Keep in mind that this is a supposed statesman, the former Speaker of the House, talking:
Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News Friday night, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the conservative pundit that “the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists.” Gingrich then went on to say that “they don’t mind at all that Farrakhan is anti-semitic. They shrug off Jeremiah Wright.”
Not only has Gingrich smeared millions of Americans with a patently false statement, he ignores the fact that the most dangerous American terrorists are rightwingers like Timothy McVeigh, Eric Robert Rudolph, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the Klu Klux Klan, abortion clinic bombers and the rest.
As Hillary Clinton slams back boilermakers and talks gun talk in Pennsylvania and Barack Obama parses the bitterness of denizens of the Rust Belt, it’s worth noting that, according to 2006 U.S. Census data, Pennsylvanians are pretty much like most everybody else in the United States. Here are some mildly interesting stats:
Median age: Pennsylvania 39.5; U.S. 36.4
Women: 51.4%; 50.7%
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino: 82.1%; 66.4%
Black alone: 10.7%; 12.8%
Hispanic or Latino: 4.2%; 14.8%
Median household income: $46,259; $48,451
Foreign born: 5.1%; 12.5%
Persons below poverty: 12.1%; 13.3%
Bachelor’s degree or higher (age 25+): 25.4%; 27.0%
In the Democratic candidates’ debate last night, the “liberal media” teamed up with fake media when ABC News moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Barack Obama about Obama’s connection to the former 1960s radical, William Ayres. Here’s a sketch of the exchange between Stephanopoulos and Fox News’ Sean Hannity, on Hannity’s radio show on WABC: When Hannity asked about the first question below about Ayers and whether George had plans to ask such a question, George replied, “Well, I’m taking notes now Sean.” It did actually sound like he was pausing to take notes.
George Stephanopoulos was just on the Sean Hannity Radio show getting all chummy with Hannity. George told Hannity that Hannity was “absolutely right” that Obama has tarnished his image as a uniter when he “pandered to the elite San Francisco crowd about the blue collar Pennsylvania workers” (summation of George’s comments, not an exact quote, but close).
Hannity asked George what kinds of questions they’ll be asking at the debate tomorrow and they discussed a few things. When Hannity asked about the first question below about Ayers and whether George had plans to ask such a question, George replied, “Well, I’m taking notes now Sean.” It did actually sound like he was pausing to take notes. And Hannity continued to feed him more:
1) Ask Obama about his relationship with Ayers and WeatherUnderground and Axelrod’s comments, “They’re friendly”
2) Ask Obama why he attended the Million Man March
Although I know it will just confound Trish, I have recently subscribed to OneNewsNow, an online newsletter backed by the homophobic Jesus boosters over at American Family Association. Why? To keep an eye on the other side of the conversation, monitor the news from Jesusland. Well, there was a mildly interesting story today.
It seems a Catholic pro-life group — American Life League — has taken out ads in the Washington Times and Politico this week to warn Pope Benedict XVI that Catholic lawmakers who support abortion rights are seeking to take advantage of his U.S. trip by receiving communion from him. The ads urge the Pope to “protect the body of Christ from the bloodstained hands of pro-abortion ‘Catholics'” by denying them communion and includes the photographs of 21 prominent Catholics who believe in a woman’s right to choose.
Who knew the Pope reads a newspaper owned by the Moonies?!
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope wrote that if a pro-abortion politician attempts to receive communion, ‘the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.’
All Catholic lawmakers have been invited by the Vatican to join the pontiff Thursday for a mass at the Washington Nationals’ new ballpark. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are among the baby-killing Catholic lawmakers planning to attend.
It looks like the Pope might have painted himself into a corner on this one:
Judie Brown, president of American Life League (ALL), argues that pro-abortion Catholic lawmakers like Kerry and Pelosi are in violation of church law — something the Pope himself has determined. In 2004, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote that if a pro-abortion politician attempts to receive communion, “the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.”
