I really have to admit that I am stunned by the Gingrich surge. I was absolutely convinced he was only in it for the money, and when he went on vacation and his team quit, I thought he was done. He may very well have been in it for just the money, but the weakness of the Republican field convinced him to stay in the race just for shits and giggles. Then, as each savior of the week flamed out, Newt survived.
At any rate, I guess it will be fun watching the tea party and all those small government conservatives rally around a disgraced has been Speaker, an adulterous lech, and k-street lobbyists whose first budget would include a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit. Awesome.
schrodinger's cat
John [email protected]
What did you think of Newt when you were Republican?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
I’m not sure “fun” will be the operative word here.
Putting aside his actual chances of winning, I fear for the bullshit his candidacy and possible nomination will end up normalizing.
c u n d gulag
John,
Newt’s getting so full of himself, when he finally blows himself up, as he inevitably will, it’ll make the Hindenburg Disaster look like a popped party balloon.
My only hope is that it’s AFTER his party nominates him.
Btw – is is just me, or does Newt, standing there at his pompous best on the debate stages, remind you some nightmare version of a swaggering, grifting, Southern Ralph Kramden who serially cheats on his wife and lies about everything?
Maybe it’s just me…
Pillsy
It’s mystifying that there’s a real chance Newt Gingrich will be the next Republican nominee. His pitch boils down to, “You can trust me to be a Washington outsider, because back when I was a Washington insider, my own party found me so horrible that they ran me out of town on a fucking rail.”
This isn’t, “Gee, I don’t know much about Mitt Romney’s history of pandering to progressives as Governor of Massachusetts and generally being a Gordon Gecko clone at Bain Capital.” Newt’s really famous, and what he’s famous for is being a festering asshole.
nevsky42
I always thought that if Newt felt there was any chance of his actually beating Obama as the Repub nominee, he’d drop out, but he’d be more than happy to ride the gravy train until November and just let the grown-up win.
Jerzy Russian
One of my students had a Newt quote in his E-mail signature. How messed up is that?
He certainly is a disgraced, has-been speaker, adulterous lech, but he would be their disgraced, has-been Speaker, adulterous lech, etc. That apparently all that matters.
Biff Longbotham
I’m confused. Aren’t those guys supposed to be the ‘Family Values’ party? IOKIYAR, I guess.
Davis X. Machina
He’s a white guy, in a suit, of whom most people have already heard. If he wins the nomination, he’ll be on the ballot as a Republican.
That’s good for 55 million votes in the general election, all by itself.
Now try and sleep tonight…
schrodinger's cat
I am sure Joe Klein must be ecstatic, didn’t he call Newt the ideas czar or something.
MikeJ
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Agreed. Gingrich could call for a return to forced child labor and the media would eat it up.
Nobody is going to risk losing their job for calling crazy crazy. And if they can’t call him crazy, the only alternative is to treat everything he says as a bold policy proposal.
Suffern ACE
@c u n d gulag: Ralph Kramden would never have cheated on his wife. At least more than once. If Alice and her mother found out about it.
Jerzy Russian
@Pillsy:
Sadly, you have nailed it. It will be both entertaining and very sad to watch Newt continue to campaign.
trollhattan
@Davis X. Machina:
This. Mittens, Newton, the dining room table…it matters not other than they are not the current president. We will at last be free from Tyranny(tm).
Roc
Newt’s a lot of things, but I don’t think stupid is one of them. Certainly not when it comes to grift. He’s almost certainly still just in it for the money. He just knows that his ultimate monetary reward is directly proportional to how far he carries the charade.
My question is who benefits when his fifteen minutes are up?
Do people flee the circus in favor of someone like Huntsman? Or does Huntsman just have a lesser infliction of whatever people don’t like about Romney? (Flip-flopping disconnected dick-ish oligarchs have never been a problem for the right. Consider Newt himself. Romney’s problem must be something else.)
jl
@Davis X. Machina: He’s a white guy, in a suite and tie, can stand on his hind legs and talk forever, and combine big words to sell scams to enrich his cronies. He is obviously a visionary genius.
I think that is the drill for our reactionary overlords.
I would get me some Newtswag, but now that he is the front runner, that has probably ruined the market as far as it being a valuable collectable.
I will go see if I can contribute a piece to Buzzflash, Buzzblog, whatever it is called. A guide to GOP presidential collectables for future profit. Then I can be a journalist too.
@Roc: Newt Inc. will benefit. I read that people who attend his world historical cultural education events are buying Newtswag thinking that it is for his campaign. ha ha ha. It goes to Newt, and Newt, and also Newt.
JPK
I actually picked him for 2008, counting on the Republican seniority system of turns and that they knew it was a losing year for them so why not throw up a sacrifice (compare: Bob Dole). Now I look like I knew what I was talking about, even though I’m just as surprised as anyone. Unlike Bachmann and Cain, I think Gingrich might actually get the nomination. We will see, also whether that is good or not.
The Other Bob
If Newt implodes after the nomination, don’t Dems then have the problem of getting everyone to show up and vote?
Could really hurt Congressional races.
Culture of Truth
It could very well be he was always in it for the money, but the numerous debates and the utter weakness of the field has propelled him to the ‘lead’, inasmuch as the lead is based on polls and not actual votes cast. To get votes he will need organization and money, as well as desire to win. We shall see.
