What the Right Willingly Overlooks in Their Defense of Trump the Sexual Predator

Their defense consists of "Bill Clinton was worse". And The Donald says that he'll make an issue of Bill Clinton's infidelities.

Point one: Bill Clinton isn't running for anything. That this has to even be pointed out shows the depth of the Right's infection by Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

Point two: Trump has no ground to stand on. He has cheated on all of his wives. He cheated on wife #1, Ivana, with Marla Maples. He then divorced Ivana, married Marla, and then cheated on her with Melania Knauss. He then married Melania and has since cheated on her.

And who are Trump's advisors: Newt Gingrich, who has been married three times and cheated on his second wife with the woman who he later married. Rudy Giuliani has, like Trump and Gingrich, been married three times and cheated on his second with with the woman who became Mrs. Giuliani the Third.

Maybe you can detect a pattern.

When it comes to the moral highground of marriage and fidelity, Trump, Giuliani and Gingrich are yelling from the lowest sub-basement that there is.

But none of this matters to the poor sufferers of Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

Newtie Gets Fitted for a Custom Pair of Jackboots

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Thursday called for the U.S. to test every person with a Muslim background to see if they believe in Sharia law, and deport those who do.

Well, if we're also going to test every Christian and deport those who believe that Biblical law is superior to the Constitution and the U.S. Code, then fine, let's do it.

The first guys marched onto the deportation ships will be Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, plus that jerkoff of a judge on the Alabama Supreme Court.

So, Gingrich wants to give people a religious test, whether or not they are naturally-born citizens, with no regard to how many generations that their family has been here, and then strip citizenship from those who don't pass his test.

Let me think a minute. Who was the last guy who did that?

Dead Candidate Walking, or "Let the Flip-Flopping Begin!"

Newtie says that he is staying in the GOP nomination race. While Gingrich might indeed want to debate Romney, Mittens will probably regard a debate with Gingrich as akin to getting into a conversation with a crazy street preacher.

Gingrich bounced his check for the filing fee for the Utah primary. His campaign has to be running out of gas to bounce a $500 check.

Mittens is going to spend the next several months disavowing every position that he staked out during the primary campaign, including that he is not really a "severe conservative", but a oh-slightly-to-the-right-of-center moderate. You can bet your ass that the Obama campaign is not going to miss an opportunity to remind the voters of every batshit thing that Romney has said in his campaign to convince conservatives that he wasn't really a moderate.

The question is whether or not moderates will buy Mitten's upcoming flip-flopping routine and whether conservatives will trust Romney to be anything other than a paler version of Barack Obama. Some of them apparently see Mittens as just an echo.

Mars and Moon Base Gingrich

Newt is taking some grief for his Moon base idea.

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BadTux asks: Why the hell not? Why not return to the Moon and then go to Mars? It can't be any more wasteful than the F-35 or the V-22 programs. We build bridges to nowhere so that people will have jobs building the bridges. In the overall scheme of things, going back to the Moon and to Mars is expensive, but not overly so.

But is it possible? I am not terribly sure that it is. A hell of a lot goes into flying a large spacecraft. For example, during the Apollo program, the first all-up test flight of the Saturn V-Apollo stack was in November of 1967. The first manned flight was the Apollo 8 translunar flight in December, 1968. The Air Force began the development of the Saturn V main engine in the mid-1950s. The Air Force was going to drop the engine, realizing that they just didn't have a need for an engine of that power, but NASA took it over. The first all-up test firing of the F-1 engine was in 1959.

We cannot build them that big anymore. The RS-25 engine of the Space Shuttle is the largest flying engine that we can make in series production and it is less than a quarter of the power of the F-1. The RS-68, designed in the 1990s, is maybe half the output of a F-1, it is used on Delta-IV rockets and it has only flown a few times. In comparison, the workhorse of the American rocket program is the Atlas V which has a main engine, the RD-180, that is built by NPO Energomash in Russia (for the Atlas-Centaur, the Centaur upper state uses an American RL-10, which was originally developed in the 1950s).

NASA has resurrected the J-2 engine that was used on the second stage of the Saturn V. Some of the old engines were dragged out of of storage and museums and test-fired to support the development of the new J-2X.

Going to the Moon is, of course, more than just rocket engines. The Apollo capsule was under design in 1961; the first iteration, the Block 1, was so rushed that it killed three astronauts on the launch pad in 1967. Grumman was awarded the contract for the Lunar Excursion Module in 1962, though Grumman had been studying the concept on its own dime since the late 1950s. When President Kennedy proposed going to the moon by the end of 1969, most of the pieces were already in the planning pipeline and some of them had been tested.