According to Brown, the objective of the ad campaign is twofold: to remind those politicians that Catholics who favor abortion may not receive the Eucharist, and to honor the Pope’s visit to the United States. But pro-abortion Catholics like Kerry and Pelosi, she says, are trying to exploit the papal visit. “There’s no other word for it than defiance of church law,” says the ALL president.
Brown says that because Kerry and Pelosi have not been rebuked by their respective church leaders, they think they are above church law. “Of course that’s been the problem with these politicians all along,” she adds. “[Pelosi and Kerry] feel they have a free ticket, a free ride.” But the Pope, says Brown, is not of the “same fabric” as those politicians’ bishops or cardinals.
I wonder how Benedict will handle the situation at the ballpark. Guess we’ll find out Thursday — see you at the seventh-inning stretch.
When I first heard the news reports about six high-school cheerleaders in Polk County, Florida, whupping up on a girl who posted insults about them on MySpace, it didn’t really surprise me. When I learned that they had videotaped the whole beating to post on MySpace, that didn’t surprise me, either. And when I learned that the video was never posted by the girls even though it is all over the InterWeb, I was puzzled.
But when I learned that the only reason the video was all over the place was because Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd had released it to the media, I wasn’t surprised a bit. See, the high sheriff of Polk County is a blabbermouthed media whore who gladly sacrifices due process and individuals’ legal rights on the altar of his ego.
Judd wasted no time going on a media tour to express his outrage at the brutality of the attack and the girls’ lack of remorse after their arrest:
“It’s absolutely an animalistic attack,” Sheriff Grady Judd said Tuesday on NBC’s Today. “They lured her into the home for express purpose of filming the attack and posting it on the Internet.”
But then, a judge imposed a gag order on the high sheriff of Polk County:
Responding to an emergency request by an attorney for one of the eight people arrested in the case, Circuit Judge J. Michael McCarthy said there was concern that further public discussions about the case could affect the suspects’ right to a fair trial.
In his request for the gag order, attorney James “Rusty” Franklin wrote that the Polk County Sheriff’s Office had “released a barrage of inflammatory, prejudicial information about this case” to the media, and Sheriff Grady Judd had characterized the suspects as having ” ‘animalistic behavior,’ a ‘pack mentality,’ ‘disgusting.’ “
Well, predictably, that just pissed off Judd, who released the following statement:
I have the highest respect for the court and highest personal respect for Judge Michael McCarthy. He is my friend. I do, however, respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling to prohibit me, as an independent constitutional officer, to speak freely and inform the public regarding this case or any case.
This isn’t the first case where Judd’s media whoring has jeopardized a victim’s getting justice. In March 2007, Ryan Skipper was brutally murdered in Polk County by a couple of repeat offenders and likely meth addicts, and Sheriff Grady Judd was there as judge, jury and spokesman for justice as he tried Skipper in the court of public opinion. Trish broke the story on Pensito Review last March, and we covered it extensively.
In a nutshell, Sheriff Grady Judd alleged that 24-year-old Ryan Skipper was out cruising for gay sex when he hooked up with the two thugs who were so repelled by Skipper’s gay advances that they stabbed him more than 20 times, slit his throat, left his body on the side of the road and stole his car.
Now to me that sounds about as brutal and animalistic as it gets — much more so than a couple of teenage girls having a dust-up over some insults on MySpace. But there is a similarity between the two cases. Judd saw an opportunity to mouth off to the media about aspects of the cases before either investigation was completed. In one case he released evidence — videotape — to the media that should have been preserved for the trials. In the other, Judd assassinated the character of a young gay college student based on what his killers said.
But Sheriff Judd’s brand of law in Polk County can itself be brutal. When the sheriff’s SWAT team caught up with a man suspected of killing a policeman and his dog the day before, they fired 110 rounds of ammunition, hitting the suspect 68 times. Judd’s comment at the time:
“I suspect the only reason 110 rounds was all that was fired was that’s all the ammunition they had,” Judd said.
