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Popularity: 2% [?]

Dear Newt:

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O’Reilly on FOX News. I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, “There you go, again.”

                                                     Newt Gingrich       Candace Gingrich
However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.

The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as — and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

Welcome to the 21st century, big bro. I can understand why you’re so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign. I can see why you’re sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.

This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality. They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever — and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don’t roll that way. 18-24 year olds voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8 and overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. And the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, about 23 million 18-29 year olds voted on Nov. 4, 2008 — the most young voters ever to cast a ballot in a presidential election. That’s an increase of 3 million more voters compared to 2004.

These are the same people who helped elect Barack Obama and sent a decisive message to your party. These young people are the future and their energy will continue to drive our country forward. Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years.

This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It’s a movement of progress — and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.

Then again, we’ve seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first. You give a pass to a religious group — one that looks down upon minorities and women — when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us “fascists” when we fight back. You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of “traditional” marriage. And, of course, you’ve also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes. I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of “historic Christianity” you claim to champion.

Again, nothing new here. This is just more of the blatant hypocrisy we’re used to hearing.

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions. That’s really so ’90s, Newt. In this day and age, it’s embarrassing to watch you talk like that. You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.

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Prop 8 — Olbermann Interviews Candace Gingrich

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| Cross-Posted from The Huffington Post |
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Notes:

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Newt Gingrich, pressed his wife Jackie for a divorce while she was in the hospital for cancer surgery. Newt is reported to have said of Jackie: “She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.”

The “Family-Values” Republican has a history of “Unfamily-Values”::

1. He refused to pay alimony or child support.

2. An adulterer, Gingrich pioneered a denial of adultery that some observers would later christen “the Newt Defense”: Oral sex doesn’t count. [ Read More Here ]

3. Even while “Impeaching” Bill Clinton, the former House Speaker, a married man, was busy having an affair. [ Read More ]

4. Newt Gingrich — GOP hypocrite of the week!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Don Campbell Writes:

Why Ga. should be on GOP’s mind

ATLANTA — As Republican strategists ponder the road to resurrection after their party’s election debacle, I’d suggest they come to Atlanta to take a ride into the future, one that just might inject them with a dose of reality.

They should hire a tour bus and head northeast from Midtown Atlanta on Buford Highway, hard by Interstate 85, following it for several miles before turning south toward Stone Mountain on Jimmy Carter Boulevard. If they blocked out everything but the cantinas, taquerias, Asian flea markets, mercados, tofu houses, Thai video stores, dim sum diners, kimchi cafes and pawn shops, they might think they were in Queens, N.Y., or parts of Los Angeles. If they got lost and wandered into the parking lot of one of the largest Swaminarayan Hindu temples outside India, they might be even more confused. In fact, they would be in Gwinnett County, Ga.

GOP Not Feeling So Grand

Wedged between Atlanta’s close-in suburbs in DeKalb County, where the minority turned into the majority in the 1990s, and the leafy, sprawling enclaves of mini-mansions and estates to the north, Gwinnett County is one of the most diverse, polyglot jurisdictions in the country. More than 100 languages are spoken in county schools. A majority of students are minorities. But just 18 years ago, in the 1990 Census, Gwinnett was 90% white, rock-ribbed Republican and Exhibit A in the pantheon of suburban Sun Belt counties that supposedly would mold and sustain realignment to a permanent Republican majority.

Today, it is on the verge of becoming majority-minority, with Latinos, African Americans and Asians in near equal proportions, and the GOP vote is shriveling. Twenty years ago, George H.W. Bush got 75% of the presidential vote. Four years ago, George W. Bush got 66%. On Nov. 4, John McCain drew just 55%.

Taking the long view

“Enduring majorities” often turn out to be tenuous, but my bet is that Gwinnett County is not an anomaly. Twenty miles to the west, suburban Cobb County is undergoing the same transformation. McCain’s narrow win statewide in Georgia and his loss to Obama in Virginia and North Carolina are leading indicators for national population projections: In about three decades, whites will be a minority in the USA. In 15 years, a majority of children younger than 18 will be minorities.

So the Republicans, as I see it, have two options. The short-term — and shortsighted — response is to chalk 2008 up to a bad economy and an unpopular incumbent, repackage the same old political bromides and count on liberals to yank Barack Obama so far left that they’ll generate a voter backlash. Or they can take the long view and figure out how to survive and even thrive as the percentage of middle- and upper-class whites shrinks.

   White Christian BIGOTS [ Enlarge Pic ] —    Race Mixing is COMMUNISM! | In 2008: Obama is a SOCIALIST!
   – Ring a bell? 1950s & 60s McCarthyism is still alive in America!

Backlashes do occur. Bill Clinton and the Democrats experienced a sizeable one in 1994 after raising taxes and trying to force-feed nationalized health care. Four years later, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republicans faced a backlash of their own after Gingrich overplayed his hand in a budget showdown with Clinton by forcing a shutdown of the federal government.

I don’t dismiss philosophy or personality, but winning elections is a numbers game, and it’s foolish to think that even a revived party can thrive once its base becomes a minority.

Many years ago, I wrote stories about how Republicans were seriously committed to bringing blacks into their tent. The theory then was that blacks are conservative on issues such as gay rights and school choice. They are devout churchgoers. And as they moved into the middle class and out to the suburbs, African Americans would — chameleon-like — adopt the conservative economic philosophy of their new neighbors. It was a pipedream then, and it’s a pipedream now: Obama’s historic election has merely solidified the Democratic Party’s appeal to black voters.