Even if we get there, everything that is needed at the Moon base, for now, would have to be fired out of the Earth's deep gravity well to the Moon. A Falcon-9 costs $50 million or so to launch and it might be able to send 400 pounds of stuff to the Moon. A Delta IV heavy can get ten tons to escape velocity at $400 million and given that you'd need some sort of engine and such to slow the stuff down and land it, maybe you be able to land three or four tons of usable freight on the Moon. 8,000 lbs, that's something like $50,000 a pound in freight costs to the Moon. How much stuff would it take to build a habitable shelter on the Moon, given that there is no radiation protection and without radiation sheltering, a nice large solar flare, like the kind that we are seeing now, might cook everyone there?

So it will be expensive to construct, to maintain, to live there. Should we?

Here is one reason: If civilization survives for another five or ten centuries, the 20th Century will be known for three things: The invention of powered flight, the Moon landings and the development of atomic weapons. All of the rest will be the province of historians, in the way that the 15th Century is remembered for the first voyage of Christopher Columbus.

If the 21st Century is going to be remembered for anything, it will be either for a Moon colony or a Mars landing. It would be nice if our national government could get its shit together so that the first language spoken on Mars is English.

But don't bet the farm on it. Or even a bag of cat litter.

One Way to Identify a Bully

It is that they are the ones who whine the loudest when they are the ones who are being beaten into a powder. Bullies are really good at handing out damage, but they are awful at taking it.

Which is why I find Gingrich's whining about Romney's campaign ads and tactics to be rather interesting.

Gingrich is a past master at hamstringing and backshooting. He's been trying that against Romney, but Romney and his allies have the resources to take it to Gingrich, hammer and tong, and you can hear Gingrich whining about it on almost every news broadcast.

Newt-Mentum

Nobody seemed to wait longer than a nanosecond after the polls closed before calling the SC primary for Newtie.

Other than taking the wind of the sails of Mittens the Inevitable, I don't know if this means anything. It may toughen Mittens up a little, as for a guy who supposedly is big on preparation, Newt sandbagged him every step of the way. This race is going to get nastier and if the fight is going to go to the dirtiest, I suspect it'll be Gingrich's to lose.

Mitt the Job-Cremator

Newtie is going almost full Marxist on Mittens:

“You have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?” ... The former Speaker is making the case that, in contrast to good old fashioned businesses who make stuff, Romney and his ilk have instead gamed the system to create a soulless machine that profits from the misery of others. Whereas Republicans used to merely whisper that Bain was an electability problem for Romney, Gingrich and other candidates are now openly making the case that the invisible hand has failed to stop corporate raiders from hurting American workers — even as they condemn President Obama as a radical socialist for his rhetoric on Wall Street.

Meanwhile, in the Cry Me a River department, the minions of the banksters are not going to be making anywhere near as much money. Some of those spoiled pricks are even threatening to sue.

They can find a lawyer at this exit:

This is my suggestion:

Politiicans Who Routinely Lambaste Lawyers, But Can't Wait to Sue When Things Don't Go Their Way

(CNN) - Four candidates left off the Virginia Republican primary ballot joined Rick Perry Saturday in suing the state's board of elections over laws they say are "unconstitutional."

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum joined the lawsuit, originally filed Tuesday, challenging provisions that determine who can appear on the primary ballot.

Virginia probably has a million or so Republicans, including the batshit crazy folks who came up with this idea. That the whiners couldn't get their shit together enough to get ten thousand people to sign their nominating petitions is pretty frelling pathetic.

So even though you can probably find statements by at least Newtie, Bachmann and Gov. Goodhair where they rant and rail against trial lawyers, they are showing no hesitation to sue when things don't go their way.

They'll need a special vehicle to get to the courthouse:

Amateur Hour; Primary Edition

Washington (CNN) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich failed to collect enough signatures to appear on the Virginia primary ballot, the Republican Party of Virginia announced Saturday morning, leaving the longtime Virginia resident without a place on the state's ballot and raising questions about his campaign's organization.

In his own frigging state, no less. This gives grounds to the suspicion that the Newtie's primary bid was more about raising his own name recognition to ensure a continuing flow of invitations to give speeches at $60,000 a speech.

Which is a pretty good gig, when you think of it. One speech a month, added to his Congressional pension, and no wonder Gingrich has a good line of credit at Tiffany's.

But failing to qualify for a significant primary makes Gingrich's campaign look as though it's being run out of a clown's tent at some low-rent circus.

Lester Maddox Would Have Loved Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich is giving fair warning to judges and courts across the country: If he becomes president, the judiciary won’t reign supreme. The former House Speaker and current Republican presidential front-runner convened a conference call with reporters on Saturday to expand on his call for Congress to subpoena judges or even abolish courts altogether if they make wrong-headed decisions.

"It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is." Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137 (1803)

That has been the settled law of this country for over two centuries. Congress passes laws, the Executive enforces laws and the courts interpret laws. If the Congress or the Executive don't like the rulings of the courts, they can try again. If the Constitution mandates a result, then they can try to change that.