FlipYrWhig
@Roc: Romney’s problem is that he doesn’t seem capable of anger. They want someone at least as pissed off at the world as a low-rent talk radio host. Romney is too Father Knows Best for that.
fasteddie9318
@Pillsy:
It makes about as much logical sense as Mitt’s pitch: “The fact that I was only able to win one of the half-dozen or so political campaigns I’ve run in my life makes me a political outsider.”
Satanicpanic
This really is one of the greatest comebacks in political history. I really thought that everyone outside the sunday morning show bubble hated this guy, even the 27%ers. The sky’s the limit for liberal bashers in the USA.
MattF
And when the New Noot puts on his best “Would I lie to you?” expression, I can only lift my eyes to heaven and say, YES, DAMMIT, YES.
Trakker
Newt was in it for the money, just look at how he has had to scramble to put together a team now that he’s front-runner. Newt is all about money. If he ever got elected President he would probably endorse products while in office, sell the naming rights to the White House, and Calista would design a line of jewelry exclusively for JC Penny.
The man is a sleaze and the only clown left that can energize the base (if Mitt gets the nomination he will be forced to take on a Bachmann or a Perry as VP to get the base to vote in November).
fasteddie9318
@Culture of Truth: At this point I don’t see how he doesn’t win Iowa and South Carolina, because Mitt isn’t going to win either, and unless Newt gets caught letting a goat sodomize him he’s the last man standing. Assuming he makes a decent showing in New Hampshire and/or wins Florida (where he’s also up big, no?) the money will start rolling in and the organization will follow. Republican donors and operatives don’t want to be on the outside looking in if Gingrich seriously looks like the eventual winner.
The Dangerman
As am I, but it really comes down to one thing; they are utterly convinced that Newt will clean Obama’s clock in the debates and show that
boyman a lesson. It’s flat out racist as surely this African American is only good for reading Teleprompters. Did you notice his most recent surge came after he called Obama a foodstamp President? No accident.They are in such denial that, when Obama kicks Newt’s rotund ass, they will be screaming ACORN until the next election (yes, I know ACORN is gone, but they’ll scream it anyway).
Dave
Kevin Drum had a piece that touched on this.
It boils down to GOP voters thinking Obama is an affirmative-action bozo and their “Great White Intellectual” is going to expose him.
trollhattan
@fasteddie9318:
What would be weird/amusing is Newton coming second to Paul, with all the media declaring, “Gingrich takes Iowa!”
John PM
I think Colbert hit it on the head last night that all of Gingrich’s ideas are recycled James Bond plots and that Gingrich is actually Blofeld.
My hope is that if Gingrich does become the nominee we can finally find a way to put a stake through the heart of pseudo-conservatism once and for all.
Tone In DC
@Pillsy:
Definitely. Though I’d go with “festering boil on the nation’s ass” rather than “asshole”. Just my $0.02.
fasteddie9318
What we must not lose sight of in all of this talk is the fact that Newt Gingrich is clearly the very best possible candidate that the GOP could run next year, and us liberals are all simply terrified of the prospect of our Black Kenyan Socialist Messiah having to face down the overwhelming power of Newt’s massive intellect. There is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, that Republicans could do in the next few months that would anger/frighten/dismay the commie Muslim terrorist traitors out there than to nominate Newt Gingrich. Just thinking about the possibility makes me sick to my stomach at our chances of implementing nationwide sharia law after the next election.
Allahu Akbar! Let this not come to pass!
jl
@The Other Bob:
A hyperborean world historical figure like Newt only explodes, he would never implode.
I agree with commenters above that the U.S. would explode in an innovative entrepreneurial frenzy that will make the country (that is the deserving select productive ‘job creators’ who are in with Newt Inc.) rich.
Think how K12 internet alternative history courses based on Newt’s scholarly alternative histories would open the minds of our children!
fasteddie9318
FYWP, and how can I not have learned not to spell soshulist properly by now? Can somebody get me out of moderation hell up there please?
Soonergrunt
Completely off topic:
Sarah Palin as caganer
Schlemizel
OT – here is an interesting story about a new weapon riot police want to try out. Its a laser gun that will temporarily blind you.
Seems like this could be a whole lot of fun for PDs around the globe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/16137543
John PM
@Dave:
These GOP voters wouldn’t know a true intellectual even if one came up to then and launched into a 30 minute treatise on the history of kicking people in the testicles.
flukebucket
@Schlemizel:
Just wait until they put one of those on a drone.
Shirt
“il Newtie” has the same bombastic style and philosophy as il Duce, David Weigant points out it’s kind fun watching the GOP elders break out in a cold sweat considering the posibility of “il Newtie” wining the nomination.
Culture of Truth
@fasteddie9318: Those are all very points – it’s just funny to me because I half-wonder if Newt isn’t thinking – ‘oh shit, you mean I have to keep at this another six months!?’
But from what I’ve see he’s loving it, so all he really needs is a half-way decent campaign manager and the desire to keep going.
David in NY
@The Other Bob:
Even if Newt implodes, his whole act will be so outrageous that lots of Democrats will be champing at the bit to vote against him. I don’t see his nomination or his campaigning as in any way dampening the desire of Democrats to vote.
YoohooCthulhu
Such short memories. Doesn’t everyone remember this is pretty much what happened with McCain? Everyone thought he was basically out of the race, then the Repubs decided he was the least worst option in some weird way.
Amir Khalid
I hope David Axelrod is right about Noot.
mclaren
You people are completely clueless. I’ve been saying for months and months and months that Romney is completely unacceptable to the Republican base because he’s a Mormon.
