Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

You are here: Home / Let Me See What Spring is Like on Jupiter and Mars

Let Me See What Spring is Like on Jupiter and Mars

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He really is a piece of work:

In a speech pandering to Florida’s aerospace community ahead of the state’s primary, GOP contender Newt Gingrich made a bold pledge to establish a permanent U.S. base on the moon “by the end of my second term.” He further promised that if he becomes president, America will get a man to Mars “in a remarkably short time.”

As I joked on twitter, liberals should seek a compromise and agree to permanently station Newt Gingrich on the moon.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  2. 2.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Newt’s already vulnerable to criticism that he spends too much time at the Lunar White House.

  3. 3.

    cmorenc

    It’s easy and surprisingly cheap to send a man to Mars. What’s vastly more expensive is a mission sending a man to Mars and successfully getting him back alive. But if you don’t care about that caveat, it’s surprisingly cheap to do.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    If Newt becomes President, the Earth will be uninhabitable, so all things considered, I support this idea.

  5. 5.

    Benjamin Franklin

    John Cole is fired up. What is this, five threads?

    “A remarkably short time” to Gingorich must be the length of one marriage.

  7. 7.

    Wag

    Does onyone else remember the old sci-fi movie “Journey to the far side of the sun”? There was a mirror image of the earth there,except everything good was bad, and vice versa. I would like to send Bad Newt there, and they could send Good Newt here. That way he goes very far away, and we might get some fun bombast from a good guy.

    Unless our Newt is already the Good Newt….

  8. 8.

    kdaug

    Wow – New buttons now? ABC Checkmark and something that looks like a resize? Will investigate.

    ETA: Ah, a giant spellchecker and an even giant-er comment window.

    Still, well done and appreciated.

  10. 10.

    ImJohnGalt

    OT, but did anyone else wonder if JC posting his mug on the site would suddenly summon Darrell?

    I know, I’m dating myself here.

  11. 11.

    BGinCHI

    Any chance Newt just wants a monopoly on lunar cheese?

    I’m assuming most of what he knows about astronomy comes from cartoons.

  15. 15.

    El Cid

    I think first it should be stipulated that Newt would fly on Free Market rockets with no big government regulations on either the craft or the structure on the Moon. And if he wants to bring along additional consorts, he has to pay for their transport and at least enough food of some sort to survive a year or so.

  16. 16.

    jacy

    I thought Obama already had a time-travel base on Mars, so as to better facilitate the changing of his birth certificate. Or am I misremembering?

  17. 17.

    Brachiator

    In a speech pandering to Florida’s aerospace community ahead of the state’s primary, GOP contender Newt Gingrich made a bold pledge to establish a permanent U.S. base on the moon “by the end of my second term.”

    Sheer lunacy.

    And what balls. Notice how Newt throws in some shit about his “second term.”

  18. 18.

    Violet

    Newt Gingrich is an incredibly entertaining candidate to watch. Crazy, evil motherfucker, but entertaining.

    Don’t forget, there’s another CNN debate tomorrow night! Let’s hope it comes complete with full audience participation!

  19. 19.

    Maude

    Who is going to pay for these adventures in space? Private funding?
    Bush was going to put a man on Mars. We have found the candidate for that mission.
    He is truly crazy.

  20. 20.

    scav

    He’s down to reusing old GWB retreads, isn’t he? To the MOON! To MARS! Although I guess the Tourism tie-in is his own personal spin.

  22. 22.

    Yevgraf

    The question that comes to my mind is simple.

    Why do it?

    It would never be self sustaining. It would be expensive, pointless, would yield pretty much nothing in the way of new science, and would endanger the sort of chin jutting “manly man” USAF types who would be stupid enough to volunteer for the glory.

  26. 26.

    feebog

    This is the laugher:

    GOP contender Newt Gingrich made a bold pledge to establish a permanent U.S. base on the moon “by the end of my second term.

    In his own mind he not only has the nomination and election sewn up for 2012, he is a sure bet for re-election in 2016. By that time of course, he will have magically balanced the budget by cutting all millionaires taxes to zero percent, and everyone will have a pony, whether they want one or not.

  29. 29.

    Warren Terra

    I realize that the citizens of Florida hear about Manned Spaceflight and think: good-paying jobs in Florida but honestly I’d almost rather they create good-paying jobs literally burning money, instead of metaphorically. I love space science, but it’s got damn-all to do with the Tinned Monkey Project. Manned spaceflight hasn’t accomplished anything of note in forty years now – i.e. not since they returned samples from the moon, a mission that we could now do better with robots in any case. Manned spaceflight also hasn’t really become better or easier in those forty years. A serious effort towards the colonization of space would take place entirely here on the earth, researching lift technologies, biosphere generation, and automated resource extraction. Meat On The Moon is utterly pointless unless we can give the colonists some hope of sustaining themselves and/or something to do while they’re up there, and we’re not even close.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    @scav: I made phone calls for Kerry and I discovered that Bush’s Mars comments were pretty powerful. We were going to create millions and millions of jobs and we’d live happily ever after. Although I think there is a saying about fool me once, ah, never mind..Bush said that also, too.

