(Scott Meyer’s website)
__
Paul Constant live-blogging Newt Gingrich’s “campaign suspension” is too good not to share:
12:22 PM: This is basically a blowhardy version of Gingrich wagging his fist at the press and bellowing “YOU’LL ALL BE SORRY! I AM A GENIUS!” He quotes a favorable column published today that posits Gingrich’s best days are ahead of him. I think he might start literally masturbating in a minute or two, because all this figurative masturbation is obviously getting him hot. Gingrich says he’s going to work on energy independence. “If we do it right, we actually will not only create energy independence…we will create trillions of dollars in royalties” to help reduce the national debt. Gingrich also promises to go to college campuses to encourage Social Security privitization, as they do in Chile, and he wants to “re-emphasize the work ethic.” There’s no reason, Gingrich says, to give people pay for 99 weeks “for doing nothing.” That’s his legacy, right there.
12:27 PM: Gingrich will also focus on “what a post-Obamacare” health care system would be like. He points out that he’s the “longest-serving teacher of one-and-two star generals.” I have no idea what that means. “I think it’s time to realize we do not have a grand strategy” in dealing with the Middle East, he says. Now he’s talking about nanotechnology. “I am cheerfully going to take back up” the issue of outer space. He says Callista has pointed out “approximately 219 times,” give or take 3 times, that talking about the moon base was a mistake. “This is not a trivial area,” he says. Space is about the future. “I happen to think it’s a better future than methamphetamine and cocaine” for our nation’s children. He’s turning into a cartoon mad scientist, which is adorable…
Apart from schadenfreude, what’s on the agenda for this evening?
RalfW
Ahhhhh, yeahhhh.
Fast-jamin’ the crazy.
SamR
Reading this, I was immediately reminded of Sideshow Bob yelling “You’ll live to regret this!” as he’s taken off to jail.
Ben Cisco
Only thing missing was the cats in the long white coats.
Brachiator
Chimps have a good reason for dominance behavior. Newt, not so much.
dmsilev
Liberal intellectual urban elitism (I have a ticket for the opera).
Schlemizel
I love Basic Instructions & read it regularly – thanks for sharing
MattF
Noot needs to focus his energy on something specific and achievable, like growing a mustache.
Schlemizel
That reminds of my favorite story about Boy Blunder. As a child the other kids at that expensive prep school he was going to made fun of him (mostly for being stupid, lazy, and incompetent) and he tried to fight back.
W:”You just wait! Some day I’ll be President then you all will be sorry!”
Everyone else “You bet your sorry ass we’ll be sorry”
Patricia Kayden
“I am cheerfully going to take back up” the issue of outer space.
Yes, Gingrich — focus on the moon. Stay out of politics.
Hill Dweller
“I am cheerfully going to take back up” grifting.
Martin
When did Chile become the nation we aspire to be?
Lev
Anyone left denying that Newt is a fraud now knows they were mistaken. If only those people had figured this out 23 years ago!
Cathyx
Do they still owe money to Tiffany’s?
gex
I’m going to just sit here being my gay self and see if I can destroy America through sheer gayness. You’ll probably notice if I’m successful.
MonkeyBoy
A: “I had an unusual dream last night”.
B: “Dreams are always unusual. In fact, it is unusual to have a usual dream”.
JCT
@Cathyx: That’s probably why she was so mad at him about the moon stuff, it disrupted her grifter-fed $$ flow for jewelry.
Tonal Crow
Gingrich exemplifies the wingnut “intellectual”: he speaks with assurance on every topic, irrespective of what he knows about it.
Bullshit is killing us. Often literally.
Martin
Oh my. This is going to blow up.
Nutella
@Martin:
When it had a fascist dictator (Pinochet).
Litlebritdifrnt
The upside is that Hannity can now speak more clearly (if not rationally) without Newt’s cock stuffed down his throat.