To the Republican base, anyone is preferable to Romney. ANYONE.
If Gingrich hadn’t surged, it would’ve been someone else — anyone but Romney.
Butch
@fasteddie9318: He could get away with the goat as long as he talked to the evangelicals about “reconciliation” later on. They’d give him a pass.
fasteddie9318
@Butch: Not if the goat was fucking him. I think that might be a bridge too far even for those people.
schrodinger's cat
@YoohooCthulhu: Remember when Giuliani and Clinton were going to be the nominees of their respective parties? Not a single vote has been cast so speculation is premature.
WaterGirl
I never realized until just now that this guy and M_C must be the same person.
Dave
@John PM: I agree 100% with you. And that’s the point. The GOP base is convinced that Newt is a Great Thinker because he says “fundamentally” about every third word. They believe in a debate that he will clean Obama’s clock. And they couldn’t be more wrong.
As skilled a politician as President Obama is, his greatest advantage has been getting gifted complete idiots as opponents in elections.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: From the comments
What if Newt won the presidency?
Schlemizel
I think a lot of people are misunderestiamting (sic) Noots ego and avarice.
POtUS is the big payoff, cash galore plus perks beyond your wildest imagining (more ass then a toilet seat for one) instant respect and stature. His ego wants those perks and his greed needs those bucks. He is in this to win it now that he thinks he can.
He watched as a total incompetent with no apparent ability or intellect sat on his ass for 8 years while the flying monkeys ran his show so he knows its not hard work. He wants this alright – I bet he makes his mistress hum “Hail To The Chief” while she is servicing him.
Quaker in a Basement
@Amir Khalid: Monkey butt!
Trinity
Check out the latest Iowa poll from PPP. Newt has dropped some support and Ron Paul is catching up! This GOP primary race is just fascinating…and disturbing.
Rafer Janders
@FlipYrWhig:
Romney’s problem is that he doesn’t seem capable of anger.
Don’t blame Romney — he just wasn’t programmed that way.
MikeJ
@YoohooCthulhu:
Four years ago, Iowa Insider Advatage poll: Huckabee 25, Romney 28, McCain 7
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ia/iowa_republican_caucus-207.html#polls
Teabaggers (and the proto teabaggers of the ’08 election) talk a big game but they suck at delivering votes.
I do find it hilarious that four years ago McCain was found to be so loathsome that Romney was getting support.
SRW1
@The Other Bob:
Only if that implosion had no effect on Rep voters, which would appear to be kind of counterintuitive.
jl
@YoohooCthulhu:
That thought went through my head too.
The reactionary project for a grand restoration of America has cratered. They promised a glorious new society, but they were wrong about everything and the results are a glum dystopia.
So, what leaders can they produce: fantasists, delusionalists, swindlers and cynical authoritarians willing to lie intimidate and coerce in order to suppress the outrage of the lesser people.
As far as possible candidates for national office, all they can do is pick through a box of moldy and rotten culls, looking for the least worse option.
Unless something unexpected happens, it will only get worse, which is hard to imagine. But I predict (hey kids, note down the date and time) we will see even more outrageous candidates, unless the GOP can reform itself.
Man, you thought Bush Jr. was bad, then some big money oligarchs trot out Perry. Theoretically, there is worse than Perry out there, and that is what we will start seeing after 2012, win or lose. Problem is, if they win and we lose, we will see worse very soon, in positions of power.
I think Newt will be so offensive and stupid that whether he implodes or explodes on the campaign trails, he will energize a lot of Democratic and Independent voters to get to the polls and vote against him.
And an added bonus is that Newt will be cultivating that great demographic for an electoral future: the super elderly who are delusional and weak minded. At least the Democrats will be able to capture the sane strong minded elderly.
JPL
@Schlemizel: ugh!…you just had to go there didn’t you.
Soonergrunt
@WaterGirl: mclaren claims to be female.
kindness
Gingrich is only in it for the money.
But like all his escapades, his ego has no got a hold of him and is running the show. The ego won’t let him know he won’t win. I hope he does win the nomination. Obama 2012!
Redshift
I think Newt always had a somewhat weird combination of being in it for the money plus a long-standing deep-seated belief that he really deserves to be president. Sure, he started off with grifting so pure that most of his own staff quit in disgust, but when he started to rise in the polls, his overinflated ego told him it was the tide of civilization at last recognizing his true greatness.
That doesn’t mean he won’t implode, but there’s not a chance he’s thinking “what am I going to do if I win this thing?” (Hell, Herman Cain apparently had a big enough ego to think he really could be president.) I do think he’s really trying now, but time will tell whether he can control himself enough to listen to people who actually know how to run a national campaign.
jl
@Schlemizel: Yes, but Newt’s behavior so far indicates that he is torn between sure bucks now from Newtswag and Newthought cultural education products, and a one minus epsilon chance of cash returns from presidentin’.
I do not think we know which will win out in terms of capturing Newt’s main focus of attention.
PaminBB
I don’t think that Newt wants to be president either. He’s waiting to be bought off, and now is in the position that his price will likely be steep.
Mark B.
