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“What is the greatest joy in life? To crush your enemies… “ Dana Milbank jeers at the Republicans wringing their hands over “Kamikaze Gingrich“:
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… The former House speaker has almost no public support. In New Hampshire, 90.6 percent of Republican primary voters cast their ballots for somebody else. In Iowa, 86.7 percent of caucus-goers chose somebody else. In the two states combined, Gingrich received fewer than 40,000 votes – a tally that wouldn’t even land him on some city councils.
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But there are 5 million reasons Republicans have to fear Gingrich. That’s the number of dollars billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson gave to a pro-Gingrich super PAC — the largest contribution to a candidate’s cause in U.S. history. This allowed the Winning our Future PAC to buy $3.4 million worth of ads in South Carolina — enough to saturate the state with poisonous messages about Mitt Romney…
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Liberals have complained for two years about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which made such unlimited contributions possible. But Republicans on Capitol Hill resisted attempts to limit the damage of the decision — and now Gingrich is teaching them the consequences of their own actions….
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Romney, on his way to South Carolina, complained explicitly that Gingrich was against “free enterprise.” Romney has it wrong. Gingrich’s attacks on him are the very essence of free enterprise: They’re helped by campaign finance laws that sell elections to the highest bidder. For those Republicans who thought that unlimited political contributions would be a good thing for their party, it’s a delicious irony that a casino billionaire is using his money to underwrite a populist assault on the GOP front-runner.
I never thought I’d say this, but anything that bloodies up the eventual GOP nominee can only be Good News for President Obama, so: Go forth, Professor Gingrich, to slaughter!
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@efgoldman:
Hmmm. What metal was it that made that loud “CLANG” whenever someone tried to say “the sheriff’s a nCLANG!r”? Romney seems to have had a cochlear implant made of that stuff.
LongHairedWeirdo
We also need them to have a reason to want to change Citizens United… it looks like it’ll take a Constitutional Amendment to do that.
So, yeah, I’m good if Citizens United starts to make them bleed. And I’d be awfully happy if it ends up costing them the election indirectly.
Soonergrunt
I knew something very much like this would happen when Gingrich announced he was running. I knew there was no way in hell that he’d ever get the nomination, and that being Newt, and having no grace AT ALL, that he would go scorched-earth on the likely nominee. I vacillated between Romney and Perry as that likely nominee, but I never once questioned the likelihood that Gingrich would be the sore loser. He just doesn’t know any other way to lose. Or to win, for that matter.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie @ Top:
Newt: The Grich Who Stole South Carolina From Dog On Car.
.
amk
I knew talking about rethugs will turn you into a dyslexic one day.
Spaghetti Lee
but anything that bloodies up the eventual GOP nominee can only be Good News for President Obama, so: Go forth, Professor Gingrich, to slaughter!
My thoughts exactly. If Newt ends up torpedoing R-Money for good, it’ll be the best thing he’s ever done for this country.
JGabriel
Soonergrunt:
Well, I have to confess, I did NOT see this coming. I figured Wants A Dog was on a book tour, wasn’t really trying for the nomination, and, being a former Speaker of the House, would graciously promote the GOP winner (for a 6-7 figure consulting fee, of course).
I only saw this as a potential outcome once Mitt went scorched earth on Newt’s ass, and even then I doubted Newt could get the money for it.
So if you saw this coming before Iowa — kudos, man. That’s way better prognosticatin’ than I gots.
.
amk
Per PPP y’day, mittens margin is reduced to single digit in SC. Hope noot continues to stick around till the bitter end just like huckster did in 2008.
Geoduck
@efgoldman:
Just to be pedantic, it was a church bell ringing, in only one scene, when one guy tried to say the n-word. People seem to have gotten the idea it was a running gag throughout Blazing Saddles, when in fact the movie tosses around the uncensored word with gleeful abandon. Something only vintage Mel Brooks could do and make hilariously funny.
But anyway. Getting back on topic, I agree with hoping Gingrich goes all the way, and it forces the high-level GOPers to re-think Citizens United.
techno
Oh, this is wonderful! I have watched the 28-minute version of the When Mitt Romney Came to Town TWICE and I am astonished at what a good documentary it is. And it is already all over the Internet so this genie cannot be stuffed back into any bottle.
In some ways more interesting is Rick Perry who has chimed in on the difference between venture and vulture capitalism and claims that all good Texans know the distinctions. He may be right for those who have commented on this include such wonderful Texans as Wright Pattman, James Hightower, and Molly Ivans.
