Newt Gingrich: Philandering Failure Is Helpful Example

FAMILY VALUES.... With disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich having spent quite a bit of time this week in the national media -- an oddly frequent occurrence -- Jon Chait raises an observation that often goes overlooked.

On the subject of Gingrich, here's one thing I don't understand. John Edwards' philandering has made him a public pariah, understandably so. But Gingrich's marital behavior was probably even more disgusting. He cheated on his first wife and told her he wanted a divorce while she was recovering from surgery for cancer. He subsequently cheated on his second wife with a much younger aide. It's fairly amazing how Gingrich has managed to avoid any stigma from this. He's just a conservative "ideas guy."

I'd go just a little further, still. Gingrich's scandalous personal life and admitted adultery was concurrent with Gingrich launching an impeachment crusade against Bill Clinton for ... his scandalous personal life and admitted adultery.

Gingrich then proceeded to characterize himself as an ally of the religious right, and started giving tours of Washington's "Godly heritage."

In other words, Gingrich's political work was discredited, his moral standing was discredited, and his scholarship has been discredited. And yet, he remains a go-to guest for major media outlets, and has positioned himself as one of the right's "big thinkers."

When we talk about the bankruptcy of conservatism, Gingrich offers a helpful example.

—Steve Benen 8:55 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (26)

via washingtonmonthly.com

Republicans love to keep their marital failures, McCain, Ensign, Giuliani, and ride them right into the ground. Add to it the farce of their self-proclaimed "moral leadership", it's a laugh. They live by the double standard.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Obamanomics Is Working

"When you take it all together, the response was massive, unprecedented, and ultimately successful," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com (MCO). Even Obama critics like Phil Swagel, assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy under George W. Bush, acknowledge that White House policies have been successful. "They could have done a better job" by spending more of the stimulus on corporate tax cuts to boost hiring and investment, says Swagel, now an economics professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.

"But their economic policies, including the stimulus, have helped move the economy in the right direction."

via businessweek.com

Obamanomics is working. You don't need a poll to know, just look at the markets.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

West Wing Week: VIDEO

Your guide to everything that is happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Glenn Beck : "We're An Entertainment Company"

Who needs facts when you have ratings:

"I could give a flying crap about the political process. We're an entertainment company." -- Glenn Beck

The clown show of Beck, Hannity, Palin and the rest of Fox Noise are unelected egos looking to craft the best boogey man stories they can to keep their followers in fear.

Source: http://www.realitychex.com/

Change You Can Believe In

via realitychex.com

Presidents Obama & Medvedev sign the New START treaty in Prague.

Bush looked in Putin's eyes and did nothing for 8 years. You know the Right is going to have a problem with the reduction of nuclear arms. Peace is not their objective, both foreign and domestic.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

I Thought Fewer Nuclear Weapons Was The Goal?

This is how Republicans used to be:

"[F]or the eight years I was president," Ronald Reagan wrote in his memoirs, "I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind."

This is what is has been reduced to, infantile, dishonest and ignorant:

"A nuclear-free world has been a 60-year dream of the Left, just like socialized health-care. This new policy, like Obama's government-run health program, is a big step in that direction. President Obama thinks we can all hold hands, sing songs, and have peace symbols." - Rudy Giuliani

It used to be a bi-partisan goal to reduce nuclear weapons. Every President since Eisenhower and JFK has tried to reduce the threat. Mocking a 60 year dream for peace?

As Greg Sargent pointed out:

"Someone needs to tell the bookers at the networks that the fact that Rudy Giuliani happened to get photographed walking through the smoke and dust on 9/11 does not give him any authority or credibility on foreign policy and national security issues."

Giuliani is a clown. The only thing that helped him was that Bush was a bigger clown on 9/11.

Source: Washington Monthly

Obama Plays HORSE With Clark Kellogg

via youtube.com

They actually played POTUS. And Obama won. Some of this aired during halftime the other night.

You watch this and you wonder how the "un-American" tags by the opposition resonate with their base? They never watch anything about the guy. They just pass around factless talking points.

Watching a great American playing one of America's great games is nails on a chalk board for the haters.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Gay Cover-Up Must End

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an AP story that says the reason why there were so many male victims is because the priests did not have access to girls as altar servers.

"Here's the tally. As reported in 2004, between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent of the victims were male; in 2005, it stayed the same; in 2006, it dropped to 80 percent; in 2007, it climbed to 82 percent; in 2008, it jumped to 84 percent; and in 2009, it stayed at 84 percent.

In other words, even though priests have less access to males, homosexual priests are molesting them at a higher rate.

It's time to end the gay cover-up once and for all."

via christiannewswire.com

Ephebophilia is rampant in the Catholic church. Fact.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Democratic Party Outraises GOP

The Democratic National Committee raised at least $13 million in the month of March, nearly $2 million more than the Republican National Committee, a Democratic source tells the Huffington Post.

