupy Mars!

A good overview of the police brutality with the Occupy movement.  The cop group coordinating the Occupy crackdowns.  Controlling the media.

Paul Krugman: Newt Gingrich Is ‘A Stupid Man’s Idea Of What A Smart Person Sounds Like’.  Newt also thinks secular governments are scary.

In Cain and Perry's gaffes, the Republicans' degradation is laid bare.

Air bubbles confirm permafrost CO2 release:

Bubbles of air trapped in ice long ago are helping paint a clearer picture of what may happen to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the future if climate change melts the northern hemisphere's permafrost, scientists say.

The Mars rover Spirit’s entire five-year mission, in less than three minutes:

It looks like Newt Gingrich is as faithful to his words as he is to his wives.

Quote of the day from this article:

Kama Sutra for policy wonks: Newt Gingrich takes multiple positions on Medicare repeal.

Run, Newt!

Please!

This man wants to be president

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich twice called on the United States to attack North Korea and Iran Thursday because the United States has only attacked "one out of three" of so-called "Axis of Evil" members by invading Iraq. He also claimed that Muslims are trying to install Sharia law on America and said that the "War on Terror" should have been a war on "radical Islamists" instead.

Update: David Corn has more:

Gingrich likes to pose as a serious thinker and idea man, but his embrace of such melodramatic hyperbole is more befitting a cartoon character. But Gingrich has always undermined his attempts to be seen as a statesman by immature bomb-throwing. After the 2008 campaign -- during which he originated the GOP's "Drill, Baby, Drill" initiative -- he positioned himself as a post-partisan player, declaring that he wanted to promote a "tri-partisan" approach to politics that would bring together Democrats, Republicans, and independents. He denounced the Republican Party for releasing an ad attempting to tie Obama to disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, decrying "the sort of negative attack politics that the voters rejected in 2006 and 2008." Yet now -- after the Tea Party explosion has made attack politics rather popular on the right -- Gingrich is willing (and eager) to engage in the most foul of attacks: accusing the president of purposefully endangering the country because he and his crew prefer America's enemies. This is the worst form of calumny.

Gingrich's use of such poison -- and his abandonment of "tri-partisan," let's-work-together rhetoric -- is no shocker. He's not a man of high-minded consistency. When he was House speaker in the 1990s, he led the family-values GOP during its impeachment crusade against President Bill Clinton (for lying about a sexual affair with intern Monica Lewinsky) -- wasting much time and energy that could have been used to address challenges facing the nation, such as the troubled health care system, flat wages for middle-income Americans, and the nation's dangerous dependency on fossil fuels. At the same time, Gingrich was carrying on an extramarital affair of his own.

Reagan raised taxes, too!

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Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly:

Jon Stewart referred to the network's "willful misunderstanding of the policy," and characterized a back-and-forth between Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity as "purposeful idiocy."

Stewart added, "We're at the point now that the by far number one ranked news network in this country, no longer feels the need to report what a policy document says in black and white."

Newt for president in 2012?

Oh, do. Please!

You first, Newt.

Let's see you dump your government funded health care.

Gingrich Calls On The Country To ‘Rise Up’ To ‘Repeal’ Health Care Reform If It Passes

Not that it would make me change my mind about supporting the public option. I'd just like you to experience one of those health fairs they are having around the country for the uninsured.

How many times are we going to let this happen?

Until we finally learn they aren't on our side? In fact, the Republicans aren't on anybody's side but their own.

Bob Herbert of The New York Times:

It may seem like ancient history, but in the first few decades following World War II, the United States, despite many serious flaws, established the model of a highly productive society that shared its prosperity widely and made investments that were geared toward a more prosperous, more fulfilling future.

The American dream was alive and well and seemingly unassailable. But somehow, following the oil shocks, the hyperinflation and other traumas of the 1970s, Americans allowed the right-wingers to get a toehold — and they began the serious work of smothering the dream.

Ronald Reagan saw Medicare as a giant step on the road to socialism. Newt Gingrich, apparently referring to the original fee-for-service version of Medicare, which was cherished by the elderly, cracked, “We don’t get rid of it in Round One because we don’t think it’s politically smart.”

The right-wingers were crafty: You smother the dream by crippling the programs that support it, by starving the government of money to pay for them, by funneling the government’s revenues to the rich through tax cuts and other benefits, by looting the government the way gangsters loot legitimate businesses and then pleading poverty when it comes time to fund the services required by the people.

The anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist summed the matter up nicely when he famously said, “Our goal is to shrink the government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub.” Only they didn’t shrink the government, they enlarged it and turned its bounty over to the rich.