The documentary makes the case in the first three minutes that there is a good “free enterprise” and a wicked version. And that Mitt is a classic example of the wicked version. Ever since I read in Veblen his distinction between business and industry, I have been looking at the history of this class analysis and trust me, I goes back well before the founding of the USA.
I don’t believe the Democrats could ever have done this. Most of them are like Obama—terrified that he might offend the Democrat’s new best friends on Wall Street. The ones that do have a critique of capitalism put all enterprise into this ball of evil and so mostly ignore the profound differences that exist within the definitions of “free enterprise.”
Spaghetti Lee
One thing I wonder about (I forget where I first read this, TPM maybe), which goes into conspiracy-theory territory I normally don’t like, but it is Newt we’re talking about, is there a chance he’s playing a long game to help Mitt Romney? By which I mean, given that Newt’s defining characteristic is ridiculousness, is this an attempt to make any Bain-themed criticism of Romney seem ridiculous and cliche when it’s time for the Democrats to actually start? Will Dana Milibank write a column 6 months from now saying that Obama should stop criticizing Romney on the Bain business because “Gingrich tried and failed to make it stick, so the American people obviously aren’t in a mood for class war blah blah blah”? Or could that all happen by accident? I’m probably being too paranoid, but if there’s one thing Republicans are good at, it’s manipulating the language.
Cacti
Gnewt sucks at getting people to like him as a candidate…
But when it comes to the politics of personal destruction, he’s a f**king Shaolin master.
chrome agnomen
the dick whisperer can jeer all he wants; he’s still a two-faced coh-suher. he’d be beside himself in ecstasy if it were obama he was jeering at.
Yutsano
@Spaghetti Lee:
The only way it will be for good at this point is if they keep forcing Willard into pluralities. If they keep him from locking up the nomination before the convention, then it will go to a brokered convention and all bets are off.
Jebediah
@techno:
You may be the oldest commenter here. Congrats!
Anniecat45
Also, of course, the Republicans created and fed the Newt-monster, so it’s poetic justice that now his poison is hurting them.
Geoduck
@Spaghetti Lee:
Not a chance. Newt’s ego is far too massive to deliberately agree to play the fool.
techno
@Jebediah: Sorry, even though I am getting older, forgetting the “t” is more a late-night blunder.
Redshift
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Disclosure rules on ads and such don’t require an amendment, and Republican obstructionism is the only reason they haven’t been enacted already. I believe even the SC in their decision assumed those would happen as part of their justification for some of the more ludicrous claims about how it wouldn’t cause any harm.
Hill Dweller
The Obama campaign is going to play up the fact that Romney, despite already having all the money he would ever need, decided to start looting companies after leaving Harvard. Conversely, Obama, deeply in debt but in a position to write his own ticket, decided to try and help people whose lives had been ruined by people like Romney, instead of taking the money.
They should also point out Romney is running around singing the praises of capitalism, but won’t be honest about his own actions. He seems ashamed to admit his only goal was to make as much money as possible, by any means necessary.
Oh, and where are your taxes, Willard?
freelancer
Outside of Oppenheimer, I’ve only heard once, a comparable deathwish with such lust:
At least Robbie O as well as the Rohirrim had noble causes in mind, and Oppenheimer was lamenting, profoundly. Fuck Gingrich, let him self-immolate.
Jebediah
@techno:
For me, the wages of aging seems to be the inability to resist typo-based jokes.
Yutsano
@Hill Dweller:
Only little people pay taxes. Duh.
/Leona
Karl The Crap Blog Detective
UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH WHEEEE!
freelancer
@Yutsano:
It’s amazing though. You do realize that Romney would probably consider Michael Eisner as well as the fabled Duke Brothers “little people”, right? He’s THAT goddamned well-off!
Scrooge McDuck weeps as he faceplants into his vault filled with gold coins.
Arundel
Why can’t Charlie Pierce be my dad, or rather a cool uncle I could talk to and hug occasionally in the face of crazy?
/random thought
(and my dad is actually quite the cool liberal, must say)
Sometimes we need a hug, is all I’m saying. Hippie liberal!
Origuy
@freelancer:
Reminds me of this cartoon from the other day.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Gingrich as Kali?
Viva BrisVegas
If corporations are people, doesn’t that make Romney a murderer?
JoeShabadoo
Newt is sending a simple message: Don’t fuck with Gingrich.
Romney or his pac launched some negative ads at Newt and he is pissed. Newt wants to make sure that everyone know not mess with him in the future. Next time he plays his con people will be scared of him because they know the consequences of fucking with him.
Rita R.
@Viva BrisVegas:
Yes, though he’s trying to make us believe it’s more like sugar dadddy.