The last vocal group of politicians to claim that they did not have to follow the rule of law were the segregationists in the 1950s-1970s. They would have loved a President Grinch Gingrich.

Possibly the Most Amoral Man in American Politics Today

Other than maybe the Koch Brothers: Newt Gingrich. The argument could be made that he is a more articulate and dangerous version of Sarah Palin-- A politician who has no concept of public service or duty, but is only in it for whatever he can get out of it. This is a key quote from the post at Balloon Juice:

Gingrich is an ass and a fool. In a sane world he would be on par with Donald Trump or David Duke or that “The Rents Too Damn High” fellow when it came to being considered a credible candidate for President of the United States. But, it is not a sane world. And the Republican Party has been taken over by Neo-Confederate deadenders who want to take the Country back to 1850. They are—to a one—bat shit crazy, but their chances of winning are not zero. They proved that in 2010 and back in 2000. All of the folks running for the GOP nomination would be disasters for America, but Newt would be something more. He is Grifter Shiva the Destroyer and he has been trying to stick a fork in America and call it done for decades.

Can someone be deemed a traitor if they are not doing the bidding of a foreign power?

Did You Know That John Edwards and Bill Clinton Were Patriots?

If you buy the Newt Gingrich definition, that is:

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Also, look at this one about Pawlenty:

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Would someone explain to me why any Republican politician would want to take credit for the Apollo program? The Republicans were against the Moon program. Eisenhower thought that it was a waste of money to send men into space.

Nixon killed the last three Apollo moon missions (Apollo 18-20). Because the Apollo program was advocated by, and subsequently became identified with, a Democratic president.



In my view, it is particularly shameful of Pawlenty to try and tie Republicans to the space program. Because they were against it before they were for it.

Nice Shot

This exchange on the Daily Show:

"That's part of [the GOP's] job, to recast the emotions of the American people." -- Newt Gingrich.
"I think that's wise and don't let reality get in the way." -- Jon Stewart

Gingrich claimed that the reason why it was OK to read the Shoe Bomber his rights was because the Shoe Bomber is an American citizen. Stewart checked, of course, the Shoe Bomber is a British citizen.

John Oliver had a funny segment about the fiscally-responsible Republicans, who kept saying that the Democrats were out of touch with average Americans, while the Republicans were holding their winter national party meeting at the Waikiki Hilton in Hawaii.

Video once it's available.

Politicans Who Resign. Politicians Who Don't.

Think of all of the politicians holding elective office who were caught up in scandal and didn't resign. Off the top of my head, I can name:

• Pres. Bill Clinton
• Sen. Larry Craig
• Gov. Mark Sanford (so far)
• Sen. David Vitter
• Sen. John Ensign
  
• Rep. Newt Gingrich
• Rep. William Jefferson
• Rep. Wilbur Mills

Now think of the ones who have resigned and why:

• Pres. Richard Nixon (facing certain impeachment and conviction)
• Vice Pres. Spiro Agnew (inducted for corruption, pleaded no contest to tax charges)
  
• Gov. Elliott Spitzer (customer of a brothel after prosecuting other brothels)
• Rep. Joseph Scarborough (dead woman found in his office)
• Gov. John Rowland (convicted and sent to prison for corruption)

The only politician that I can think of, right now, who resigned for reasons not related to scandal was Gov. Ella Grasso of Connecticut; she resigned due to ill health and died of cancer a few weeks later.

Politicians do not resign their elective office without damn good reason and the three good reasons are felony indictments, insurmountable scandals and terminal illness. Running for higher office is not a reason to quit the day job. Look at the presidential candidates who ran in 2008; other than a handful of outliers such as Giuliani, Romney and Edwards, every serious candidate held elective office at the time. The nominees for the presidency and the vice-presidency from both parties held elective office.

So there has to be something really serious in the offing that Palin hopes to tamp down by not being governor (maybe her resignation is part of a secret plea bargain) or her trolley has jumped off the rails in a major way.

Some People Change Their Principles

I guess it depends on who is in power, at least for some politicians:

"There is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions."

That was Newt Gingrich in 1997.

Of course, by 2009, he was singing a slightly different tune. Gingrich probably knows, in his soul, that torture is evil, but since so much of the Republican base is pro-torture, he cannot afford to alienate them.

The 2012 Campaign is Underway!

For Republicans, at least.

Among the usual suspects: Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour, and of course, Sarah Palin, since she has the wardrobe for the task.

Nice. Jet Blue probably hasn't even had time to repaint the "Straight Talk Express" and these clowns are already getting their campaigns together. You'd think they could at least take this holiday season off, but nooo! You poor bastards in Iowa and New Hampshire are about to meet a whole host of these jerks.

Smearing the blood of a sheep over your doorway will not keep them away.