TooManyJens
Newt delightfully implies both that a pro-meth-and-coke-for-kids faction exists, and that he is being bold by opposing it. Oh, Newt, never change.
Martin
@Martin: And I’ll just head off Clime Act and note that there’s no proof that Obama didn’t have him executed, as that’s more believable than a murder-suicide.
El Cid
Pssst — Chile re-nationalized the pension plans for many of its citizens, particularly the poor, women, and public workers. It was called the Solidarity Pension plan, under the Soshullist gubmit of Michelle Bachelet, in 2008. Because the public / privatized plan was a bunch of shit, which screwed over the poor, women, and public workers, which was the aim of the original US / U. Chicago / Pinochet reforms.
RalfW
A bunch of us gay guys are going to a suburban Twin Cities bowling alley tonight to celebrate a friends 52nd birthday. He says its his B-52, if that’s gay enough.
David Koch
9 PM: NBC Dateline special on the bin Laden raid.
Booo yaaah!
the fugitive uterus
@Tonal Crow: as i have heard said, a stupid man’s idea of a smart man
Mike in NC
There’s more than one version?
burnspbesq
“headphones that have giant logos and awful sound” in that cartoon cracked me up.
I assume everyone knows that’s a reference to Beats by Dr. Dre, which sound like crap.
Villago Delenda Est
Shot across Rmoney’s bow, right there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Um, that’s an upside? It seems to me that Hannity not being able to speak clearly is a feature, not a bug.
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
Respectully disagree. The more clearly he speaks, the more likely that some in his audience might realize that he is talking crap.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
Please tell me that fascist shitstain Arpaio is among the dead.
Please please please!
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
You have a far more optimistic view of the native intelligence of his existing audience than I do.
Bmaccnm
@El Cid:
Two things: No three things:
1. I understood Newt Gingrich much more clearly when I learned that his mother had bipolar disorder. Inheritable mental illness explains so much about Newtie.
2.Everybody should read “The Shock Doctrine.” While America is experiencing a slow shock, it’s the same roadmap to societal domination through imposed economic chaos.
3. Yesterday, I was fired over the phone from a job I’ve held for 11 years providing women’s health care in a rural community clinic, because they found somebody younger and cheaper to do the work. Cheap and eager trumps experienced and less likely to take shit. I am angry and grieving, and sad for women I have taken care of for all this time, and who have no choice in the matter.
Tonight, I’m planting potatoes.
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
God doesn’t love you that much.
‘Sides, wouldn’t it be even more schadenfreudelicious to see Arpaio under Federal indictment for civil rights violations?
Martin
@burnspbesq: Crap? But the Monster Beats ones cost $400! For that kind of money surely we get more than just bass boost and a cord that’s twisted for extra smooth electron flow!
danielx
I’m thinking schadenfreude and a dry Absolut martini at the local watering hole, followed by the sleep of the just. The just plain satisfied…
Litlebritdifrnt
@burnspbesq:
Exactly! With Newt’s cock out of his mouth he is going to have to eat crow and somehow support RMoney for POTUS. That is going to be like eating a shit taco for him, he is going to hate every second of it. I can’t wait.
Omnes Omnibus
@gex: Just a typical Wednesday night, huh?
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
OK, you’ve got a point there. Arpaio suffering in stir would peg my schadenfreude meter, to be sure.
Mark S.
What the fuck? Was he drunk when he was giving this speech? That might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard a politician say.
gaz
@Martin: Call me crazy, but I still like the original Koss PortaPros – nice even range, much better quality than the price would indicate, even if they look old school.
For budget over-ear phones, I like sony’s MD series. The plain ones without the noise cancellation or the volume knob on the cord.
For serious headphones, well – you probably have a recording studio and are looking for something specific.
It makes no sense to me to hook even a $200 pair of headphones into a $30 mp3 player.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est:
The piece I just read suggested it wasn’t his house/his family. There are some reports that it was the home of a border patrol agent, but those sound word-of-mouth, so they could well be wrong.