Besides, he told us he only kills “small varmints.”
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Viva BrisVegas: Or, perhaps, the world’s blandest Viking?
isildur
I’m a little disappointed that the headline said ‘gingrich the destroyer’ and the thread contains not a single Gozer reference.
I mean come on: this is the perfect opportunity to compare Newt to the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and we’re just letting it slip past us.
CHOOSE AND PERISH.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
I get the feeling that if Noot was exterminated in a similar fashion, he’d leave behind a much nastier mess than dear Mr. Stay Puft.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
One other thing on the Romney as Viking line:
Imagine Willard as Olaf in Clerks: “Would you like to making fuck? BERZERKER!”
Hey Willard, Metal Face!
You’re all welcome.
MikeJ
@isildur: He reminds me more of a large and moving torg. Many shuvs and zuuls will regret running against him.
amk
noot’s ‘censure’ notwithstanding, his super pac doubles down on its ads and asks willard ‘show us where we are wrong’.
Go noot.
Waldo
Only a visit to Newt from the ghost of Ronald Reagan can save them now. Gotta like those odds.
Boo
Sorry, but I do not share the glee here. Romney will be the nominee, The Super PACs will crash upon Obama in the General. If he loses the GOP will celebrate venerating the Citizen’s United ruling like its the word of God, if Romney loses, the GOP will just blame Romney for not being pure enough. Citizen’s United is here to stay.
Yevgraf
@isildur:
Yeah, I was thumping the “Newt as the destroying embodiment of Gozer” drum last week. I’m still thinking, though, that Gozer is the Teatard Nation and that Citizens United is the Keymaster-Gatekeeper pairing.
Mino
Interesting that Newt’s sugardaddy is Nevadan. I remember Samara being excoriated for suggesting this might be the way Nevadans would receive Mittens.
And I wonder how many folks, crushed by Bain and unable to do anything about it, tonight are thinking, There is small justice in the world.
dan
Just saw a clip on the Today Show from a Romney speach in SC where he was talking about the economy and he said, and I quote, “oh, and by the way, I care about poor people.”
Wow.
Jim C
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: Thank you for my first laugh of the day.
amk
@dan: willard is being true to his class – poor are almost an afterthought with his type.
Waldo
@dan: Yes, and some of his best friends are middle class.
Samara Morgan
Why does “Casino Billionaire” hate Willard?
Is he a WEC (white evangelical christian)?
WereBear
It has the inevitability of Greek drama; evil always sows the seeds of its own destruction.
Samara Morgan
why does “cas1no bill1onaire” hate mormons?
is he a WEC?
5x5
@dan: GHW Bush, “Message: I care.”
Samara Morgan
did y’all know over 100 evangelical preachers plus spouses are meeting in texas to come up with a not-romney?
amk
politico whacks huntsman with a hit piece ‘egad, he speaks chinese’.
Fuck’em.
Cat Lady
@Samara Morgan:
Sheldon Adelson is a Jewish weapons grade sonofabitch from Boston. My old law firm represented him against his family years ago, and his family story is a mashup of the Harkonnens, a Eugene O’Neill play and a Jacquelin Susann novel. I’ve been watching this go down and believe that it’s personal with Mitt going back to Mitt’s reign of error in Mass.
Samara Morgan
@Cat Lady: ty, CL.
AMG i was soooooo wrong.
Sheldon is an AmerIsraeli.
hahahahaha!
perhaps he is offended by mormon dead baptisms.
;)
Mino
S&P’s has downgraded the debt of France and 8 other European countries. Germany, they left alone.
Cat Lady
@Samara Morgan:
Bill Maher had a very funny segment on dead baptizing grandma last night. There’s a shit storm waiting for Romney about his weird beliefs, and the fact that he’s Mexican American and his grandfather had 5 wives in Mexico. Too many secrets about his beliefs, his taxes and his family for the program to run without him blue screening. Popcorn!
Mino
@Cat Lady: My best friend of 30 years is Morman, and a wild-assed liberal, too, after recovering from Reaganitis. I suspect I’ve been baptized by proxy, but haven’t wanted to ask.
catclub
@Waldo: Probably surgeons earning close to half-million a year middle class.
Cat Lady
@Mino: Well, you’ve got that going for you. You can’t have too many baptisms if you want to hedge your bets.
Samara Morgan
@Mino: i grew up with mormons. some of my best friends are mormons, like Young Brigham (a pseudonym). I have dated mormon boiz. I even thought about marrying a mormon once.
But their beliefs are anti-mainstream and fucking weird.
and i’ll say this. A mormon CANNOT win the presidential election in Colorado in 2012.
we know too much about them.
