Monday, January 4, 2010

Last Call

Just a reminder that trials for terrorists work:
A US appeals court confirmed Monday a life sentence handed down on Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national, for complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The ruling upheld a sentence passed by a federal court in Virginia in May 2006 after Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the hijackings of the airliners used in the attacks in New York and Washington.

Moussaoui, who later recanted his testimony only to claim he was part of another Al-Qaeda plot, is serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado.
He's going to be spending a rather long time in the Supermax facility in Colorado.  Trials of law work, as does keeping terrorists in the United States to serve their punishments.  No supervillain prison breaks.  No Michael Bay movie disasters.  Just a cell in the most secure facility in the world.

Do it right.  Even Bush got this one correct.

The Return Of Actual Journalist Tweety

Via Bob Cesca, it's Tweety punching Politico's Jon Martin in the jimmy.



"He uses you like he uses Drudge or somebody."

Holy hell.  Basically, Jon Martin says Cheney's going to do whatever Cheney wants to do.  GOP can't control him, he's going to be out there.

To which Matthews responds with Cheney has a platform for his garbage is because you guys offer him one freely.

That five percent of the time Tweety is on his game is actually pretty good.  It makes the other 95% of the crap he spews all the more maddening, because you know he's capable of rational thought when his head's not up his own ass.

A Two-For-One Deal

TPM has news on a deal in the works for health care reform and immigration reform:
TPMDC sources have been telling us that members won't admit it publicly but they are ready to concede on immigration in the health care bill. Political aides in the White House have told key parties in Congress that President Obama wants to see a bill this year, and negotiations are under way for how it would be written.

A source familiar with the negotiations between Congress and the White House told TPMDC the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will demand an agreement from Obama that health care coverage for illegals who earn a path to citizenship will be addressed in an immigration bill.
Cue the Malkinsplosion in 3...

Eleven Months To Fix 38 Years

Commentary's Jennifer Rubin snipes at Obama's competency level.
Really, what have the Obami done well? Not the stimulus plan. Not crafting a popular and coherent health-care bill. And not instilling confidence that there are competent people who can, when bombarded with intelligence, put it together to prevent an attack or even craft a policy designed to extract information after an attack. But Bob Schieffer, not exactly a fire-breathing conservative, really laid into the Obami. The problem is not only competence but also trust. The Democrats are consumed with political spin even on national security. He notes that Janet Napolitano was getting hammered but explains that this is a symptom of a bigger issue:
But she was just following the modern bipartisan public relations template in this age of information management. First, play down the problem. Second, emphasize what did not go wrong. Assure us that those in charge are investigating, and most important, emphasize no one in any position of responsibility is at fault. It’s not lying. But it’s not exactly the whole truth, certainly not the whole story. All she left out was that part about asking us to respect the privacy of those involved. Oh, I’m sorry. I got the government spin mixed up with the Tiger spin. Here is the difference. Tiger can hire as many people as he wants to make his excuses. It maydo him no good but it’s his money to spend as he wishes. When government officials insult us with spin they’re doing it on our dime, which is supposed to be used to operate the government, not to hold news conferences to tell us what a fine job people on the public payroll are doing. As we learned during Katrina, self-serving spin at the first sign of crisis does not help the situation. It makes it worse. Because it makes it harder to believe anything the government says. Real security is built on trust in government. That requires truth, which should be the beginning of government presentations, not the fallback position.
Yowser. Now that’s a narrative that should concern the Obami. Unfortunately, one wonders if they know what to do with a problem not solvable by spin and attack-dog tactics. At some point you really have to govern. Sadly, that is not their strong suit.
So, the problem is after 38 years of Americans not trusting in the Federal government, through Nixon's Watergate, Ford's pardon of Nixon, Carter's malaise and adventures in Iran, Reagan's "Government is the problem, not the solution", Bush's "Read my lips, no new taxes" and the first Gulf War, Clinton Derangement Syndrome and resulting impeachment, and eight years of Dubya's rank hyper-partisanship 100% A-1 crack team of awesome dudes, Barack Obama has somehow still failed to instill in Americans full confidence in the federal government.