McCain’s latest display of his lack of foreign policy understanding came today when said he wouldn’t divert troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to keep his promise to chase bin Laden to the gates of hell unless Gen. Petraeus said it was necessary.
Of course, Gen. Petraeus would not be making that determination about what was required in Afghanistan. Instead, that would be Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, who temporarily replaced Admiral William Fallon as chief of Centcom.
The American Research Group poll last week that showed Obama even with Clinton was probably an outlier. Still, the drop this week is precipitous:
First poll of Pennsylvania voters post-“bitter” comments shows Obama taking a hit. The American Research Group had him and Clinton neck-and-neck with 45 percent each in its April 5-6 survey. The group’s April 11-13 poll has Obama at 37 percent to Clinton’s 57 percent.
In case you’re just tuning in to the controversy over Barack Obama’s “bitter” remark, here is what he said last Sunday in San Francisco: It will be harder for Republicans to pin the elitist label on Obama, who is a Harvard grad who chose to be a community organizer rather than taking a cushy corporate job, than it was on John Kerry or Michael Dukakis.
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them… It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Obama’s critics have interpreted his comment as saying yahoos “cling” to God and guns because they’re desperate and can’t think for themselves — that conservative values are delusions that are by-products of stress.
“Obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that,†Obama said in a phone interview with the Winston-Salem Journal. “But the underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so.â€
Judging by the way Hillary Clinton came out swinging yesterday, exhaustive focus-grouping revealed that the “yahoo” interpretation of Obama’s statement is resonating.
The fact that odds makers have taken note provides more evidence that the controversy has legs:
The infamous “bitter” comments made by the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will likely cost him the primary in Pennsylvania on April 22nd… According to the odds makers, Hillary Clinton is now -270 favorite to win the upcoming Democratic primary, while the odds on Barack Obama to recover and come out victorious are slim +180…
Still, in a long run, the odds makers continue to put their money on Barack Obama to win the Democratic nomination, listed with odds 2/11 at BodogSports, compared to the long odds on Hillary Clinton at 23/4.
The charge of liberal out-of-touch elitism helped sink the Michael Dukakis campaign in 1988 and John Kerry’s 2004 bid. It will be harder to pin the elitist label on Obama, who is a Harvard grad who chose to be a community organizer rather than taking a cushy corporate job — unless Obama were to allow himself to be filmed riding in a tank or windsurfing.
The society page of the Dallas Morning News reports the Bushes are raising big bucks. The question is, why? Political campaigns or lawyering up?
Bush Family Barbecue Attracts GOP Heavyweights
By SANDRA FAY / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Barely back from the Final Four in San Antonio, Phyllis and Bobby Ray were among 200 guests at the presidential ranch in Crawford for Friday’s Bush Family Barbecue, with President George W. Bush and first lady Laura, former first couple George and Barbara Bush, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Karl Rove was in attendance and was said to be ebullient about the current presidential campaign. Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain was in Texas on Friday and it was thought he might pop in before the evening ended.
Bobby tried to convince Phyllis the event was in honor of her birthday Thursday, but she wasn’t buying it and he’ll have to come through with something else. It’s been suggested an amount commensurate with his political gifts would be a nice gesture, but it isn’t known if that will happen.
Group president of K. Hovnanian Homes, Bobby is a member of an elite group of major donors to the Republican National Committee.
Hmmm. No mention of Jeb’s wife, Columba, attending. Maybe she doesn’t get along that well with her in-laws. I can’t imagine why. After all, Poppy Bush made it clear he loved his grandchildren despite the fact that their mother was Mexican (yes, I’m being ironic) when he introduced them to Pres. Reagan in 1988 as, “the little brown ones.”
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of ?27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net ?24 approval, a 23-point shift. … Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
Although I know it will just confound Trish, I have recently subscribed to OneNewsNow, an online newsletter backed by the homophobic Jesus boosters over at American Family Association. Why? To keep an eye on the other side of the conversation, monitor the news from Jesusland. Well, there was a mildly interesting 
