Featured Posts
  • “We the Rich…”

    We the Rich...

    Few would argue the fact that Citizens United has been a major player in the Republican primary...and many if not most would concede that none of it has been healthy ...

    Read More

  • A Romney Victory Is Ensured With Trump’s Endorsement ()

    A Romney Victory Is Ensured With Trump's Endorsement ()

    As if you needed another reason to not vote Romney. Celebrity business magnate Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney for president Thursday, telling reporters he will not mount an independent campaign if ...

    Read More

  • Why I Love Newt Gingrich

    Why I Love Newt Gingrich

    In a perfect world, the Republican contest to find a nominee to face Barack Obama would go on forever...or at least until August. You cannot attach a number to the ...

    Read More

  • Republican Cannibalism

    Republican Cannibalism

    I suspect there are a ton of conservatives secretly agreeing with Begala and while it's too early in the game for Dems to get cocky, it's difficult to not smile ...

    Read More

  • Romney Hood

    Romney Hood

    One of our readers sent me an email with an idea for an illustration - Mitt Romney as Romney Hood. I thought it was brilliant and came up with the ...

    Read More

  • Why Do People Take an Instant Dislike To Newt Gingrich?

    Why Do People Take an Instant Dislike To Newt Gingrich?

    Quotes don't get much better than this one by Bob Dole. "Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?" asked a perplexed Gingrich, to whom Dole bluntly ...

    Read More

  • Gingrich Takes A Thrashing

    Gingrich Takes A Thrashing

    After the beating Gingrich took last night, it's hard to imagine under what scenario he can make a comeback.  Florida is going to Romney and for Gingrich to regain the ...

    Read More

  • SOTU

    SOTU

    There's a lot out there on the President's SOTU, so I'll keep my thoughts short and sweet. The speech did what it had to do which was target liberals and independents ...

    Read More

  • Just Another GOP Debate

    Just Another GOP Debate

    The highlights from last night's debate. - Newt Gingrich can't wait to become president so he can revisit the early 60s and overthrow Castro in Cuba. War, baby, war. - Santorum, who ...

    Read More

  • No More Mister Nice Guy for Mitt Romney

    No More Mister Nice Guy for Mitt Romney

    It appears that the South Carolina verdict is forcing Romney to start taking Gingrich seriously. “We’re not choosing a talk show host, we’re choosing a leader,” Romney said, saying that their ...

    Read More

  • Mike Huckabee Solidifies His Birther Creds

    Mike Huckabee Solidifies His Birther Creds

    Mike Huckabee offers advice to Mitt Romney concerning his unreleased tax returns. Let him [Romney] make this challenge: "I'll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and ...

    Read More

  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    Via Political Humor... "Mitt Romney is coming under fire because even though he is a multimillionaire, he only paid 15 percent in taxes. That's not a tax, that's barely a tip." ...

    Read More

  • The Last Word On Jon Huntsman

    The Last Word On Jon Huntsman

    Good line. My guess is that after Romney fails to beat Obama in the general, Huntsman will be back in 2016.  The most electable guy in the field and he could ...

    Read More

  • Does Romney Urinate Straight Down His Leg?

    Does Romney Urinate Straight Down His Leg?

    I found this pretty funny...and accurate. It comes from a reader over at Balloon Juice. So, let’s review. The contenders for the GOP nomination are A vulture capitalist who believes that any ...

    Read More

  • The Constitution – Libertarian’s False Idol

    The Constitution - Libertarian's False Idol

    Lively little debate going on at one of last week's posts with Libertarianism put under the microscope. ocLiberal: I know I am in sketchy territory here, (start the indignant shouting now) but ...

    Read More

  • Gingrich’s Delusional Politics

    Gingrich's Delusional Politics

    In the contest to determine the winner of the Far-Right Politics gold medal, rack up a few more points for Newt Gingrich. “I think an intelligent conservative wants the right federal ...

    Read More

  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    Via Political Humor... "Congratulations to Mitt Romney. He won the New Hampshire primary last night. See, this is proof that even the multimillionaire son of a multimillionaire can beat the odds ...