I’m pretty sure Gingrich is still in it for the money. It’s just that noe he sees the opportunity for winning a few primaries, the bar has been raised for how many cars to add to the gravy train. If he can win the nomination, he can keep it running for another year, plus it makes his books that much more marketable for at least a decade. If, god forbid, he wins in 2012, the looting will make him and his cronies rich beyond belief. They will reign over the smoking ruins like Tina Turner ruled the thunder dome.
rikryah
Newt’s surge is cracking me up
Punchy
How do the Teatards support the guy? They rail and rail and rail against establishment Washington politicians, and this guy is the very textbook deffy of one. What gives?
trollhattan
@Punchy:
Because they never believed anything they said and are only against “the establishment” when they’re not in control of the establishment.
JCT
@Punchy: Uh, because he’s a Republican and tells them hat they want to hear?
I really think that is all that they need.
schrodinger's cat
OT: Has anyone replaced the hard drive on their laptop how easy is it. How do you do it so that you don’t have to reinstall everything from scratch.
Thanks!
ETA: How easy is it to get everything on your current laptop hard drive to the new one.
Amir Khalid
No sane political party would pick Noot to run for president. He’s petty, vindictive, a cheating husband, and full of cockamamie “ideas”. But above all, he was an unpopular, ineffective, and ultimately disgraced Congressional leader. When you think about the state of the Republican party, it does start to make sense that they like him so much right now. They’re crazy.
Citizen Alan
@mclaren:
Frankly, I agree with this. I truly believe that if Romney is the nominee that Obama will win Mississippi. The state is 40% African-American, and I am convinced that most evangelical voters in this state will stay home rather than vote for a member of what they consider to be a satanic cult.
David in NY
WAIT!!! We may have reached Peak Gingrich!:
From TPM:
jl
@Punchy: I hate to give the disreputable Cole credit for anything, but I think he had the best summary of a very important, and truly grass roots, component of the teabagger movement: they are not angry about government spending they are afraid about the government spending money on somebody else.
Those are the get the gummint out of my Medicare people.
I think that component of the teabaggers are heavily behind Newt. Newt sent some dog whistles to those people that he will make sure plenty of gummint money will get the to the right kind of people. That message has wide appeal.
The intellectual and ideological basis of the entire US reactionary movement is so incoherent and insane that, using standard logic, you can conclude anything. I think that ‘From contradiction, all follows’ is the English translation of some result in classical logic. Words, evidence, coherent and good faith argument, are very very cheap with the reactionaries.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Amir Khalid:
Not to mention that the “Gingrich who stole Christmas” TV ads practically write themselves. I can already hear the soundtrack: You’re a mean one, Mr. Newt! A nasty, wasty skunk!..
Culture of Truth
I wasn’t referring if he won – I was just referring to the additional effort required to actually win.
Butch
@fasteddie9318: That’s quite a visual anyway.
Mark B.
One explanation for the Gingrich boomlet is that there have been something like 150 debates so far. He’s not so great at making friends, but he’s pretty good at the junior high style of ‘buuuuurrrrnnn’ Bon mots. The plethora of debates has allowed him to do what he does best, and it minimizes his faults. [Silly policies, personal lack of morality, long history of corruption, etc.]
Redshift
@schrodinger’s cat: When I had to do it a few years ago, I picked up a kit at Micro Center with a hard drive housing with a USB connector and software to do the transfer. Basically, you plug the new drive into the housing, plug the USB into the computer, run the software to copy everything from the old drive to the new one, and then swap them. It went pretty smoothly.
Amir Khalid
Oh NOES! The Trump Presidential Debate is no more! Woe is us!
Redshift
@Culture of Truth: Fair enough. I think we’re pretty much in agreement there.
schrodinger's cat
@WaterGirl:Are you sure? The grammar is impeccable and no weird acronyms either.
Maude
@Amir Khalid:
The Republican Party is truly crazy. This just shows how far off the rails they have gone.
Soonergrunt
@schrodinger’s cat: usually it’s pretty easy. How old is the laptop?
If you just want to increase the size of the drive, and not replace an already dead drive, there are kits with instructions that you can buy where you plug the new drive into a USB port and mirror the contents of the old drive onto the new one, and then swap the drives inside the chassis, and then when the laptop is running fine on the new drive, you can put the old one on the USB and use it as an external backup.
Keith G
All that will matter less than the fact that:
1. He uses pseudo intellectualism to make the base believe that they are smart and that these tough times are not their fault and he can design a future where they will be fulfilled.
2. (In Lincoln’s words about Grant) He fights. He fights!
MikeJ
@schrodinger’s cat: Replacing a laptop drive can be easy, but it’s usually a bit trickier than a desktop. It’s still just a matter of plugging things in, but there’s a lot of stuff crammed in a small space, and everything has to go back in exactly the same way. With a desktop you have lots of room to move things around. In a laptop you have to pay careful attention. Which isn’t to say that it’s hard to do, just very fiddly.
To copy stuff to a new drive and not have to reinstall everything, get a program like Ghost. If your old HD works well enough to read, Ghost will make an exact copy of it onto a new drive. For a laptop, this is usually easier to do if you take the two drives (old and new) and temporarily mount them in a desktop machine (make sure you have the right power connectors in the desktop machine).
Replacing a drive is sort of like changing the oil in your car. One of the easiest things you can do, but when you start working on an exotic model you just have to keep a few more things in mind. If you can read instructions and follow them well enough to do one of these tasks (like changing oil) you should be able to manage changing a hard drive.
Redshift
@Amir Khalid: Between this and the end of the Cain campaign, pretty soon we’re going to need a jobs program for comedians.
Oh, wait, there are still all the other candidates.
