Followup - DeNiro Really DOES Apologize

This screen grab from FoxNews.com just now. Normally I'd cut and paste, but what's with the picture of Mitt? Has Ailes decided they might as well start loving Mitt after all, so much that they'll put him in all the stories? Or is it an illustration to demonstrate that despite DeNiro's slanderous words, Mrs. Romney is not a white woman?

Anyway well played, RNC, for recognizing the terrible stigma that being called "white" engenders nowadays.

Robert De Niro Issues An Apology

So this happened - Newt (who?) Gingrich got mad at Robert DeNiro.

Newt Gingrich is incensed about a joke by actor Robert DeNiro at a fundraiser attended by Michelle Obama for the president’s re-election, in which the Academy Award-winning star used the word “white” to describe the Republican field’s spouses. “Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?” DeNiro said. “Too soon, right?”

De Niro, whose advertisers have since all pulled out after he repeated the joke for three days in a row, said this:

"I regret using the word 'white' in my joke. It was a poor choice for the word, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make Mr. Gringrich all honkey about it, and I hope that together we can crack this problem, because Newt is a good cracker."


Mr. Gingrich, who is apparently running for president of the moon or something, is demanding an apology from the President for some reason as well. Though it has actually happened, I expect he'll keep on asking anyway.

Primary Results: Dump Mitt!

Santorum comes out strong, tonight. He def. has a path to the nomination!
— warnerthuston (@warnerthuston) March 14, 2012

OH YES. PLEASE.

I'm already on record as saying I'd much rather have Rick Santorum as the Republican candidate. Maybe with Sarah Palin as VP though I can't imagine her settling for THAT again. Maybe she can come in rougeing it up at the last minute and challenge him to a debate on the eve of the primaries. Nothing like that has ever been done before, you say? EXACTLY!

Point is, Mitt Romney is not your guy. Mitt is Obama, only taller and... well, let's just say he's taller. Plus he belongs to a weird religion, while Santorum is an uncontroversial Catholic, and they're pretty well regarded nowadays.

Or there's always Gingrich. I don't mean he's a viable candidate. I mean no matter how obvious it is that he should quit sabotaging the race, there's always Gingrich.

Those Who Do Not Know Newt Are Forced To Repeat Him

This exchange between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich (the latter a Republican candidate for president, the former - well, what would you like him to be?) reminds me of a point that's been rattling around in my mind for a while now. It is a point that I find myself in agreement with on Republicans.

Freddie Mac is a government agency which clearly overspent on services. $6 million for an historian? That's insane. Even the most elite historian makes 100-200k a year. So I'd call that criminal. By the same token though, it's even more criminal for an historian to CHARGE that much. Maybe it's not against the law, but certainly somebody who does a thing like that must be labeled a charlatan, and never trusted with power over large sums of your money. A guy who would soak the government for that kind of money must be a terrorist.

A mitigating factor in the Newtisphere is this, a pledge that Newt signed to uphold traditional marriage. Here's a key passage:

I will support all efforts to reform promptly any uneconomic or anti-marriage aspects of welfare and tax policy. I also pledge to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.

That's a solemn vow! And you know how important THOSE are to Gingrich.

Political Wire Buries the Lead

Newt Gingrich, a man so beloved of Republicans that they once censured him, is in a little trouble now for promising a cabinet post to someone before he has been elected, an apparent violation of election law. Big deal! The real sizzler here is the detail - he's promising to appoint John Bolton Secretary of State.

John Bolton! A man so beloved of Republicans that they failed to confirm him as our Ambassador to the UN! This is the guy that Gingrich would send around the world to persuade countries to cooperate with us. After that, he may try to convince Nancy Pelosi to run the RNC. I wonder if he can get George W. Bush out of retirement to handle INS?

Honestly, I think Newt is trying to torpedo his candidacy. Between this promise and the child labor talk, he pretty obviously is laying the groundwork for a Rick Perry/Michele Bachmann/Herman Cain style popularity arc.

Look Under A Rock For Him

Speaking of Newt, here's a handy table of positions he's taken in the last few years which suggest that he's actually okay with all the of the parts of "Obamacare" that he calls socialism.