Now, with the economy in free fall and likely to get worse, Americans — despite their suffering — have an opportunity to reshape the society, and then to move it in a fairer, smarter and ultimately more productive direction. That is the only way to revive the dream, but it will take a long time and require great courage and sacrifice.

The right-wingers do not want that to happen, which is why they are rooting so hard for President Obama’s initiatives to fail. They like the direction that the country took over the past 30 years. They’d love to do it all again.

If we don't address the causes for this economic collapse, the Reagan conservatives will be back again in a few years, talking seductively, trying to sell us deregulation and self-oversight and unquestioned access to the hard earned savings of the working class. Pots of unpilfered money make them rise like vampires in the dead of night which is why we need to stake down the truth, hang the facts like garlic around their necks, and shine the brilliant light of day into the Republican philosophy.

Because not all of them will disappear. Even through the smoke of this economic disaster, they are moaning about tax cuts for the rich, more deregulation, less government by the people, less restrictions. So we need to be forever vigilant, cynical, suspicious. We need to put these facts into every history book, every economic discussion, every civics lesson so our children are forewarned about these succubi.

And teach them how to drive a stake.

Because Newt is thinking about running for prez

I thought I'd start running some of his wonderful old hits. This is a post right after the horror at Virginia Tech, where he thought he could scrape off the blame on to liberals:

Newt Gingrich explains why liberals caused the Virginia Tech massacre

By trying to say his bizarre statement after the Columbine school shooting still applied. Read (and hear) his intelligent and logical response as to why the liberals are at fault:

GINGRICH: Well, who has created a situation ethics, essentially, zone of not being willing to talk about any of these things. Let me carry another example. I strongly supported Imus being dismissed, but I also think the very thing he was dismissed for, which is the use of language which is stunningly degrading of women — the fact, for example, that one of the Halloween costumes this last year was being able to be either a prostitute or a pimp at 10, 11, 12 years of age, buying a costume, and we don’t have any discussion about what’s happened to our culture because while we’re restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold, we say it’s impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech. And I would argue that that’s a major component of what’s happened to our culture in the last 40 years.

Aren't we already getting eight years of this weird make-your-own-reality stuff? I think we've had enough.

Besides.

Who wants a president named Newt?


(Picture of Warty Newt from here.)

Update 4/23: Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof reminds us of another time Gingrich worked very hard to link society's ills and liberals together.... and it didn't work:

It is easy for Mr. Gingrich to blame society for the ills and tragedies of one demented man. He has done it before, with the tragedy of Susan Smith, the woman who drowned her two children in 1994. At first Mr. Gingrich implied that liberals were to blame and that it would be advantageous for the Republicans in the upcoming 1994 mid-term elections by reminding voters that liberals could be held accountable: "Slightly more moving our way. I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things." He dropped that when it came to light that Ms. Smith had been molested as a teen by her stepfather, a prominent South Carolina Republican and leader of the Christian Coalition. But obviously that smack-down in irony has not been enough to deter him, and onward he goes, doing what Republicans do best: finding a problem, making people afraid of it, and then finding someone else to blame for it. He doesn't offer solutions, nor does he bother to contemplate the fact that it was under the Reagan administration that federal assistance for mental health services for people like Mr. Cho was cut back and the Republicans have been very successful in defeating every effort by the Democrats to restore it, leaving it to the states, who have barely enough resources to pay for existing facilities, or the private sector.

Run, Newt, Run! I'm going to post more about your family values and three wives in a bit!

crossposted at SteveAudio

Gimme that old time religion

That needs a scapegoat to beat to death in the village square:

Discussing actions by individual protesters of Proposition 8, Newt Gingrich stated: "I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion."

Apparently nobody in the Republican party has taken the trouncing they received this past election to mean they need to stop dragging out the same hate-filled talking points and blaming everything from acne to Alzheimer's on them. Obviously the islamofascist-marxist-terrorist-socialist-communityorganizer-sympathizer carnard has served them so well.

crossposted at SteveAudio

Oh, do go for it, Newt!

Being leader of the RNC, you would bring forth the deepest core values of the Republican party! Really!

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly:

I have to admit, I'm amazed at how short Republicans' memories are. We're talking about a failed former Speaker who made his mark more than a decade ago, before becoming widely loathed by the electorate, and ultimately forced from office by his own Republican colleagues. Gingrich, as Speaker, shut down the government (twice), he pursued presidential impeachment over an adulterous affair (while carrying on an affair of his own), and offered up such visionary ideas as barring women from combat roles because "males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes."

Worse, in 1994, after Susan Smith drowned her two young sons, Gingrich, just three days before the midterm elections, equated her crime with the values of the Democratic Party. In 1999, shortly after the Columbine massacre, Gingrich argued that American "elites" bear responsibility. After the shootings at Virginia Tech, Gingrich blamed liberals for supporting "situation ethics," before condemning Halloween costumes and the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.