Right then.  Thanks for giving him eleven months on that, I'd hate to have seen you jump to idiotic conclusions about the nation's first minority President which might lead to questions about Obama being held to a different standard or anything.

There's Some Sort Of Relationship Here I Think

chart_debt_ceiling_123009.top.gif

Huh. I wonder what happened between 2000 and 2010 to make the national debt more than double like that?

I'll think of it in a minute, I'm sure. Whatever the reason, Obama has to cut earmarks, wasteful spending, foreign aid, institute pay-go and of course there's only so much he can tax the rich...but of course he has to consider the big money:
The only way to really lasso the debt situation, budget experts say, is to make a serious attempt to curb spending growth and boost taxes across the board, but particularly with respect to Medicare and Social Security.

That will inevitably mean a reduction in the benefits promised to future retirees and a host of other castor-oil-type remedies that won't garner much applause from the electorate.
He has no choice according to "budget experts".

Don't Moose For Me, Argentina

The truth is, I never left moose...
O'REILLY: You're a populist.

PALIN: A populist, yes.

O'REILLY: Do you know what they're calling you now?

PALIN: No.

O'REILLY: Evita.

PALIN: Well.

O'REILLY: Eva Peron.

PALIN: Uh-huh.

O'REILLY: That's who they're calling you now.
The woman doesn't know Evita from Evian from Evan Rachel Wood from Ewan McGregor.  Bonus BillO and the Moose Lady:
O'REILLY: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense. And I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that has to be me.
Sure, you reflect American values, like vindictiveness, ignorance, hypocrisy and lying like a rug, cause people who went to college don't do work, like doctors and lawyers and politicians.  You don't need to be smart to be President, you just need to look hot and kill ruminants.
PALIN: You know what I thought they were going to come after me for?  Getting a "D" in a college course 22 years ago. That was the big  controversy in my little world. That was the skeleton in my closet. Crap.  Once the media finds that out.
Yeah, they might think you're stupid. We've gone from C+ Augustus to the Moose Lady Who Got "D"s.

Also.

We Are Either A Nation Of Laws

...or we aren't.
Idaho GOP gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell says saving the U.S. Constitution requires God's help. Rammell's thoughts are captured in a nine-minute excerpt from a recent news conference now available on YouTube.

"America would not exist if it wasn't for the divine hand of providence in not only intervening to win the Revolutionary War but in writing the inspired words of the Constitution," Rammell says in the video. "To think that we can save the Constitution without God's help when the government of the United States is corrupt is absurdity."

Adds Rammell: "We are in America's second Revolutionary War to save our freedom, which we paid for with blood. We need God's help and I'm not ashamed to ask for it."

Rammell says he has invited about 100 Mormon men to a Jan. 19 meeting in Idaho Falls to discuss the "White Horse Prophecy," which some attribute to Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith. The prophecy, which is not embraced by top Latter-day Saints Church officials, holds that the Constitution "will hang ... by a single thread" and LDS leaders will step forward to preserve it.
No really, that's what he said.


This guy's running for Governor of Idaho.  Personally, I hope this guy wins the primary and Hoffmans current GOP Gov. Butch Otter.  It'll be nice to see a Democrat take the reins up there like Keith Allred.

The crew over at 43rd State Blues have been following the adventures of Potatohead Rex for some time now, so drop in and say hello.

How To Succeed At Business Without Really Trying

To recap the TARP program:
  1. Banks bet on crappy subprime loans.
  2. Crappy subprime loans went south.
  3. Government bought loans to keep banks afloat.
  4. Banks held on to crappy subprime loans because nobody wanted them still.
  5. Government said "Okay fine" and wiped debt on crappy subprime loans.
  6. NOW crappy subprime loans increased in value.
  7. Banks now profiting off crappy subprime loans:
To understand the meaning of no good deed goes unpunished, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner can look no further than Wall Street where the banks that received the biggest taxpayer bailouts are seeking to reap trading profits from securities rescued by the government.