Judas Escargot
Gingrich’s “Contract with America” was back in 1994, which is also the same year that Mitt Romney tried to purchase Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. (It also happens to have been the year I cast my one and only vote for a Republican, ever– for Bill Weld’s re-election as MA Gov).
So for me this is very strange, realizing that one of these two figures from 17 years ago will be the GOP nominee… like a malarial fever dream that just won’t end.
Where was Barack Obama 17 years ago? He would have been just about 30 years old, give or take.
schrodinger's cat
@Soonergrunt: Its 5 years old. I upgraded the RAM from 512 to 2GB recently and also installed Windows 7 on it. The hard drive has 30 G of memory and the hard drive it is getting very noisy so I am thinking of replacing it before it dies. It was completely unusable before the RAM upgrade but works great now.
Chris
@jl:
“The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them. In fact, their lack of embarrassment when it comes to collecting government largesse is key to understanding what this movement is all about.”
– Matt Taibbi
Ruckus
@Schlemizel:
I think your take is correct.
Shitstain newt is a grifter first class and as long as he can keep the rubes on the con he will play it out to the end. It is all he has done for his entire life. He’s not going to stop now.
jl
@David in NY: Newt might crater too?
If Newt craters, will there be harmonic sine waves of resurgent support for previous favorites like Perry, Bachmann, etc. or will the GOP flatline on Romney?
If the former, will pollster have to learn frequency domain time series analysis to figure out he GOP primary?
Villago Delenda Est
@Dave:
The irony here is the last GOP Preznit WAS an affirmative-action (as in legacy) bozo.
Chris
@Keith G:
This exactly. I remember a conservative blog years and years ago (back when Bush’s approval ratings first began to really tank) that referenced that exact quote when explaining why they supported Bush “despite all his flaws.”
schrodinger's cat
@MikeJ: I know what you mean. I upgraded the RAM on my laptop a few months ago and it was a delicate operation especially since my laptop is one of those ultralight ones.
geg6
@Dave:
Absolutely true. And I would find it hysterically funny if the stakes weren’t so high.
Ah, fuck it. It still makes me laugh.
El Cid
I was surprised that it so happened that Gingrich lasted beyond the ‘I do this and you give me cash’ stage and so it was now time to kick into being the Churchillian savior, the man who would educate the US like his PhD looked at Belgian education in the Congo.
This doesn’t mean the ‘I do this and you give me cash’ stage has ended.
Did anyone mention above that Michael Savage offered Newt $1 million to step down?
Chris
@geg6:
Herman Cain was “their black,” who would nullify Obama’s blackness and therefore make them win the race.
Newt Gingrich is “their intellectual,” who will nullify Obama’s intellectualness and therefore make them win the race.
b-psycho
Actually, I suspect part of the reason the base is flocking to Newt isn’t just Anybody But Romney, but that he’s the candidate they see as coming closest to calling Obama a n—er to his face. Remember the “Kenyan anti-colonial” remark?
David in NY
@jl:
Newt down five in a week, and favorables cut by two-thirds. The possibilities are exciting! But maybe it’s just Paul’s turn! Wheeee!
trollhattan
Edroso has a fine run at Newton’s winger supporters and detractors, here. It truly is Popcorn Time in America(tm).
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/12/merry_gingrich.php
JCT
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve done this numerous times, just gave a 4-year-old MacAir new life with an SSD.
You might want to dig around on this website iFixit PC
Just take your time and be sure to have decent tools at hand before you start — keep track of the screws!
And Newt’s numbers? Clearly to know him is to loathe him. Blowhard asshole that he is.
Culture of Truth
It gets even more strange when you remember Obama has a time machine allowing him to retractively cause recessions and terror attacks.
mclaren
@jl:
What’s so disturbing about this is that it fits equally well as a description of the Obama administration and the Democrats.
Deeply alarming.
David in NY
@jl:
lol. I’m inclined to think there’s no form of rational analysis that can deal with this.
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
And plant birth certificates.
David in NY
@mclaren: boy, talk about false equivalencies
Soonergrunt
@schrodinger’s cat: OK–with a 5-year-old laptop, you run into the possibility that it has an old style ATA-6 hard drive.
You won’t know for sure until you crack it open.
Power it off, and remove the battery.
Flip it over, remove the screw(s) holding the hard drive plate in place. You already know where the memory is, so you should open the other plate.
When you get the plate out, check to see if it has two connections for small plugs with L-shaped tabs inside them, or does it have a large bank of pins?
The two connectors with L-shaped are SATA connectors and are the current standard. The multiple pins are ATA-6 and are the older standard.
Buy a replacement hard drive based on whichever one you see there.
Better yet, tell me the brand and model and I’ll research that and get back to you what you should buy.
Either way, you’ll need the new drive, and something to connect it to the USB connection on your laptop.
Put the old drive back in place with all the connections made and await the arrival of the new hardware. If the drive is making noises when you use it, particularly if they are clicking noises, it may be dying, especially if it’s 5 years old or older as you say–that’s pretty close to, if not over, the design service life.
You may want to put her on a shelf until you’re ready to replace the drive.
Judas Escargot
@Chris:
On a lark I just googled “barack obama 1994” and came up with this NPR transcript (excerpted nugget follows):
…sometimes it’s coincidence; sometimes it’s the universe, laughing at us.
rlrr
@Punchy:
Remember in 2008 when people would tell us with a straight face Obama was a Washington insider and McCain was a mavericky outsider?
