Newt's Knee-Slapper and other stuff

According to former Speaker of the House and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, the affairs he has had (both while married to wife #1 and wife #2) were caused by his rampant passion for his country and the fact that he worked so hard! Oh, man, you just can't write this stuff! By the way, he's the former Speaker because his scandals got him drummed out of office. Oh, hey guys! Try that excuse if your wife catches you cheating, and let's see if it flies with her... Meanwhile, I seem to remember that the Republicans thought extramarital affairs on Clinton's part was impeachable stuff. Hmmm....

If there was any doubt that the Republicans in Wisconsin were trying to break the public unions, there should be none now. Yesterday the governor and the Republican State Senators decided to ram through a bill (remember, the Democrats are still in Illinois in protest) that strips the public unions of their collective bargaining rights. They say that this bill is legal (remember they don't have a quorum without the Democrats) because there is nothing about the budget in it. So there it is for the world to see -- the fact that this always was about taking collective bargaining rights away from public employees, despite the slimy governor's original assertion that he had to do this to balance the state budget. I hope you're enjoying the governor's mansion, Walker, and that your Republican state senators are liking their chairs, because you won't be there after the next election. Just a guess.

Meanwhile I haven't heard that Mike Huckabee has apologized to the President, as he should, for his lowdown, dirty political stunt. No word on whether he can look himself in the mirror, but he's still claiming he "misspoke."

NPR's troubles just got a lot worse, and it came at a really bad time. The Republicans have tried for years to strip federal funding from public broadcasting. Remember, it's called public broadcasting for a reason! Anyway, a couple of NPR execs, notably Ron Schiller, were videotaped by a couple of people who work for conservative activist James O'Keefe (who is willing to go to just about any lengths to get dirt on liberal groups or even groups perceived to be liberal - reference what he did to ACORN). I'm not going to excuse what Schiller said (bad things about the Tea Party), but he did say repeatedly that it was his own personal opinion and not an official position of NPR. He resigned early -- he was going to leave his job in May anyway -- and now the CEO has also resigned. But that won't be enough for the Republicans! They are still determined to try to kill federal funding for NPR and PBS. NPR gets about 2% of its funding from the federal government. The real problem for NPR -- which I listen to for hours every day at work, in the spirit of full disclosure -- is that federal funding can make up to 10% of the funding for some of their stations, and in light of that, some of these stations may have to shut down, such as stations on Indian reservations and others in impoverished areas. So congratulations, Republicans -- you want to defund NPR, which as I can tell you as I know it well, goes out of its way to be fair and balanced, unlike anything you guys listen to -- because it doesn't lean to the right. PBS will be hurt by this as well (think Sesame Street). Frankly, if you succeed in your endeavor to defund public broadcasting, Republicans, I will triple my contribution to them, and I bet a lot of other people will, too.

Mike Huckabee, you should be ashamed of yourself

Mike Huckabee, former (and probably future) Republican presidential candidate and sometime preacher, pretends to have morals. He supposedly lives by the big 10 (commandments, that is). And yet this week he has been out-and-out lying through his teeth about President Obama for political gain.

In his book he asserts that President Obama "grew up in Kenya" and has an axe to grind with Britain because of the Mau Mau revolution there. When he got called on it he said he "misspoke" and that he meant to say Indonesia (where Obama actually only spent four years of his childhood). But if you substitute Indonesia for Kenya, the rest of what he said doesn't make sense. So he lied about where Obama grew up, and then he lied about misspeaking. And this guy's supposed to be a preacher?

I hate to say it, but this is out-and-out racism. Do you think this kind of stuff would be happening on the right if the president were white? I don't think so.

Huckabee, you should be ashamed of yourself. And you should apologize to the president -- in public and often -- and then look in the mirror and ask yourself just how low you are willing to go to be president... because this is not a pretty picture.