Only months after it was started, the U.S. program designed to purge debts of no immediate discernable value from the balance sheets of troubled banks has helped transform the frozen debt into a money-maker as the bonds have rallied. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., who received 22 percent of the $418.7 billion American taxpayers loaned to troubled financial institutions, boosted holdings on their trading books of home- loan bonds that lack government guarantees while investors were raising cash for the program, according to Federal Reserve data.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America along with Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., all based in New York, added a combined $2.74 billion of the debt, for which there were few buyers as recently as March, to their short-term trading assets during the third quarter, up 13 percent from the second quarter, the most-recent data show.
So yes, the whole "We paid back the TARP debt!" is really just a cover for the banks to continue to bet on the same dirty securities that got us into the mess, because now the banks know they can never lose money on them.  Ever.  The government will bail them out.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Given the number of Christian politicians involved in sex scandals in 2009, Brit Hume telling Tiger Woods to convert from Buddhism to Christianity seems like telling a drunk to move into the apartment above the liquor store.

Best response is from Barbara O'Brien, who is a Buddhist herself, writes a regular column at About.com on Buddhism, and also writes the excellent Mahablog.
If one has failed, can Buddhism help one "recover"? I'm not sure "recovering" is a word a Buddhist would use, but let's go on ... the practice of metta, loving kindness, is essential in Buddhism. Metta is extended to all beings, including those who have wronged us -- even Brit Hume -- and also to ourselves. (See also the Metta Sutta.)

Sharon Salzberg said, "Metta means equality, oneness, wholeness. To truly walk the Middle Way of the Buddha, to avoid the extremes of addiction and self-hatred, we must walk in friendship with ourselves as well as with all beings."

Destructive behavior is understood to be driven by tanha, thirst, which the Buddha explained (in the Four Noble Truths) was the cause of dukkha, unease or suffering. Buddhism itself can be defined as a path of practice that helps us see through the delusions that give rise to tanha. And people have successfully applied these practices for 25 centuries.

So, we really do not need advice on "recovery" from Brit Hume, thanks much. Let us hope that both Mr. Woods and Mr. Hume awaken to wisdom.
Yeah, see, Buddhists have been wrestling with these basic beliefs centuries before Christ was born.  They might know a few things.  I'm sure that "converting to Christianity" isn't the answer they arrived at.

[UPDATE 11:55 AM]   And Barbara has a point on what Hume really said here:
In other words, when a national news personality insults Buddhism, that’s OK; when a blogger calls out the national news personality for insulting Buddhism, that’s an attack on Christianity, and unforgivable.
The Wingers are changing the subject.  Hume got called on his ignorance, so the story is not Hume's treatment of Buddhism on national TV, but how the bloggers are meeeeeeeean.

And the Lefty bloggers are supposed to be the whiners?  Please.

Another Retirement From The House

Oh...but this one's a Republican.  From South Carolina.
Rep. Henry Brown (R-SC) will reportedly announce today that he is retiring from Congress. The Palmetto Scoop reports that significant factors in the decision were Brown's age -- he is 74 -- and also that he did not want to continue serving as a member of the minority party.
Wait a minute.  You mean there's a Republican in the house who doesn't think the GOP is going to win back the House in 2010?  I thought that was a given at this point among GOP circles.
Brown was first elected in 2000 to a safe Republican seat. (His predecessor was Mark Sanford, who left Congress in order to honor a term-limits pledge. Sanford was of course later elected governor, and has been in the midst of a sex scandal since last spring.) But in 2008 he had an unusually close race, winning by only 52%-48%, at the same time as John McCain carried the district by 56%-42%. He was already facing challenges in the Republican primary from several credible candidates -- who will now effectively be the main GOP bench for the open seat.
You mean ol' Henry, running in Mark Sanford's old seat, is getting Hoffman-ed out of of a GOP seat because he only won by 4 points in 2008?

Seems like he's being told to retire here for heresy against the New Glorious Republican Revolution.  Oh, and the fact that Republicans failed to impeach Gov. Mark "I'm Hiking Her Appalachian Trail" Sanford has nothing to do with the fact that the GOP thought Brown was vulnerable enough to make him retire.  Nope.  Not at all.