  35. 35.

    Quicksand

    Yeah, it sounds good until a giant nuclear waste explosion knocks the moon out of its orbit, setting it adrift in outer space with all the permanent base inhabitants still on board. Like what happened 13 years ago.

  36. 36.

    Mike in NC

    @Yevgraf:

    It would be expensive, pointless, would yield pretty much nothing

    Kind of like invading Iraq, isn’t it? But Newt’s a Big Thinker and a Very Serious Person, and it would be rude to interrupt him.

  39. 39.

    jnfr

    I actually joined Twitter first to follow the Mars Rovers. I don’t want to send Gingrich to Mars. Those little rover fellows are too sweet to subject to that kind of poop.

  40. 40.

    Warren Terra

    @Scott:
    Yup. Gingrich is notable for his contributions to bad Science Fiction (I say this as an enthusiastic fan of good science fiction, and as someone who cheerfully reads plenty of mediocre science fiction), and I’d fully expect that he is conversant with Heinlein’s works – especially The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, in which (as I recall from reading it twenty years ago) a moon colony is effortlessly not merely viable but enormously productive, plural marriages are common, eminent men enjoy the favors of nubile young women (this may be more a feature of other, still later Heinlein – where it includes incest), and a technology-enabled free-market libertarian revolution on the moon easily succeeds in overthrowing the small-minded authoritarian government bureaucrats.

  41. 41.

    Warren Terra

    Hmph. Made a comment about the Heinlein-Newt connection, and apparently the word “ince$t” gets your comment Moderated. Surely people don’t advertise using that word?

  42. 42.

    Tim C.

    I swear by the Flying Spaghetti Monster I am just so effing tired of Republicans trying to grab a JFK moment when everything Warren Terra said is self-evidently true. Yes, we need a crash R&D program, but we need it in renewable energy, in carbon capture, in birth control, in a dozen other places where we can do some real good in the world. An aggressive remote probe program would be the best way to do the science.

    On the other hand, I dreamed of being an astronaut when I was a kid, a dream that millions of Americans share. So I can understand the temptation on this one.

    Also too, remember when Bush said we were going back to to the moon and put off all the hard choices and big costs till 2009?

  44. 44.

    Roger Moore

    @Warren Terra:

    Surely people don’t advertise using that word?

    Rule 34, dude. You don’t want to know what kind of sick stuff people look for on the internet, and that draws advertisers who want to attract them.

  45. 45.

    Chris

    @Linkmeister:

    All due respect, John, but don’t you think the moon is a little too close? Mars might be more beneficial to the rest of us.

    What did the Martians ever do to you?

  46. 46.

    trollhattan

    Thus, is born the Gingrich as Chuck Norris meme.

    On his first day in office, Preznit Newt will count to infinity. Twice.

  47. 47.

    Chris

    @Maude:

    Who is going to pay for these adventures in space? Private funding?

    Funny, isn’t it? The first people to put a man in space were the Marxist-Leninist Government of the USSR. Second were the then-Keynesian Government of the United States. The vaunted private sector didn’t get around to it until forty years later.

  50. 50.

    Yevgraf

    @Quicksand:

    Yeah, it sounds good until a giant nuclear waste explosion knocks the moon out of its orbit, setting it adrift in outer space with all the permanent base inhabitants still on board. Like what happened 13 years ago.

    Sweet 1999 reference.

    I always wondered how they kept their low-grav lunar flyers aloft after all those Space Brits got carried away.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @Tim C.:

    Yes, we need a crash R&D program, but we need it in renewable energy, in carbon capture, in birth control, in a dozen other places where we can do some real good in the world.

    We don’t need a crash program in birth control R&D. Yes, a male version of the pill would be great, and more options would never hurt, but the ones available now are good enough. In many countries where birth control is widely available and socially acceptable, the birth rate has dropped to below replacement level. What we need more than anything else an advertising and distribution campaign to expand the areas where it’s available and acceptable to the whole planet.

  53. 53.

    The Dangerman

    He further promised that if he becomes president, America will get a man to Mars “in a remarkably short time.”

    I may be mistaken, but getting a person to Mars isn’t the trick; getting them back, however, could be a lot of fun.

    Unless they are going to stay, in which case, send Newt and all his concubines (assuming there’s room for them … on Mars).