Tonal Crow
@Martin:
Two words: peacock’s tail. Much prefer anonymous Corvid black, myself.
danielx
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Talk about schadenfreude, just think of all those lessons and coaching Hannity got from Callista on that particular accomplishment…all down the drain. Sad, ain’t it?
gaz
@Mark S.:
In other news, Newt Gingrich fired Charlie Sheen from his campaign last week, citing ideological differences.
opium4themasses
Left the office and had to put the spare on in Texas May heat. Get to Sams and it’s irreparable. Working out a replacement and the power goes out. Now at 45 minutes in a darkened store hoping to a new tire.
satanicpanic
@Mark S.: You say that like Meth and coke aren’t what us crazy Demotards are planning for our kids.
Calouste
@Mike in NC:
There’s a non-blowhard version of Gingrich?
Cathyx
@opium4themasses: It sounds like you need to leave Texas.
opium4themasses
Left the office and had to put the spare on in Texas May heat. Get to Sams and it’s irreparable. Working out a replacement and the power goes out. Now at 45 minutes in a darkened store hoping to a new tire.
I love hump day.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
Right now the reports are BEYOND sketchy.
First reports are never reliable, etc.
Martin
@satanicpanic: Hey, it’s one of the few jobs the 1% will pay you a decent wage to perform.
Mark S.
Trillions of dollars in royalties (from moon oil?): UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH
Definitely read the whole article. Towards the end:
It sounds like the most insane speech ever given.
mclaren
Shorter Newt Gingrich press conference:
Soon the world will KNOW what POWER we possess!
In the tension twixt Supervillain or Newt?, the balance has definitely shifted toward “supervillain.” Now he needs to retreat to his secret lair inside a dormant volcano while muttering “They laughed at me…they ridiculed my ideas…but I will make them pay for their insolence!” while he builds his secret doomsday device and prepares to unleash it on the world.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bmaccnm:
This sucks. Truly sucks.
We’ve GOT to get out of the medical care for profit model. We must. It will kill us all in the long term.
g
So by “work on” and “encourage” and “take back up” and “create” he really means “babble on and on and on and on about”?
Villago Delenda Est
@mclaren:
The idiot probably will wear a cape.
/cue Edna’s explanation of why capes are idiotic.
RossinDetroit
Grado SR-60s. 98% of the sound of a high-end pair of ‘cans for under $100. I’ve owned everything from Koss PRO-4AAAs to Stax electrostats and the Grados sound fantastic.
Cathyx
So what is Newt going to do now to earn some money?
RossinDetroit
I’ll kinda miss Newt. At least he kept you awake wondering what kind of hallucinatory nuttishness was going to come out of his mouth next.
Listening to Romney speak is like a sock full of wet sand to the back of the head. Lights out….
Villago Delenda Est
@Cathyx:
There are plenty of marks still out there. Plus, his campaign has been “suspended” which means he can still collect checks from those stupid enough to send them to him.
Mark S.
@Cathyx:
Uncle Newt’s Magic Cure-All Tonic
Step right up!
Davis X. Machina
@Villago Delenda Est: Share your take on for-profit medicine, but such firings would be a commonplace occurrence even in non-profit, public enterprises, like schools, without those evil, evil unions. That’s what stands between me and a younger-but-cheaper. (I signed my contract for next year today…most everyone out there is younger.)
Although there are no school shareholders to keep happy, there’s no real caucus for constantly-increasing property taxes either. A bottom line is a bottom line.
Elizabelle
@Bmaccnm:
So sorry. That’s rough.