Pong That Ping, Boys

Via BooMan, we learn Jon Cohn has found out that the Dems are simply not going to give the Republicans an opportunity to stall the health care legislation for another two months (emphasis mine):
According to a pair of senior Capitol Hill staffers, one from each chamber, House and Senate Democrats are “almost certain” to negotiate informally rather than convene a formal conference committee. Doing so would allow Democrats to avoid a series of procedural steps--not least among them, a series of special motions in the Senate, each requiring a vote with full debate--that Republicans could use to stall deliberations, just as they did in November and December.

“There will almost certainly be full negotiations but no formal conference,” the House staffer says. “There are too many procedural hurdles to go the formal conference route in the Senate.”

One reason Democrats expect Republicans to keep trying procedural delays is that the Republicans have signaled their intent to do so. On Christmas Eve, when the Senate passed its bill, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell memorably vowed in a floor speech that “This fight isn't over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law."

“I think the Republicans have made our decision for us," the Senate staffer says. "It’s time for a little ping-pong.”

“Ping pong” is a reference to one way the House and Senate could proceed. With ping-ponging, the chambers send legislation back and forth to one another until they finally have an agreed-upon version of the bill. But even ping-ponging can take different forms and some people use the term generically to refer to any informal negotiations.

Whatever form the final discussions take place, a decision to bypass conference would undoubtedly expedite the debate, clearing the way for final passage (if not signing) by the end of January. And, as long as both chambers still get their say, that's a good thing.
Well holy hell, looks like the Dems have finally figured out that the Republicans are trying to kill the bill. Only took you guys six months.  Sheesh.

The real question is who will be the first Winger to play the facism card AND to link it to "passing the bill before Scott Brown wins in Massachusetts"?

 

My money's on Mustard Boy...

Iran A Con Game On You

Politico's foreign policy writer, Laura Rosen, commits Acts Of Actual Journalism as she notes that a Bangkok Post story proclaiming Iran's regime is nearing collapse may be propaganda.
For instance: take this piece today in the Bangkok Post by one Maximilian Wechsler, claiming to be an exclusive interview with a former Iran intelligence chief, Mohammad Reza Madhi, who the article says was supposedly Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's right hand man.

Problem is, there is nothing except this article, being circulated by Iranian monarchist exiles (Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah, has recently been traveling in Bangkok, the article notes and sources tell POLITICO) to show that Madhi is what he says he is. The article describes Madhi as "Iran's intelligence chief," while there are no other references that could be found to Madhi having any such position besides those generated by the article itself.

And a bit of digging shows that the writer of Sunday's Bangkok Post "exclusive," Maximilian Wechsler, is himself a former documented Czech-Australian double agent and informant who after he broke ranks with the Australian intelligence services, landed in Thailand and reportedly worked as an agent provocateur, among other gigs:
According to an intelligence officer, who knew Wechsler at that time and saw him at the Australian Embassy, he was also an agent provocateur. He established a connection with the Ananda Marga sect and was responsible for the arrest in Bangkok in 1978 of Ananda Marga members who were sold explosives by Wechsler. The three Ananda Marga—two Australians and one American—were charged with conspiring to blow up the Indian Embassy.
Wechsler, described as a freelancer by the Bangkok Post, has done several articles but has a history of working for various undercover, non-journalistic efforts. See this fascinating history of Wechsler by Victoria University professor Phillip Deery, based on records released by Australia's security services and other interviews.
Wow!  It's like we've seen this before or something...oh wait, the entire media black bag job in 2002 that helped convince America to go to war in Iraq.  Now we're seeing the same neo-con playbook being used as an excuse to "liberate" Iran.  I'm glad somebody is putting the question to this crap now rather than 18 months from now, when the Bombs Of Freedom are dropping on Tehran...even if it is Politico.

A Subtle Shift (Like Going From Fifth Gear To First)

Andy McCarthy over at the NRO has given up on the idea of the all-powerful "plenary executive" because after all, a Democrat is in charge.  No, he's no longer arguing that the President can do whatever he wants on declaring enemy combatants.  He's now arguing that the judicial branch has no power to stop the President from doing whatever he wants on enemy combantants (in fact he says that that the judicial branch has no jurisdiction over detainees whatsoever) to the point where we have a Constitutional Crisis(tm) on our hands.
First, there is the matter of the ongoing constitutional crisis that, as al-Qaeda’s attempted Christmas Day attack amply demonstrates, is now endangering our nation. The Constitution gives the political branches plenary responsibility for the conduct of war. The conduct of war includes the detention, trial, or release of enemy combatants. The federal courts have no role except the one they have usurped. This brazen power grab flouts the bedrock constitutional separation of powers, and the political branches do not have to abide it. Indeed, as national defense is their chief responsibility, it is their duty not to abide it.