An opportunity

Other large minority groups, especially Latinos and Asians, should be a more promising target for Republicans. Both groups are known for their close-knit family structures. Both have an incredible work ethic. Both thrive on entrepreneurship. If you doubt that, go to a Sam’s Club and observe who’s rolling out the flatbeds loaded with supplies to stock small shops and restaurants.

But the Republicans’ obsession with immigrants here illegally blinds them to the opportunity to craft a credible outreach strategy. McCain had a moderate approach to immigration reform but was nominated by a party of immigrant-bashers. He got just 31% of the Latino vote and only 35% of Asians.

It’s an absurd position for a party in decline. Most of the 10- or 11- or however-many-million illegal immigrants in this country aren’t going anywhere. Rather than whining that Democrats are protecting illegals because they see them as voters-in-waiting, the GOP should be fighting tooth and nail to get them legalized, to get every immigrant registered to vote, and to tirelessly recruit them to the Republican cause.

A political party on a collision course with demography has no choice but to embrace diversity. You can do the math, or you can eat, drink and shop your way up Buford Highway.

About The Author: Don Campbell — teaches journalism at Emory University in Atlanta and is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors. Don Campbell’s 30-plus years in journalism included nearly two decades as a Washington reporter, editor and columnist for Gannett Newspapers and USA Today. He also served as director of the Washington Journalism Center and of a fellowship program for journalists newly assigned to Washington. He taught journalism at Northwestern University, the University of Oregon and Arizona State University before he coming to Emory. Author of “Inside the Beltway: A Guide to Washington Reporting,” Don is also a freelance writer.

References:

Popularity: 4% [?]

By Eugene Robinson

Time to Be Outward Bound

Since George W. Bush became president, the Republican Party has presided over massive, out-of-control government spending, converted a federal budget surplus into a half-trillion-dollar deficit, and looked the other way while Wall Street’s greed and stupidity turned the hallowed free market into scorched earth. Now the party has to watch as a Republican president orchestrates the biggest government intervention in the workings of the private sector since the New Deal.

Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?

It’s pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with “radical” or “socialist” views when a Republican administration is tossing aside “Atlas Shrugged” and speed-reading “Das Kapital.”

The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it will make unlimited quantities of dollars available for currency swaps with the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank, as these institutions scramble to keep major commercial banks from failing — and potentially taking U.S. banks with them. None of Bush’s Cabinet members could be heard sniffing about the irrelevance of effete “Old Europe.”

This attitude adjustment is necessary, mind you. The question isn’t whether some kind of drastic, frankly socialistic measures are needed to save the American economy but which measures — buying up toxic mortgage-based investments (as the White House said it would do), buying up the troubled mortgages themselves (as John McCain wants to do), or pouring money into selected banks and taking part ownership (as the White House now says it will do). Sitting back and letting the dire situation correct itself is not an option, because the market’s phoenix-like solution begins with self-immolation.

Politically, though, there is at least some justice in the fact that a Republican president has to deal with this Republican-made crisis. That little piece of irony isn’t worth $700 billion, but so far it’s all we’re getting.

After eight years of the Bush administration, the Republican Party — to put it bluntly — is a mess and a fraud.

There is an intellectual case to be made for the economic philosophy that the party purports to represent. I disagree with it strongly, but I respect its integrity — in a way that this administration and the Republican leadership in Congress clearly did not.

The Republican Party said it believed in free and unfettered competition, but it picked winners and losers through a system of crony capitalism. All it takes to make my point is a name: Jack Abramoff.

The Bush tax cuts, which heavily favored the wealthy, showed that the president and his allies in Congress didn’t believe in progressive taxation. I think that’s outrageous, but the administration goes further and actually seems to prefer a regressive tax scheme. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why hedge fund managers making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay taxes at a lower rate than their chauffeurs.

Now that it’s election time, the party — as usual — is trying to convince Americans that it stands on the side of the little guy. Sarah Palin has been trotted out to convince everyone that the party cares deeply about the eternal roster of cultural issues — God, guns, gays, abortion, etc. If McCain and Palin were elected, the party would doubtless return these issues to the storage locker until the next election, at which point they would be dusted off once more.

Oh, and isn’t the Republican Party supposed to stand foursquare against intrusions on privacy? Then why were Republicans so unmoved when it was revealed that the Bush administration had been conducting unprecedented surveillance of Americans’ private electronic communications?

When Ronald Reagan was president, I had a sense of what ideas and principles his party stood for. When Newt Gingrich and his “Contract With America” brigade took Washington by storm in 1994, I knew what they believed — loopy though it was — and what they hoped to accomplish. I defy anyone to give a coherent explanation of what today’s Republican Party, under George Bush and now John McCain, wants to do except perpetuate itself in power.

When a political party reaches the point of lurching incoherence, the most effective cure is a good, long spell in the wilderness. Americans should help Republicans out by sending them home to get their act together.

[Enlarge] About The Author: Eugene Robinson — is an Associate Editor and twice-weekly columnist for The Washington Post. His column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. In a 25-year career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s award-winning Style section. In 2005, he started writing a column for the Op-Ed page. He is the author of “Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race” (1999) and “Last Dance in Havana” (2004). Robinson is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has received numerous journalism awards. More Articles By Mr. Robinson: | Part 1 | Part 2 |

Popularity: 6% [?]

Writes: Paul Krugman

…… Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad! — Know-Nothing Politics. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

What I mean is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy.

The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, “They attacked us, and we’re going to strike back” — and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren’t the same person was an effete snob who hated America, and probably looked French…..[MORE >>]

SPECIAL — LISTEN TO: BIG GAY GOP FEAR FACTOR FEVER

Popularity: 12% [?]