The haul represents a fairly rare victory for the DNC, which traditionally lags behind its GOP counterpart when it comes to raking in donations. A Democrat with the committee pointed to a rejuvenated and enthusiastic Democratic base that is willing to open up their wallets after the passage of health care reform.

via huffingtonpost.com

RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay resigns amid fetish spending scandal, Michael Steele is an intellectual lightweight with zero conservative charisma, your base is skewing towards a mirky, Dark Ages-inspired theocracy that insists on purity tests, now, word is the money is slowing down. People are voting with their wallets.

As I said yesterday, elections are about money. This GOP 2010 midterm victory everyone thinks is a slam dunk looks more and more suspicious every day. This notion that Democratic majorities are in doubt is part of a news cycle used to generate ratings. That said, keep up the good work, Dems and Libs.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

Coburn Keeps It Real

This is the reality Republicans have created for themselves:

"The intention is not to put any one in jail. That makes for good TV news on FOX but that isn’t the intention.... So don’t catch yourself being biased by FOX News." -- Tom Coburn, in response to a woman who said that under the health reform law she could go to jail for not having health insurance.

Good to see a real conservative Republican like Coburn use his traditional values to stop the Fox echo chamber. The old school GOP must be quaking in their boots with the Palinization of the anti-intellect dimwits who think they are Republicans these days. For any two-party system to work, you need quality from both sides. Although I am heavily biased from the Left, principled William F. Buckley Right Wingers must be saddened with what passes for their current platform and leadership.

Source: http://www.realitychex.com/

Court Favors Comcast in F.C.C. ‘Net Neutrality’ Ruling

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, specifically concerned the efforts of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, to slow down customers’ access to a service called BitTorrent, which is used to exchange large video files, most often pirated copies of movies.

via nytimes.com

Not a good decision, but thank Zeus we have Obama in office. "The decision could reinvigorate dormant efforts in Congress to pass a federal law specifically governing net neutrality, a principle generally supported by the Obama Administration."

As with most innovation like radio and TV, the original public band is divided up and auctioned for corporations to exploit. Comcast may want to control the flow of certain sites, but that leads to a dangerous slippery slope. What if Comcast wants a certain election result, they could slow down the traffic of certain politicians' sites according to their agenda. Not a good thing.

"Net neutrality" is what makes the internet so big and innovative and organic. Try to change it purely to make more money for one company is the beginning of the end.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

RNC Chief Of Staff Ken McKay Resigns

"The Republican National Committee's chief of staff resigned under pressure Monday, which Chairman Michael S. Steele described as an effort to reassure wavering donors in the wake of a controversy over its most recent expense accounting.

The resignation of Ken McKay, Steele's highest-ranking aide, is the most drastic in a series of attempts at damage control by the RNC after it was revealed March 29 that the committee had spent $1,900 to entertain young donors at a risqué West Hollywood nightclub. The staff member who authorized the expenditure was fired last week, and the RNC has implemented new spending accountability procedures."

via washingtonpost.com

Elections are all about money. If the RNC has identity problems and money problems leading up to the 2010 elections, why does everyone think they are going to do so well?

With three electoral defeats in a row, when will the Republicans start to see sucking up to a religious fringe, promoting an irresponsible economic agenda, denying widely accepted science, nominating know-nothings like Palin and Bachmann, pushing then mismanaging two wars, and making no effort to reform Health Care has consequences.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

"Collateral Murder" Via WikiLeaks

This is what "the Surge" looks like:

via youtube.com

Was this the exception or the rule?

When you're the hammer, everyone looks like a nail. I would hate to be in Iraq fighting, but it seems when you put a "war plan" together by Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney, this is what you get. Engage first, sort the bodies out later.

At 4:45 they start shooting. At about 10:00 they blow up a van trying to rescue the dead. If this happened to us, we would have nuked the place. We did it to them all the time. Did not seem like they took many precautions, if any.

This is the information Bush never wanted you to see. The MSM just followed suit. The Iraqi death rate is 9:1, civilians to "insurgents". War is pure horror, and in war, this is what we do, kill people.

The 2007 Pentagon report was bogus regarding this firefight. Imagine what else was made up?

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

If The Pope Does It, It's Not Illegal

If you were responsible for handling the case of a priest who you knew had abused, raped and molested up to 200 deaf children for decades, would you not believe it was your business to resolve it swiftly? Would you be concerned, as the documents from the case reveal he was, about the risk of “increasing scandal” and the “need for secrecy”? Would you encourage the archbishop to drop the trial in view of the priest’s ailing health and imminent death?

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

The Pope is channeling his inner Nixon. Anyone else would be in a police station answering questions.

Just goes to show how uncaring the Catholic Church is with priests raping young children. Add priests raping nuns to the story, too. We know that happens. The unblinking second nature to just hide it and let it continue speaks volumes of the history of these abuses within the church.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com