Writing for the Supreme Court in Chicago & Southern Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. Corp. (1948), Justice Robert Jackson, whom Attorney General Holder claims as a role model, explained that, because matters related to national defense are the most important ones, the Framers ensured that there would be political accountability for the officials making security decisions. As he put it, such decisions are
wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government, Executive and Legislative. They are delicate, complex, and involve large elements of prophecy. They are and should be undertaken only by those directly responsible to the people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and which has long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry.
When courts illegitimately claim authority over these matters, and the political branches let them get away with it, it means our most vital political decisions are being made by unaccountable, non-political officials. The American people cannot remove judges when they get these vital questions wrong. This undermines the separation of powers and imperils our constitutional system, which is designed to protect popular self-government — not to usher in judicial oligarchy.
So we're back to the same boring old argument that any time the federal judicial branch does something that the wingnuts don't like, it's done by...and say it with me now..."activist judges".  The judicial of course is only an issue when they make rulings that the wingers don't like.  Now, McCarthy can't support the Obama administration on executive privilege any more than he can shoot down the idea of it, so the battle now becomes the judicial has no power to tell the Obama administration what to do on detainees.  It's subtle like I said, much like naming your bazooka Francine instead of Shirley when you use it to kill fish by blowing them out of the water, but it's a notable difference in the usual Wingnut attack pattern.

The practical upshot is that since the Obama administration won't play the plenary executive card, Congress must do so (as McCarthy anticipates a Republican Congress in 2010 in his little dream world.)  In other words, he's setting that stage for the argument that the Republican Congress has full control over detainees, and that the judicial (and eventually Obama) has no authority.

Oh yes, the plenary executive argument will become a full-fledged Constitutional Crisis as soon as Republicans take over Congress.  McCarthy's putting his chips on the board now.

I do so hope the Double G gets a hold of this one.

StupidiNews Focus

Today's Bloomberg item on Helicopter Ben is worth a second look:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said low central bank interest rates didn’t cause the housing bubble of the past decade and that better regulation would have been more effective in curbing the boom.

“The best response to the housing bubble would have been regulatory, rather than monetary,” Bernanke said yesterday in remarks to the American Economic Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta. The Fed’s efforts to constrain the bubble were “too late or were insufficient,” which means that regulatory actions “must be better and smarter,” he said.
So...instead of it being the Fed's fault for setting rates too low, it's the Fed's fault for failing to regulate the banks that got greedy because the Fed's rates were too low.

Got it.

The Kroog Versus 1937

Paul Krugman warns that 2010 is starting to look a lot like 1937, a year where statistical good news about the economy caused FDR to pull the plug on stimulus projects...and immediately plunged the economy right back into the Great Depression.

So the odds are that any good economic news you hear in the near future will be a blip, not an indication that we’re on our way to sustained recovery. But will policy makers misinterpret the news and repeat the mistakes of 1937? Actually, they already are.

The Obama fiscal stimulus plan is expected to have its peak effect on G.D.P. and jobs around the middle of this year, then start fading out. That’s far too early: why withdraw support in the face of continuing mass unemployment? Congress should have enacted a second round of stimulus months ago, when it became clear that the slump was going to be deeper and longer than originally expected. But nothing was done — and the illusory good numbers we’re about to see will probably head off any further possibility of action.

Meanwhile, all the talk at the Fed is about the need for an “exit strategy” from its efforts to support the economy. One of those efforts, purchases of long-term U.S. government debt, has already come to an end. It’s widely expected that another, purchases of mortgage-backed securities, will end in a few months. This amounts to a monetary tightening, even if the Fed doesn’t raise interest rates directly — and there’s a lot of pressure on Mr. Bernanke to do that too.