Put it this way: Democrats would be thrilled to see Gingrich as the RNC chair. That ought to tell Republicans something.

Maybe you could try for your fourth(?) wife at the same time, Newt, to show how much you support family values. That would be lovely.

Blog sprinkles

Electric cars


Painter Bob Ross


Lol Bush from the Guardian:




The unraveling of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins.


Coal emissions and profits are up.


Fill in the blank, you trollop! (More) (and even more with pictures)


McCain's mother sued his first wife.


DistributorCap NY has an excellent ongoing discussion about our broken Constitution.


Proof that eggplant kills.


Newt's bloated head needs a tire gauge.

Maybe if he stopped hinting for someone to demand he run

And just did it. We're waiting for him:

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday it is not too late for candidates to jump into the already-crowded 2008 presidential race and win their party's nomination.
[snip]

Speaking before the National Press Club, the former Georgia congressman said he will decide whether to vie for the GOP nomination in late September or early October.

"I believe the challenges we face as a country are larger than the Cold War, larger than the Second World War and larger than the Great Depression," he said.

Gingrich added that the presidential primary races don't really begin in earnest until after Christmas.

"I think it is proven I'm candidate material," he said when asked if he could launch campaign quickly to compete in states with early primaries, including Iowa and New Hampshire.

C'mon in, Newt! The water's fine!

Newt tells Georgie to shut up

Or words to that effect...

Think Progress:

This morning, Steve Thomma of McClatchy wrote that “When pressing a tough sale, Bush is a lousy salesman.” “He’s never really sold the country or Congress something it didn’t already want. And when he’s tried to sell something the people or the politicians didn’t want, he’s fallen flat,” wrote Thomma. Thomma’s thesis gained a high profile supporter earlier today: Newt Gingrich. Speaking at an American Spectator breakfast, the former Speaker of the House offered some words of advice for how President Bush can gain support for the Iraq war — “Simply be quiet, say nothing...

Poor Newt

He doesn't like the way people do politics nowadays. Like he had nothing to do with it....

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says the 2008 White House candidates are "demeaning the presidency" by focusing on the race rather than ideas.

"We have shrunk our political process to this pathetic dance in which people spend an entire year raising money in order to offer nonanswers, so they can memorize what their consultants and focus groups said would work," Gingrich said.

In a speech to the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank, the prospective Republican candidate said he will not consider running until he has created a wave of reform.

We've seen enough of your 'reforms', thanks anyway, Newt. And just what number mistress or wife are you on now?

By the way, just to remind people:

Newt Gingrich explains why liberals caused the Virginia Tech massacre

By trying to say his bizarre statement after the Columbine school shooting still applied. Read (and hear) his intelligent and logical response as to why the liberals are at fault:

GINGRICH: Well, who has created a situation ethics, essentially, zone of not being willing to talk about any of these things. Let me carry another example. I strongly supported Imus being dismissed, but I also think the very thing he was dismissed for, which is the use of language which is stunningly degrading of women — the fact, for example, that one of the Halloween costumes this last year was being able to be either a prostitute or a pimp at 10, 11, 12 years of age, buying a costume, and we don’t have any discussion about what’s happened to our culture because while we’re restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold, we say it’s impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech. And I would argue that that’s a major component of what’s happened to our culture in the last 40 years.

Aren't we already getting eight years of this weird make-your-own-reality stuff? I think we've had enough.

Besides.

Who wants a president named Newt?


(Picture of Warty Newt from here.)

Update 4/23: Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof reminds us of another time Gingrich worked very hard to link society's ills and liberals together.... and it didn't work:

It is easy for Mr. Gingrich to blame society for the ills and tragedies of one demented man. He has done it before, with the tragedy of Susan Smith, the woman who drowned her two children in 1994. At first Mr. Gingrich implied that liberals were to blame and that it would be advantageous for the Republicans in the upcoming 1994 mid-term elections by reminding voters that liberals could be held accountable: "Slightly more moving our way. I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things." He dropped that when it came to light that Ms. Smith had been molested as a teen by her stepfather, a prominent South Carolina Republican and leader of the Christian Coalition. But obviously that smack-down in irony has not been enough to deter him, and onward he goes, doing what Republicans do best: finding a problem, making people afraid of it, and then finding someone else to blame for it. He doesn't offer solutions, nor does he bother to contemplate the fact that it was under the Reagan administration that federal assistance for mental health services for people like Mr. Cho was cut back and the Republicans have been very successful in defeating every effort by the Democrats to restore it, leaving it to the states, who have barely enough resources to pay for existing facilities, or the private sector.