    Read More

  • What Do North Korea and Indiana Have In Common?

    What Do North Korea and Indiana Have In Common?

    Story 1: North Korea punishing those who 'didn't display enough sadness over Kim Jong Il's death' North Korean authorities are reportedly punishing citizens who did not display enough sadness over the death ...

    Read More

  • The Pope’s Hate Speech

    The Pope's Hate Speech

    In case you missed the story, Pope Benedict made headlines this week by doing what it is popes do best - putting the irrational fear of God into his followers. The ...

    Read More

  • Mitt Romney’s Idiot Quote of the Day

    Mitt Romney's Idiot Quote of the Day

    Romney was asked whether questions dealing with distribution of wealth and power were a matter of jealousy or fairness. You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class ...

    Read More

Just Another GOP Debate

The highlights from last night’s debate.

- Newt Gingrich can’t wait to become president so he can revisit the early 60s and overthrow Castro in Cuba. War, baby, war.

- Santorum, who sees a jihadist around every corner, somehow linked Cuba with Islamic terrorism.  Of course, everyone knows about bin Castro.  Expect a war with Cuba right after Santorum gets done bombing the hell out of Iran. War is hell but someone has to do it.

- Gingrich defended his role as historian to Washington lobbyists. Exact quote went something like this, “Influence peddler, moi?  Never.”  …or something close to that.

- Gingrich, wearing his revisionist historian cap once more, says he was not in any way booted out of the Speaker’s job in 1998.  Instead, Mr. Historian informs, he voluntary left Congress ’cause that’s the kind of decent guy he is.

Frank Bruni:

Gingrich characterized the end of his Congressional career after the 1998 midterms as wholly volitional, making his exit sound like a self-sacrificing blaze of glory rather than the acrimonious firestorm it was.

With Gingrich, the distance between reality and rhetoric isn’t shrinking but growing, and the incongruities mount.

As for Mitt Romney, well, he’s offered a plan which has illegal immigrants “self-deporting” themselves back to their country of origin saving the government the trouble and expense of rounding them up and loading them on cattle cars. The man is a genius. He also lays it on the President again for playing “90 rounds of golf” while the country burned away. And those 2 million plus private sector jobs you thought were created in the last two years…never happened. We know this because Romney says so.  The man claims that no new job was created under Obama. Not one. He heard it on Fox so you know he’s right.

Missing from this debate was the wild applause from the audience. They were asked before the start to refrain from clapping which led to a more subdued debate and prevented the GOP from suffering the humiliation of having the idiot part of their base booing gay servicemen and applauding the death of an uninsured American, as they have in the past.

And that was it. Crazy Ron Paul came off as the sanest of the lot. Surprise.

UPDATE:

Looks like Gingrich is bitching again about the media.

Newt Gingrich hit out at NBC’s Brian Williams on Tuesday morning, criticizing the moderator of Monday night’s debate for keeping the forum’s audience quiet.

“I wish in retrospect I had protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” he said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that they’re going to side with the candidates against the media.”

Gingrich added that, in upcoming debates, he was “simply not going to allow” the moderators to silence the audience.

“The media doesn’t control free speech,” he said.

Gingrich is unhappy because he didn’t get the instant gratification he so desperately needs after feeding red meat to his rabid dogs.

What a total putz

___

Follow MarioPiperniDotCom on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

.

Sunday Morning and Obama’s First War

Sad but true, at times war is a necessary evil. This is a simplification of the dynamics at work in the Libyan matter but the bottom line is that the world could not sit idly by and watch a madman slaughter innocent people. For President Obama, the dilemma he faced is explained in a piece by Marc Ambinder.

Though the Libyan situation is quite unique – its military is nowhere near as strong as Iran’s is, for one thing – Obama hopes that a short, surgical, non-US-led campaign with no ground troops will satisfy Americans skeptical about military intervention and will not arouse the suspicions of Arabs and Muslims that the U.S. is attempting to influence indigenously growing democracies.