    Spellcheck? Hot diggety dog; Newt’s a fucking asshole (awsome, SC only fired on diggety).

    Edit: SHIT! #3 beat me to my point; I was more interested in playing with Spellcheck than reading comments.

  54. 54.

    schlmizel

    Why won’t one of the media assclowns ask where the money for this would come from? Perhaps throwing more old folks off Medicare and social security?

    I love the space program but until these butchers agree we can tax the 1% to pay for it they are lying.

  55. 55.

    Warren Terra

    @Martin:
    Abortion is technically a form of birth control. The inability to make distinctions within “birth control” may be part of why Santorum doesn’t feel embarrassed about opposing birth control.

  57. 57.

    dmsilev

    @Chris:

    What did the Martians ever do to you?

    Well, there was that abortive invasion of England back in the late 19th century. And they’ve shot down quite a few of our retaliatory strikes robotic probes since then. So, let’s just call this an escalation. If they don’t surrender after we send them Newt, I propose sending Dick Cheney next.

  58. 58.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Quicksand:

    Yeah, it sounds good until a giant nuclear waste explosion knocks the moon out of its orbit, setting it adrift in outer space with all the permanent base inhabitants still on board.

    Don’t worry about the base personnel. If we lose the moon, the earth will become uninhabitable anyway and we’ll all die.

  59. 59.

    Tim C.

    @Martin:
    Now that I’ve thrown up in my mouth a little…

    Ahem… I was talking about ways to make it easier for not just women in developed nations to be selective about how many children they have but also women in the developing world to do so.

    Seriously…. that TPM article is real?

  60. 60.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @ImJohnGalt:

    OT, but did anyone else wonder if JC posting his mug on the site would suddenly summon Darrell?

    I’d prefer that it summon Stormy70.

  63. 63.

    Chris

    @dmsilev:

    You mean the aborted invasion that spawned a documentary starring Tom Cruise?

    Yeah, I’ve changed my mind. Kill them all.

  66. 66.

    cmorenc

    @Tim C.:

    Ahem… I was talking about ways to make it easier for not just women in developed nations to be selective about how many children they have but also women in the developing world to do so.

    Actually, Newt’s already got the problem solved about how to have all the sex you want with all the women you want without either having to worry about getting the women pregnant, and it doesn’t require any birth control by either men or women. Women give men blowjobs. Worked for Newt!

  68. 68.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    As much as I want both of those things, there is no Republican alive today that would even try to make that happen.

  71. 71.

    harlana

    @cmorenc: i think it was Marianne or one of his other gfs he was cheating with said Newt liked bj’s also so he could say (technically) “I did not have sex with that woman” – ironic, ain’t it?

  72. 72.

    Martin

    @Tim C.: Of course that article is real – and we’re finally able to piece together the OK legislation to understand the existential threat Oklahomans face. Apparently, after the lesbians there are done recruiting in the girls bathrooms in the high schools, they have sex, have a Sharia Law abortion, and then use the fetus to make tacos.

    You can’t tackle this problem from just one direction, you have to attack it on all fronts.

  74. 74.

    jheartney

    @cmorenc: It’s even cheaper if you don’t worry about them arriving at Mars alive. Then you can just skip all the radiation shielding. Anyway, if we’re sending Newt and/or Cheney, both have ample body shielding already.

    BTW, I thought Dubya already started some sort of men-on-Mars project. Shouldn’t it have made some progress by now?

  75. 75.

    Satanicpanic

    Newt is just proposing this so he can hand off a wildly expensive and pointless program to the Democrat unlucky enough to follow him as Preznit. Then House Republicans and Fox can whine about what a waste of money it is.

  76. 76.

    Origuy

    What we need more than anything else an advertising and distribution campaign to expand the areas where it’s available and acceptable to the whole planet.

    It would help if the celibate leader of one of the world’s largest religions would STFU about birth control.

  77. 77.

    quannlace

    Wow, Like all his fans say,,,,Newt really is a man of big ideas. Big DUMB ideas.
    Didn’t Dubya promise a mission to Mars in one of his State of the U speeches?

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    @Origuy:

    It would help if the celibate leader of one of the world’s largest religions would STFU about birth control.

    It would help if religious nuts of all stripes would STFU about birth control. Actually, it would help if religious nuts of all stripes would STFU in general. Mammon worshipers more than anyone else.

  81. 81.

    Tony J

    Newt wants a manned base on the Moon within a decade and a Mars mission soon afterwards? Sweet.

    All it would take is the diversion of 50% of GDP to a crash program dusting off and realising all the funky plans Space Tech engineers have been working on for decades to get the personnel boosted to Luna and supplied with the revolutionary materials and equipment they’d need to survive while they build the launch-site for the Mars mission, followed by 15% to 20% of GDP for a generation or two aimed at producing enough highly specialised engineers to keep the logistical ends of both missions functioning.