Soonergrunt
@b-psycho: I don’t think this particular feature of the wingnuttery can be overstated.
Many, if not most of them, are just dying to point at the President of the United States and shout “Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!”
rlrr
@Citizen Alan:
Gingrich may also have the same problem since many evangelicals consider Roman Catholicism a satanic cult.
jl
@mclaren:
I don’t want to think about it. Uggh.
I am not sure whether Obama’s line about the necessarily slow pace of change from 30 years of con and fail is itself a con, or merely being realistic.
I will still work and vote for Obama and the Democrats to keep worse at bay.
But how to encourage something better? OWS? Primarying Obama? both of those seem unpromising. I figure, best to work on local House elections to either get better Democrats or scare the salvageable ones already there into acting better.
Anoniminous
@David in NY:
I wouldn’t put much predictive value in the poll:
The Iowa caucuses are notoriously difficult to poll because the “Likely Voter” screen is darn near impossible to validate. The 2008 Obama win was unprecedented because OFA made a gut-busting effort to get their supporters, mostly young and First Timers, to the caucus.
I grant the Paulites … Paulines? Paultards? … are a dedicated bunch and they may very well recapitulate OFA’s 2008 success.
But to say they will do it seems a stretch.
mclaren
@rlrr:
Considering the extreme problems JFK had with all the weird claims that he would allegedly become a slave to the Pope, that’s actually a real issue.
Just think, though…if people become so morbidly obsessed with fantastic and outlandish hypothetical conspiracy theories involving the Pope telling the president what to do when JFK ran for the presidency as a catholic, what possible chance does Romney have as a Mormon?
I mean, c’mon, the catholic church has some decidedly weird rituals — transubstantiation, the belief in a tridentine deity…but Mormonism? Magic underwear. Jesus is alive and living on the planet Kolob. After you die, you can become a god. Baptizing the dead. Jesus visited America. The American indians were a lost tribe of Hebrews. There are three different heavens. There are multiple gods in multiple universes.
The bizarreness just goes on and on with Mormonism.
It’s impossible to imagine evangelical religious fundamentalists voting for a candidate who believes that stuff.
schrodinger's cat
@Soonergrunt: Dell inspiron 700m. The noises I hear sound like a fan that is too loud.
Hoodie
Newt’s talent is that he’s the only candidate that can spout the absolute nonsense the base wants to hear and make it seem at least superficially intellectual and coherent to the lazy media. He achieves that largely through chutzpuh, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge his inconsistencies and, in fact, turning them around into attacks that, frankly, take brass balls to make (e.g., take 1.6 mil from Freddie Mac and turn around and say Barney Frank should be indicted). Bachmann, Perry and Cain all stumbled because they ran into the limits of their own meager abilities to sell snake oil. Newt has been selling snake oil for decades on the national level and is in another class in comparison them. He’s a closer. The only thing that will take him down is if Romney and his backers get down and dirty and drag Newt though the excrement of his past life. It will be ugly, but entertaining, to watch.
mclaren
@jl:
Absolutely. Getting rid of the (crazy) Republicans in the house and senate is the key. (It’s superfluous to say “crazy Republicans,” because being a Republican nowadays means de facto being crazy.)
If Obama had had a reasonable progressive congress with a solid supermajority that couldn’t have been filibustered, Obama would most likely have been able to push through legislation that would’ve addressed our most serious problems. As just one example, global warming. It’s hard to blame Obama for not pushing cap-and-trade legislation because with this insane Teahadist congress, cap-and-trade is an absolute non-starter.
Obama has made some profound fundamental errors, like his cynical and ongoing refusal to prosecute any of the Wall Street criminals for fraud. This, he can do. He doesn’t need the congress. Obama can order his DOJ to indict the bastards.
But a fair amount of what Obama hasn’t done to fix our ongoing problems results from massive fanatical obstructionism by the Republicans. They have filibustered every single effort by the Obama administration to help get this economy back on its feet.
Obama still deserves a lot of criticism, particularly for tearing up the constitution and wiping his ass with it, and for not prosecuting the financial criminals, and for cranking up America’s already insanely bloated military budget. But with a congress that wasn’t lost in the wilds of fringe-lunatic rightwing dementia, Obama could at least have addressed some of our most serious problems.
handy
@mclaren:
A sizable portion also believe Obama is a Marxist. It’s not that impossible. More likely that bloc has less than an enthusiastic showing on election day. Would that hurt Romney? Hard to say, and if jobs numbers are tanking next November, it might not matter for Obama.
novum
john:
i still think newt is in it for the money. at first, it was simply like you said, a way to go on cruises and travel the country, keeping his name at the top of the grifter list.
but now that he is a player/contender (probably surprising himself as much as us) the play changes: now he can run an extortion grift….does anyone really think that newt won’t offer to sell his delegates/endorsement to the higher bidder between perry/romeny?
mclaren
@Hoodie:
Are you absolutely sure about that? Mitt Romney has a huge amount of baggage himself. If Romney starts pointing out Newt’s hypocrisies and dishonesties and thieveries and countless flip-flops on the issues, well, the problem there is that Romney himself has even more hypocrisies and dishonesties and thieveries and flip-flops on his record.
Mitt Romney made his fortune by leveraged-buyouts that sold off companies and fired hundreds of thousands of workers. Romney is the real-life Gordon Gecko. You think he can survive that revelation? That’s thievery on a Brobdignagian scale.