Suffern ACE
So when a guy is pulled over for a Tailight violation and is arrested, strip searched and thrown in jail for two weeks for a traffic violation that he took care of years ago due to poor record keeping on the part of the police, the supreme court decided that the strip search is just standard and isn’t a right violation. I wonder what they’ll decide isn’t a violation for that kid in San Diego who was caught by the DEA and apparently released but accidentally locked up for five days without food or water because someone forgot he was there?
gaz
@RossinDetroit:
Thanks, I’ll check those out. I’m not a vocalist so my experience with headphones is limited to what I like for play. I use monitors for my little in-home studio. The singers I tend to work with each have their own taste in them. Some are nearly as fanatic about them as mics. heh. I don’t have much use for open air phones personally, so there’s that too. But I’m always game for a reasonably priced nice sounding set which I can travel with.
=)
Cheers
Cathyx
@Mark S.: I was thinking making a porno movie. If Octomom can do it…
Suffern ACE
@Cathyx: Jesus no. Think of the children of this country. Heck, think of the adults. Won’t someone please think of the adults?
Hill Dweller
@Suffern ACE: Pew released polling today showing the SC’s approval rating hovering around 50%. I think people are finally starting to realize right wing ideologues are in control of the court.
Baud
@Cathyx: Newt doing a porno just might make abstinence-only sex education work.
AA+ Bonds
It is just darling that Newt Gingrich thinks that stimulant pharmacology and the space program are competitors rather than collaborators
If we wanted a better space program, it couldn’t hurt to invent some sort of super meth coke
gex
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup. Sounds like there’s a lot of gayness going down in the Twin Cities tonight. I guess we’ll be ground zero for the destruction.
lamh35
watching “The Switch” with Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman and Jeff Goldblum…really funny movie. Love Jeff Goldblum… is he a Dem? Not that it matters, but it would be my lukc that he was…lol
Litlebritdifrnt
@Suffern ACE:
We have a new law here in NC, it is the “license plate frame” law. Basically it says that if you have a frame around your license plate that covers any part of the license plate you are in violation. This means that anyone who bought their car from a dealership is in violation of this law, cause all dealerships sell cars with a license plate frame which advertizes their dealership and covers up a teensy tiny piece of the plate. As all of my local lawyers have opined, this law is nothing more than “probable cause” it means that the cops can pull you over and then search your car and give you a breathalyzer because you have a dealership frame on your license plate. This is getting fucking scarey.
liberal
I never read the GOS unless someone links to it. I got to this funny piece on Americans Elect via Atrios, I think.
liberal
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Maybe the reason the law was created was to enable harassment of motorists for no really good reason, but honestly I do think that the custom these days to have all that shite around the plate makes the plate nearly useless.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
No capes!
liberal
@lamh35:
The Bayesian prior for actors is that they’re definitely left-of-center.
the Conster
Rock Center with BriWill re bin Laden is pretty good.
General Stuck
In a single sentence, Mitt Romney parrots the entire GOP platform since Obama became president
Baud
@General Stuck: Romney makes W. look like the world’s greatest candidate.
ETA: If the Democrats put up a candidate that pathetic, it would be a 50-state rout.
satanicpanic
@General Stuck: I can’t believe a grown man said that. Well I can, but I wish I couldn’t.
Suffern ACE
@General Stuck: So we’re going to raise taxes and nationalize the banks and those forced mortgage cram downs are coming. Minimum wage raised. Money supply tightened and we’ll default on the debt payments. That should be a wild ride.
burnspbesq
@RossinDetroit:
SR-60s are indeed a great value. But if you’ve heard the current state of the art (Stax SR-009, Sennheiser HD 800, Audez’e LCD-3, or Beyer T1), you’ll agree that your 98 percent number is too high. And if you haven’t heard any of them, you should, just so you know what’s possible.
Litlebritdifrnt
@liberal: Disagree, the frames are perfectly legal (until recently) they allow any law enforcement officer to see the month and the year that the plate is registered, that is all the law enforcement officer needs to know. That the vehicle is legally registered. This new law says that if any part of the plate cannot be seen it is a “violation” which means that 99% of the cars sold in North Carolina with a dealer frame is in violation of the law. This is nothing more than giving an officer another “probable cause” to stop a vehicle that is operating within the law to set up a “investigatory stop” giving the officer the “right” to search your vehicle with a drug dog or by hand. This is a serious violation of the rights of people to be free from illegal search and seizure.