Will the Fed realize, before it’s too late, that the job of fighting the slump isn’t finished? Will Congress do the same? If they don’t, 2010 will be a year that began in false economic hope and ended in grief.
Krugman's problem is that he doesn't realize Republicans in Congress very much want to see exactly that happen.  If there's positive GDP growth numbers in February for Q4 2009, then there's going to be enormous pressure to cancel the stimulus and use it to pay down the national debt instead, all but guaranteeing a nasty spike in unemployment just before the November elections.

We've already established time and time again Republicans are willing to wreck the country in order to con voters into giving them the keys to the kingdom again.  This is no different.

The question is, will Obama fall for it?

Concern Trolling 110: The Village Troll

Class is in session, kids.  Today's lesson:  How to concern troll the President on teevee.  Our guest speaker:  former Republican chair of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean.

 Kean said Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who failed in his attempt to set off an explosive on an airplane about to land in Detroit, “probably did us a favor.”

“We had an administration which was not focused, as it should be, on terrorism and that’s understandable,” Kean said. “They were focused on health care and global warming and the economy. That’s very understandable. Secondly, we weren’t really focused on Yemen and the terrible things that are happening there. Now we are and that’s a good thing. And, thirdly, there were holes obviously and the [intelligence gathering] system wasn’t working well. We found out it wasn’t working well and the president understands it’s not working well and now we’re focused on fixing it.”
How dare the President worry about health care, global warming and the economy!  The only thing that should matter is stopping Al Qaeda's endless army of crotch bombers and turning Yemen into a parking lot!  America's "focus" needs to be on cowering in fear because of the 99.99999999% chance you will not be killed by a crotch bomber!

Clearly the Obama administration has failed!  The only thing a government is good for after all is war, and the Obamabots can't even get that right!

The Return Of The Republican Binary Worldview

And actually, it's less of a return and more of an expansion.  Oh, the worldview is still binary.  It's just been focused inward to the country's domestic population as the Teabaggers got busy again this weekend...this time with guns!
Nearly 350 right-wing protestors crowded a New Mexico town’s busiest intersection yesterday to protest President Obama’s supposed anti-gun agenda and the “government takeover of our health care system.” While the event mostly looked like any other recent right-wing rally — complete with signs reading “replace the communists in DC” and “the sky is falling! A black man is president!” — what set this protest apart was that there “were plenty of handguns and rifles displayed.”

The local Tea Party and a group called the Second Amendment Task Force (2ATF, a reference to the ATF, which enforces gun laws) encouraged people to bring guns to the event in Alamogordo, NM, in order to “put a positive light on gun ownership,” said 2ATF’s founder Dan Woodruff. While the two protests were technically separate, they were planned together for the same day in adjacent locations. Otero Tea Party Patriots coordinator Don Omey said he was “proud” of the gun-toters. “That’s what we need to turn some minds around,” Omey said. Under New Mexico law, it’s legal for anyone over the age of 19 to open-carry a holstered firearm in most public places.
Howdy, pardner!

Yes, because as we all know, openly displaying a loaded firearm is a really good way to get people to change their minds about you.

Ahh, but here's Newtie to remind us what's really at stake:
This was not the first right-wing protest to which people have brought guns or displayed offensive signs, but the hate-filled atmosphere at Tea Party rallies doesn’t seem to bother former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In a guest-column in the Des Moines Register on Friday he wrote, “every American who is not corrupted by the secular-socialist left should be a member of the Tea Party movement.”
You're either with the Teabaggers...or you're with the enemy.  And the enemy of course is that black guy.  Now, this is Newt Gingrich saying this.  He should have his Village credentials revoked and be laughed off the air...and yet there's nothing a Republican can ever say to get the Village to stop treating them with ultimate deference.

Meanwhile, Gingrich has defined everyone who is not a Teabagger to be a corrupt Leftist.  Stop and think about this.  He has defined hundreds of millions of Americans as the Enemy.  He's warning us that the time to pick sides is now, you'd better pick a side, and to pick the right one.  If you don't, well....the Tea Party guys have guns, you see.

Think about that here in the New Year.

StupidiNews!