WereBear
That was hilarious! We swapped our services around so we could have HBO for the election season.
Triassic Sands
It’s really too bad that Gingrich isn’t a suitcase nuke capable of destroying the whole Republican Party.
If there was ever an entity in desperate need of “creative destruction,” the GOP is it.
OK, Newt isn’t a suitcase anything. How about a steamer trunk nuke?
WereBear
When things are going well, Republicans didn’t attack each other; the view was that there was plenty to go around.
But in times of scarcity, the conservative “zero sum” brain decides that if they throw someone else out of the boat, these skimpy rations will go further. Now that the process has begun, I expect to see a lot more racing after the short term gains; they only think short term at this point.
Mino
Hah. I look at the Little Green Football blog now and again to see what relatively sane Republican-lites are saying. A lot of their threads run 300-400 comments. The one discussing Man from Bain had 56 comments. Shellshock, I guess.
bnmng
@Spaghetti Lee: I think he’s handing ammunition to the Democrats in order to make Romney clearly unelectable.
cmorenc
@Samara Morgan:
Every year, I go on a pilgrimage to Salt Lake City – to ski at the shrine of skiing, Alta. Catch a deep powder day at Alta, now there’s a religious experience. But I digress.
Every year, there are two non-skiing parts to that pilgrimage:
1) a meal at the greatest Mexican restaurant on the planet, the Red Iguana on N. Temple Avenue;
2) a visit to the Mormon Church complex at Temple Square, which isn’t complete without both watching the 20-minute movie about young Joseph Smith discovering the golden tablets, and also taking the 45-minute tour of the complex with a couple of the cheerfully sincere, often stunningly beautiful 20-yo Mormon women tourguides. The Mormons are superb at knowing how to make their belief system seem superficially attractive, but not to worry: they’re not so successfully convincing to seriously tempt most rationally well-grounded persons into considering joining. The statue in the lower floor of the visitor center of Adam and Eve wearing togas is too delicious to be missed; just remember where you are and wait until you’re outside the complex to laugh or make clever comments. And while it is acceptable form and fun to gently prod your earnestly sincere lovely tourguides with a few gently skeptical questions (they’re well-trained to expect it and be prepared for it)…remember they’re true believers, and it’s both poor form and rude to actually try to pop the bubble of their belief system. Lots more interesting anyway to get them wound up a bit sincerely trying to answer your questions and let them reveal some of the rather odd side passageways of their belief system.
3) BONUS SIDE-TRIP: If the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice schedule is compatible with the visit, non-Mormons are usually welcome to sit in and listen for free. The acoustics in the Mormon Tabernacle are terrific, and the seating is comfortable. (It’s the Mormon Temple, not the Tabernacle, which is strictly off-limits to non-Mormons).
chopper
@Spaghetti Lee:
lol. it’s like the one bank robber telling the other ‘shoot me in the leg so the cops won’t think it’s me’ and the other guy points the gun at his head.
becca
BTW- why aren’t Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia more often referred to as their oh-so-appropriate acronym?
RATS.
Regnad Kcin
@23
I must respectfully disagree:
With the GOP having all the courage of the Sergeant and his hapless Police
SiubhanDuinne
@Jebediah:
And yet you overlook the most obvious typo in this thred.
SiubhanDuinne
@Regnad Kcin:
Amazing, I was JUST going to quote that!
SiubhanDuinne
@dan:
“and by the way?” “By the fucking WAY??”
I started out feeling just meh about Mitt but every time he opens his mouth I hate him a little more. We’re up to heat of 837 suns territory, and growing.
muddy
@cmorenc: I toured there 30 years ago, well maybe more. There was a giant statue of Jesus that was very nice, and I was liking how it was holding the arms down and outward as though reaching to hug a child.
Then the tour guide told us that the statue had been modeled first with the arms uplifted, and one morning the artist came and found the arms down in that position. They said then the artist knew instantly that it was a much more loving Jesus that way, and so they kept it just like that.
My appreciation for the thing was ruined. As an artist, I know that the statue is not going to change position like that without breaking off or having big lumps sticking out. To say nothing of the armature. It sucked that they had to ruin a very nice statue with a gigantic lie.
I figure if Jesus really wanted to change the position of his statue he would have it give them the finger. Assholes.
xian
@Regnad Kcin: Men of Harlech for the win!
BrianM
@cmorenc:
Ah, The Red Iguana. Makes me regret now that I decided last week not to submit to that conference being held in SLC.
A shame that The Blue Iguana is always in closer walking distance to where I am.