	Newt Gingrich	Affordable Care Act
Individual Mandate	“You ought to either have health insurance, or you ought to post a bond.” [Healthcare Cease Fire, 2005]	Section 1501: U.S. citizens and legal residents who don’t obtain coverage by 2014, pay a tax penalty.
Group Purchasing	“Large risk pools…should be established so low income people can buy insurance as inexpensively as large corporations.” [Winning The Future, 2005]	Section 1321: States establish health insurance exchanges to allow individuals, families, and small businesses to harness the purchasing power of large employers.
Subsidies	“Some aspect of the working poor has to involve transfer of finances. To ask people in the lowest paying jobs to bear the full burden of their health insurance is just irrational.” [Healthcare Cease Fire, 2005]	Section 1401: Families with incomes between 133-400% of the federal poverty line will receive premium credits to purchase insurance through the Exchanges.
Comparative Effectiveness Research	“A health care system that is driven by robust comparative clinical evidence will save lives and money.” [NYT, 2008]	Section 6302: Establishes a non-profit Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to identify research priorities andconduct research that compares the clinical effectiveness of medical treatments.
Improving Quality	“Don Berwick at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement has worked for years to spread the word that the same systematic approach to quality control that has worked so well in manufacturing could create a dramatically safer, less expensive and more effective system of health and health care.” [Washington Post, 2000]	TITLE X: Improves health care quality through numerous provisions, including the innovation of payment reform models and rewarding providers who deliver quality care.
Prevention	“The 21st Century System of Health and Healthcare willpartner with you first to prevent illness and then to care for you as a patient if you become ill.” [Saving Lives & Saving Money, 2006]	TITLE IV: Prevention services will be available without additional cost-sharing and the law establishes a Prevention and Public Health Fund.
Health Information Technology (HIT)	“Going to a paperless all-electronic system is going to save lives, it’s going to save money, it’s going to lead to better outcomes, it’s going to give us new opportunities.” [Paper Kills, 2007]	The stimulus act invested in HIT and the ACA requires the government to develop standards “that facilitate electronic enrollment of individuals in Federal and State health and human services programs.”
Fraud	“First, we must dramatically reduce healthcare fraud within our current healthcare system.” [Stop Paying The Crooks, 2009]	The federal government has “more than tripled the amount of money it has recovered” in the past six years form fraud and the ACA includes numerous anti-fraud provisions from increasing the federal sentencing guidelines for health care fraud to appropriating an additional $350 million over 10 years to ramp up anti-fraud efforts.

Another Republican Job Plan

Though he's not the first Republican to suggest this, Newt Gingrich got a little attention this week over his idea to America's unemployed - fire adults and replace them with their kids.

"Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.

"You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

THAT'S the way to solve a bunch of problems at once! Inner city kids aren't learning? Make them take a night job to support their parents! Plus, the idea of the government running the child labor racket instead of say, American Apparel, should take all the stigma out of that situation.

And the best part of it is, it's relatively inexpensive to pay your workforce in gruel.

Alas Poor Newt

An illustration of why I hope Obama isn't making decisions to placate the right. Once he agrees with them, they're willing to abandon their beliefs so they can still bad-mouth him. They're not consistant on anything else but they are consistant on that.

The Language of the Ghetto

Once again, America is forced to pay attention to a Newt.

Over the weekend Newt "Contract With America" Gingrich came out against bi-lingual education. "We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," he said. This, predictably, has led to a few accusations of racism directed towards someone who is, arguably, the whitest man in America.

It wasn't so bad, really; unartfully phrased but God knows easier to climb out from under than last night's correction on Hannity and Colmes. "...frankly, "ghetto", historically had referred as a Jewish reference originally. I did not mention Hispanics, and I certainly do not want anybody who speaks Spanish to think I’m in any way less than respectful of Spanish or any other language spoken by people who come to the United States."

So what Newt is saying, if I'm reading this right, is that you want to learn English so you don't wind up like those unprosperous Jews.

I live in Southern California, and I can tell you that I'm fed up with those people. The way the gardners lapse into Yiddish whenever they want to talk about you behind your back; the drive-thru guy telling me to try a large because "you should live a little - would that be so wrong?" I hate seeing all those unlicensed accountants hanging out in front of H&R Block, hoping someone will hire them despite their illegal status. And you know what? If we don't keep them out, on their side of the fence, you KNOW they're going to overrun the entertainment industry.