Then there’s Romney’s seemingly endless lies and hypocrisies. He did believe global warming was man-made, then he didn’t. He believed in a woman’s right to choose, then he didn’t. He was for the Obama ACA plan (because he basically invented it) — then he turns around and says it’s a violation of the 10th amendment. He wasn’t in favor of privatizing social security, but suddenly he is in favor of it. Roe v Wade went too far, but Roe v Wade has been the law of the land for 20 years and we should continue with it. We should raise the minimum wage to help workers, but no, we can’t raise the minimum wage because it would cost jobs.
There’s a whole website devoted to nothing but Romney’s endless flip-flops.
If Romney tries throwing rocks at Newt, he’s liable to discover that the Romney campaign is living in a very fragile glass house.
David in NY
@Anoniminous: I think that Gingrich’s drop from +31 favorable to just +12 is really ominous for him. No clue whether Paul can win.
Amir Khalid
@MikeJ:
Another thing those numbers show is that just four years ago, nobody in America minded, much, that Romney was a Mormon. That’s why I’m skeptical of the idea, pushed by m_c and mclaren, that being Mormon is what’s fatal to Romney’s and Huntsman’s Presidential chances.
@mclaren:
Even if you are right that white evangelical Christian fundamentalists will definitely not vote for a Mormon (I have noted my doubts on this), calling attention to certain Mormon beliefs as outlandish is disrespectful. It is also not necessary for making your point.
mclaren
@novum:
Oh, of course. But, as Schlemizel pointed in @49:
That’s not the half of it. Newtie probably has fantasies of a whole harem of underage girls in the West Wing dressed as congressional pages lined up to do him. He’s probably planning to exhibit a giant cast of his penis on the White House lawn. He’s dreaming about rolling around on the Lincoln bed with some naked babe while covered in millions in cash, like that scene from Mario Bava’s Danger Diabolik.
You can’t even begin to imagine the foetid fantasies and rancid imaginings that are running through Newtie’s mind right now as he contemplates all the cash and all the fine pieces of ass and all the book deals and speechifying and all the craven cringing suckup reporters and Washington pundits groveling before him as El Presidente. For Newtie, the presidency is the Big Con. It’s the ultimate score. It’s the Big Kahuna of all grifts. That’s why he’ll pursue it with fanatical fervor.
mclaren
@Amir Khalid:
If you can claim with a straight face that the American indians are a lost tribe of Hebrews, you’re made of sterner stuff than I am.
Lojasmo
@Davis X. Machina:
Beating the over/under on 55 million votes will be a tough road for noot. That would be a 58/42 victory for Obama. I will sleep fine ( yeah, my math prolly sucks…get over it)
Linda Featheringill
@Soonergrunt:
And if they did shout that word, or any other word for that matter, what difference would it make?
I think that the whole world knows what Obama looks like. Shouting racial terms wouldn’t change anyone’s opinion of the man.
And much of the world knows that about a quarter of people in the US have no respect for him because of the color of his skin. Shouting wouldn’t change that fact.
Catsy
@WaterGirl: No, mclaren and m_c are definitely different people, although from the general quality of their concern trolling the mistake is understandable.
Darnell From LA
Ahem, anyone wanna bet me 10K that Newton Leroy Gingrich is either:
A) Already cheating on Callista with wife no. 4
or..
B) Will begin an affair with a young campaign staffer sometime in the 10 months leading up to election day
Soonergrunt
@schrodinger’s cat: the hard drive is a 40gb ultra ATA, also called an ATA-6.
If the sound is a high pitched whine like a bad fan, it may be the fan on the CPU heatsink or on the graphics chip (if it has one there). That may actually be harder to replace than the hard disk.
If you want to replace the hard disk, I recommend the following:
Samsung Spinpoint 160gb ATA hard drive for laptop
2.5in ATA to USB enclosure
Total cost, less than $100 with shipping and handling.
You may need to pick up some jewlers/micro screw drivers at Home Depot/Lowes but these should be less than $10.00 for a set.
slightly-peeved
I don’t think Newt really loves America enough to form the long-term relationship required to be its president. I think he did once, in the flush of youth, but America’s older and not as healthy as it was in those days. He’ll try and get a few cheap thrills from America, claim he cares about the long term, but you’ve seen how he makes eyes at Israel, so young and so warm. I’m sure it would seem innocent enough at the start – a summit here, a trade deal there – but soon he’d be getting home late from those diplomatic visits, spending money on little gifts like F-22 Raptors, and before you know it he’s at a meeting on America’s economic outlook saying he’s converting to Judaism and seeing if he can get his presidency annulled.
schrodinger's cat
@Soonergrunt: I have the screw driver set and thanks so much for all your help.
Also @JCT: and @MikeJ: thanks much. This was very helpful.
Soonergrunt
@Linda Featheringill: You’re not seeing their visceral need to say it. It’s killing them that they can’t.
It has nothing to do with anything, and it has nothing to do with the fact that everybody knows he’s a black man–it has to do with them hating the fact that a black man sits behind the Resolute desk and makes decisions and issues orders and directives as if he thinks a nigger actually belongs there, and not working in the garden or the kitchen where he belongs. They save the really vile (and thinly veiled) shit for his wife and daughters.
trollhattan
@Darnell From LA:
Considering #3 looks to have been entirely converted to porcelain and thus, would shatter in the event of any “Newtoning” I’m voting “A)”.
There’s drugs for that, you know.
Darnell From LA
@slightly-peeved: Ha! That’s very funny.