If American intervention does indeed last but a few days with no ground troops then the President comes off as having done the right thing.  Anything other than that and the criticism coming from all sides will be deafening. As for neocons possibly complaining that the U.S. should not have ceded the lead role in the mission to the French, standard procedure is in order – ignore the war-mongering fools.

Your Sunday morning talking heads schedule courtesy of C&L.

ABC’s “This Week” -, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen; Former Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. Ali Suleiman Aujali; French Ambassador to the United Nations Gerard Araud; United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu; former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson; former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” -Mullen; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.; Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; Gen. Michael Hayden; Richard Haass, president of Council on Foreign Relations.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen; Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

CNN’s “State of the Union” – Chairman Joint of Chiefs Staff Mike Mullen; Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent; retired Adm. William Fallon and retired Gen. Richard Myers.

CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” – Nuclear power’s future and the CEO of Sony

“Fox News Sunday” – Chu; Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

And, the Sunday Morning Request Hour brings you Janis Joplin…

.

 

Sunday Morning

The only important news right now is the one coming out of Japan where the death toll from Friday’s earthquake and tsunami will most probably reach into the thousands. There’s also a threat of a nuclear meltdown to add to the catastrophe.

Japan, Libya and the Wisconsin situation this morning. Here’s lineup courtesy of C&L. Yes, I know it’s late. Blame it on Daylight Savings Time and my sleepy head.

ABC’s “This Week” – Live from Japan.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” – Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind.; Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” – Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, independent from Connecticut.

CNN’s “State of the Union” – Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz; Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif; John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil; Ichiro Fujisaki, Japanese ambassador to the U.S.; James Acton, Nuclear Policy Program associate, Carnegie Endowment; James Lee Witt, former FEMA director.

CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” – Discussions on the future of Libya; the earthquake in Japan.

“Fox News Sunday” – Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Mark Warner, D-Va., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.

.

Sunday Morning

Amazingly, I spent an entire day away from the laptop yesterday, an act which occurs with the same frequency as an earthly sighting of Halley’s Comet. I’m also happy to report that email withdrawal pain wasn’t half as bad I’d imagined. There is life without the Google. Who would have thought…

Your talking heads courtesy of C&L.

ABC’s “This Week” – Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” – White House chief of staff William Daley; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” – Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and John Kerry, D-Mass.

CNN’s “State of the Union” – Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; former national security adviser Stephen Hadley; Ali Errishi, former Libyan minister of immigration; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; former Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.

CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” – Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq War weighs in why he thinks both the Obama administration and one of the administrations he was a part of — George W. Bush’s — have bungled Libya. Then, rising food prices inspired revolution…which then raised gas prices…which will then raise food prices. Find out what this vicious cycle means for you. And why it has world leaders shaking in their boots

“Fox News Sunday” – Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas; Margie Phelps, the lawyer who argued the Westboro Baptist Church case at the Supreme Court.

Here’s the first studio recording of Janis Joplin doing Me & Bobby McGee. Magic.

Happy Sunday.



.

Sunday Morning Talking Heads

It’s day two of my scrape, patch and paint duties. With a little bit of help, I should be able to get it all done before noon. I don’t know if the drywall patching compound I’m using is a recent product or not, but I’m liking it.  It’s colored pink and when it dries, it turns white thereby giving a visual indicator that it’s done cooking and ready for sanding. Very cool.

I’m not going to be watching any of the talking heads this morning but if you’re so inclined, here’s the rundown compliments of C&L.  Happy Sunday.

ABC’s “This Week” – Live from Tripoli, Libya; from Washington, Govs. Jan Brewer, R-Ariz.; Deval Patrick, D-Mass.; John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.; and Nikki Haley, R-S.C.

NBC’s “Meet the Press” – Govs. Scott Walker, R-Wis., and Haley Barbour, R-Miss; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.; Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” – Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J.

CNN’s “State of the Union” – McCain; Sens. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, and Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Govs. Dannel Malloy, D-Conn., and Rick Scott, R-Fla.

CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” – Paul Wolfowitz; Fareed’s take on the Arab world, finally breaking out from nearly 1,000 years of foreign domination. Fareed explains just what that means not just for the Arabs, not just for America, but for the entire world.

“Fox News Sunday” – Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind.; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.

.