    Oh, and a lot of the nuclear material currently used for bombs would have to be diverted to powering the fast transport required to get all of that up and running.

    Sounds great. I wish him luck.

  82. 82.

    Tony J

    Bizarre. Not a single mention of Lust Drugs or Gambling and I’m in moderation?

    FYWP. You’re letting Cole down.

  87. 87.

    Tony J

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    No, dude, it’s there. What screed of frustration here would be complete without it?

    Don’t even get me started on the random long-scrolling text problem. That really grinds my gears, and WP can FI for that too.

  88. 88.

    Scamp Dog

    @scav: I may be the only person on the planet to remember this, but GHWB also proposed sending a manned mission to Mars. The results were remarkably similar to those achieved by his son, except they were successfully shoved down the memory hole.

  89. 89.

    Tim C.

    @Scamp Dog:
    I remember, the design was nicknamed “Battlestar Galactica” by the NASA folks who worked on it and they didn’t mean that in the nice way. It was just going to be a gigantic craft constructed in orbit and was basically a non-starter.

  90. 90.

    jonas

    How come Newt’s suddenly in favor of huge, bloated government programs to spend tons and tons of money on a fundamentally pointless project? We all know government spending creates no jobs, and never has. Republicans on my tee-vee have told me so.

    I just don’t get conservatives.

  91. 91.

    virginia

    “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Newt.”

    Such a horse’s ass is he. Let one black hole suck up another.

    His posturing and cynicism leave me giddy.

    Didn’t some tv pundit or pundita mention just this gambit a few days ago? As something that Romney might attempt? I swear I heard it on tv — the unemployed NASA folks along a certain corridor being ready to lap this up, poor things.

  92. 92.

    Mike S.

    About as far fetched as Obama’s recent claim that DoJ is now going seriously investigate mortgage lending/servicing fraud… after 3 years of sitting on their hands.

    Prior to coming to DoJ, both Holder and his #2 both worked for the law firm that wrote the legal justification for MERS. In reality, MERS is a black-hole that was used to destroy property rights: across the country, meaningful records of land ownership no longer exist.

    This blog sits around dissing those on the other side of the aisle (and rightly so), yet it cannot look in the mirror. Sad.

  93. 93.

    Tonal Crow

    What’s the probability that Newt will twit about terraforming Mars within a week of twitting about anthropogenic climate change being a “hoax”? I say P ~= 0.5. You?

  95. 95.

    Lyrebird

    @Martin: Lots of awesome comments here, but I think yours takes the, ummmm, cake? Ew.

    @Tim C.: Energy *transport* should be in there w/renewable energy *generation*, imnsho. Birth control? At least some of the reports I’ve seen from East and South Asia suggest that what really boosts the effectiveness of any/all of the forms is providing women w/the means to earn and keep some control of cash income. (e.g. “egg money”, raising a few pigs/geese, etc)

  100. 100.

    Tim C.

    @Lyrebird:
    Honestly, I was shooting from the hip there a little and mixing metaphors. But yeah, the issue isn’t forms per se, but the distribution and cultural changes to required to improve conditions.

    And yes! Transport and energy storage are a big huge honkin deal.

  101. 101.

    Ferris Valyln

    @Yevgraf:

    Actually, it could be entirely self-sustaining, done properly.

    As for why do it – space development will help the earth

  105. 105.

    Paul in KY

    I think the Calistabot would look right at home on Mars or the Moon. She could wear one of those ‘fascinator’ hats that had cute little antennas.

  108. 108.

    artem1s

    @cathyx:

    I can’t wait to see what he promises us when he comes to Oregon.

    I want a world series ring for the Indians, a Super Bowl appearance for the Browns, and Rocky Colavito back.

    And no, I don’t want King James back…one King in the state is enough and we’re currently trying to get rid of him.

    anyone want to trade a half competent relief legislator for a know-nothing sourpuss, a used Zamboni, and a player to be named later?

  109. 109.

    AA+ Bonds

    Liberals making fun of space exploration is a dumb and shitty thing for liberals to do

    stop fucking doing it

  110. 110.

    AA+ Bonds

    “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon and do these other things . . . not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” –President John F. Kennedy

  111. 111.

    AA+ Bonds

    “Manned space flight is hard and expensive, I’m a big whiny baby when it helps out the Democrats” –Ted Kennedy, a few years before he fucking died

    That’s the arc of liberalism in the U.S.

  112. 112.

    Paul in KY

    @AA+ Bonds: We’re making fun of Newt, because he’s just talking shit when he says this. He knows he has no intention of doing that.

    Lighten up a bit, please.

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