Someone should see if Newt has a half a million dollar credit line with Raytheon!
the fake fake al
The convention is August 27, 2012, 10 long months from now, Newt will never, ever make it that far. Besides, his grift is not to be president but to be rejected by Washington insiders as an “outsider” and turn that into millions. So he needs to ride this wave til it crests, then bail and claim GOP insiders are afraid of his pure ideas. As a grifter, he is a genius.
David in NY
@slightly-peeved: Heh.
harlana
isn’t it glorious? :)
Zach
Love all this talk about how it’s too late for a new GOP candidate because you need time to get organization on the ground. How much organization did Newt have 2 weeks ago? I doubt he even has any today… almost certainly he’s just funneling his increased donations into his video production company to finance commercials.
harlana
@mclaren:
and we get to watch them smash each other’s glass houses into little bits of sand. like i said, it’s fabulous
harlana
it would be sweet 90’s revenge to watch Obama clean Newt’s clock
and wouldn’t it be great if they dug up a woman or two who had given Newt bj’s over the years? (i apologize for the visual)
MikeBoyScout
Popcorn stock is SOARING!
David in NY
@Zach:
Think this one will be settled only by the voting. We’ll see if anything’s changed about the need for a ground game in Iowa.
David in NY
Well, won’t let me edit, but to add: Newt’s lead isn’t a lead in actual votes, it’s only a lead in the polls, and the received wisdom is that the two are not the same, and that a good ground game can bring someone from behind, and the lack of one can lose.
Bill Arnold
@schrodinger’s cat:
Is it possible that the fan is too loud, or is it related to hard drive activity?
(Old laptops often have fan problems. (Which can just be dust/cat hair clogs, or degraded contact between the heat sink and the CPU.))
Odie Hugh Manatee
@schrodinger’s cat:
If you would like to play around with your Dell a bit, Dell has excellent instructions (with pictures) on their site for taking your laptop completely apart. I repair laptops and Dell are my favorite because of the excellent documentation on their site. The 700m uses a PATA (ATA6) hard drive so you will need one of those for a direct replacement. If you are looking for better performance then get a 7,200 RPM drive. It uses a bit more power (about 10% on average) but really improves program and OS loading times.
As you say, the noise could also be a fan going out so taking it apart to check them is not too hard to do. Just make sure you have a very small set of screwdrivers (I use a Jeweler’s set) so you don’t mess up the screw heads. Taking a laptop apart for the first time can seem intimidating but once you do it you will probably find that it’s really no big deal as long as you have a clean work area and keep the screws sorted to their locations. Set the laptop on a white towel while taking it apart, you’ll appreciate the contrast!
@Soonergrunt:
Many laptop fans are located in easy to access areas because they are mounted on heat pipe systems, allowing them to be located where the manufacturer wants. Some manufacturers, like Dell on their high end laptops, make many of their laptop fans easy to access for cleaning and replacement. One other thing I would recommend schrodinger’s cat doing (if it hasn’t been done already) would be to blow compressed air backwards through the cooling system (into the hot air exhaust(s) to see if it dislodges anything that might be hitting the fan blades.
I’ve had a few laptops come in that had human hair tangled in the fans and making rubbing noises. The hair had wrapped up around the fan hub and while you wouldn’t think this would make much noise, it did. Pulling the hair out solved the problem every time.
feebog
@ David in NY:
I agree with you completely. Ron Paul has a solid grassroots organization in Iowa and will make a solid showing as a result. Newt just opened his first office about 10 days ago. Romney is also playing catch up. I would not be surprised to see a 25/25/25 split with LaBachman an Perry picking up the shreds of the last 24%. Groundgame does count for something, and up until now, Newt has developed very little groundgame in Iowa or New Hampshire.
PIGL
@Shirt: kinda like throwing themselves an anvil.
Darnell From LA
@the fake fake al: This is why the GOP is terrified of Lil’ Newton-Leroy! If he ends up sitting on enough delegates to be the presumptive nominee and then implodes prior to being nominated, then OH-MY-MY! That will be one messy, yet hilarious GOP convention!
An out of control convention? Paul/Bachmann ticket? Or perhaps Santorum will get on the Mitt?
Cain
That’s what she said.
I’ll be here all week. thank you very much, seattle!
pattonbt
Newt, like all R presidential candidates. Doesn’t actually want to be president, they just want the perks of being president.
They want to travel around in first class. Get called “The Leader of the Free World”. Have people follow their every word and move.
But the problem is, it is a cash poor job (while in it), and it actually requires, dare I say, work.
So Newt is probably totally conflicted right now. He wants to ride the grift train as long as he can, but he probably doesn’t want to actually do what is necessary to win the job (or actually do the job). So what’s a grifter gonna do?
Soonergrunt
@Cain: But it’s Wednesday, so aren’t you in Secaucus?
:)
Jim Moran
Dear ABL,
Wow, Gene Marks article is utterly clueless. A very good reponse on your part.
Interesting that you went to Jenks. I went to Chestnut Hill Academy with Gene Marks from kindergarten through fourth or fifth grade. I think he went on to Masterman or Central, but he benefited from a privileged and expensive private school elementary education.
He was a nice enough guy back then, but I don’t like this at all. It is very easy to subconsciously (and in some cases willfully) overlook the privilege that comes with being white and middle-class in this country. I haven’t seen Gene in 30 or so years, I hope this is case of subconsciously overlooking it.