Suffern ACE
@Litlebritdifrnt: It also seems like its the type of thing youd pass to make a fortune from tickets to out of state drivers.
jeffreyw
Love to listen to the ipod while mowing, I use earbuds under earmuffs to shut out the engine noise. I mow under and around trees and bushes and the wires from the ipod in my pocket sometimes tangle in the branches and the buds are jerked from my ears and/or the ipod is snatched from my pocket. Haven’t mown over it yet – knock on wood. Looking for a decent set of earphones that will connect via bluetooth to the ipod, and have good noise reduction. Haven’t found anything like that yet.
General Stuck
@Baud:
Sad, and I think true. The GoP, party of infinite mulligans, courtesy of the white majority. That is changing though, hopefully before it’s too late
the Conster
@the Conster:
Obama’s a pretty cool customer, also too.
Narcissus
Octomom is making a porno?
I’ll let you know how it turns out.
amk
@Martin: uh,oh. 3.2.1….conspiracy theories.
BruceFromOhio
He’s turning into a cartoon mad scientist, which is adorable…
Does this mean he will go away now? That would be nice.
General Stuck
@Martin:
Lately, I’ve been reading up on the drug war carnage in Old Mexico, and how it is spinning all out of control. There have been so many gun fights in Juarez, some of the stray bullets have landed in El Paso. I knew it was bad, but jaysus, life is very very cheap in parts of Mexico right now, especially along the border and with the psycho killers of the Zetas gang.
burnspbesq
@jeffreyw:
http://www.headphone.com/headphones/phiaton-ps-20-bt-bluetooth.php
I haven’t heard this specific model, but every other Phiaton model I’ve listened to has been solid value at the price point.
grandpa john
@Suffern ACE: you got it, NC has been notorious for years about targeting out of state drivers
Bago
@gex: In the immortal words of the propellerheads, bang on!
Mark S.
@Cathyx:
Yikes
Bago
When it comes to head phones, I am partial to my lg hbs700’s . It’s an a2dp headset that uses earbuds, so it’s a wireless headset that you can fit under a helmet, perfect for biking and boarding.
dww44
@Bmaccnm: That stinks. And I am angry for you. And, I would have no qualms whatsoever about sharing these views with whomever is responsible for firing you.
jeffreyw
@burnspbesq: Not too interested in earbud type sets, they still have the wires I want to get away from. Interesting site, though, thanks for the link. I see a rather high dollar item that seems perfect, noise cancelling, around the ear, closed, bluetooth and etc. Too expensive for one use per week, though the cheaper ones all fail the in the comfort area. I have them on for up to 4 hours at a time.
gaz
@Bago: eck. wireless. though bluetooth may make me reconsider. haven’t tried any of those monsters yet.
Earbuds drive me batty. Even if they’ve got better dynamic range now keeping things in my ear drives me crazy. Sometimes, (like in your scenario with your helmet) I sort of wish they didn’t.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
That’s funny. I can’t use earbuds because they won’t remotely stay in my ears—I might as well put them on my cheekbones and expect them to stay. Never occurred to me to put earmuffs over them to hold them in. I’ve got to try that!
Death Panel Truck
@Hill Dweller: Take back up grifting? When did he ever stop? His entire campaign was a grift, fleecing the rubes by selling them his loathsome books.
GeoX
I don’t get what a “loud bike” is. Does it have playing cards in the spokes?
Tonal Crow
@burnspbesq: The best headphones I’ve used — hands down — are AKG K240 Studios. They’re open-back over-the-ear phones. They sound clear and flat over the entire audio range, though they need more driving power than many other phones. They’re light and comfortable for extended use, and cost only ~$150 ~5 years back.