The male counterpart to Sarah Palin has spoken up, but he’s still a moron. Thus, the air is sweet and the fish swim in the sea and the sun rises in one part of the sky and then it settles in Utah and could use some company, it’s pretty empty out there.

Very, very few people are dumb like Newt Gingrich is dumb. And nobody but Newt so strangely gets called ‘smart’ like he does, being the stone cold chunk of stupid that he is. Not that he’s yet been comically exposed for his vapidity, for what reasons I’ll probably never know–maybe he looks like everybody’s junior high school English teacher? And, hey, he wasn’t such a bad guy, right?

But what can you say about a guy with a million Twitter followers, a pillar of political thought, whose internet pamphlet is bannered like this?

Mind you, he put that in quotes. Maybe somebody else said it before him, and he’s just being honest. Good for us.

In all cases, this post that seeks to re-make the United States of America will be predictably en-dark-ening, particularly to those of you who thought that Republicans aren’t the intellectual Herefords we liberals mock them for being. Especially when it’s the sort of thing that TRUMPETS TALKING POINTS inside its own text IN GIANT LETTERS as if they were BREAKING NEWS or HEADLINES ALL ON THEIR OWN. Because he can’t really MAKE HIS CASE, so he relies on FONT SIZE to MAKE IT FOR HIM. Funny.

Here we go. And remember: this is the intellectual giant of the Republican party . . .

On Terrorism it’s Time to Know, to Profile, and to Discriminate
by Newt Gingrich
12/30/2009

After the Christmas Day near disaster in Detroit, it is time for Americans to demand effective anti-terrorist actions.

TA-DAAAH! The opening salvo. Why didn’t we think of that before?

Over eight years after 9/11 and 30 years after the Iranian illegal seizure of the United States embassy and the 444 day Iranian hostage crisis, Washington is still avoiding being intellectually honest about the war we are in.

Our Politically Correct Government is Making Life More Miserable For the Innocent

. . . instead of targeting the source of the threats, our politically correct government decides to make life more miserable for the travelling public by imposing hopelessly meaningless rules such as not allowing passengers to leave their seats in the last hour of the flight. Bound by cultural sensitivities, the default reaction of the bureaucracy is to review the procedures and wring its hands ineffectively.

Today, because our elites fear politically incorrect honesty, they believe that it is better to harass the innocent, delay the harmless, and risk the lives of every American than to do the obvious, the effective, and the necessary.

Newt is talking about George W. Bush’s TSA flight rules. Obama hasn’t touched them.

It’s Time to Be Honest About What We Know

Before a lot more Americans are killed we must acquire the courage to tell the truth and to act on that truth. It is time to be honest about what we know.

We know our opponents are radical extremists of the irreconcilable wing of Islam (Islamists, some would call them)…

Protecting the Rights of Terrorists Has Been More Important than Protecting the Lives of Americans

In the Obama Administration, protecting the rights of terrorists has been more important than protecting the lives of Americans.

That must now change decisively.

It is time to know more about would-be terrorists, to profile for terrorists and to actively discriminate based on suspicious terrorist information.

It’s a parody, isn’t it? We should try to know more about terrorists. And “discriminate based on suspicious terrorist information.” Like if they appear to be members of Al Qaeda, or carrying bombs in their luggage.

Continue Reading »

It’s a fascinating gambit–highly localized and anachronistic competition.

“..when the other–the other side, what we’ve talked about…you know they pay their bloggers. They’re a paid universe of bloggers out there. In the end, we need to compete, as I’ve said before, we need to compete in each and every kind of forum, and whether it’s on the ground traditionally, or today it’s, it’s in, it’s in the ethernet. It’s in the–you know, it’s online. It’s in the blogs, it’s Twitter, it’s Facebook, and the next iteration.”

Boy, he doesn’t know anything about blogging either. Right-wing blogs far out-earn left-wing sites.

h/t TPMDC.

He never, ever goes away, does he? And he never, ever actually does anything either. Other than talk and talk and cash checks, what a great gig. Newt Gingrich, the guy the right just loves to call smart:

–”I have written extensively on a man I consider one of the most brilliant conceptualists in the conservative movement, Newt Gingrich.”…Rick Moran, right-wing blogger

–”At a moment when many of our institutions face a Katrina-like breadown, nothing could be more timely than Newt Gingrich’s brilliant ideas about how to truly transform them.”…Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock and the Third Wave

Well, recently the babbling genius held forth on North Korea because ‘they’re about to launch…something‘:

WOW. That’s a whole gumbo of asshole crazy. Pimping an apocalyptic book, trying to start another Korean war, and rolling out unconventional tactics and weapons against a rogue nation. And this is the ‘brilliant’ guy the right is seriously considering for the presidency in 2012? Heck, who needs Kim Jong Il?

Check these keywords and phrases he piles up in the clip: “worried, electromagnetic pulse attack, nuclear weapons, eliminate all electricity production, pre-industrial era overnight, very serious threat, nuclear weapon, dramatically changes America, very dangerous idea, American government be passive, capacity to deliver nuclear weapons, Hamas in Gaza, Iranians and their nuclear program, North Koreans and their nuclear program and missiles, Adolf Hitler, Nazism, kidding ourselves, Iranians, laughing at us, Hamas laughs at us…” And that’s just in the first two minutes.

Okay..*sigh.* Might as well slap down this whacko crap. Who is that prescient ‘Bill Forstchen’ he keeps referring to, and what does Bill know about national defense, or Korean nuclear capability? He’s just a long-time writer/collaborator of Newt’s, they’ve written some history/adventure stuff together. That important book that Newt’s referring to, chronicling a perhaps Electromagnetic Pulse apocalyptic scenario? Science fiction, a thriller. No, not kidding–it’s fiction that Gingrich wrote the forward to. People like the book, it’s caused some discussion, but it’s not a civil defense emergency manifesto by any means.

And taking out the missile by ‘whatever pre-emptive actions are necessary’? That sort of militarism and rigidity are terrific ideas, right: North Korea vows to attack if Japan intercepts satellite. Matching brinksman’s lunacy with lunacy, that’s a ‘brilliant’ idea. Newt must have been the kind of kid that kicked the crap out of hornets’ nests because they looked angry. And why his classmates are probably still calling him ‘Puffy.’

And did you catch that bit about using ‘unconventional’ means? He’d get a ‘small team to go in’–to do what? Invade the ballistics control room? Just reprogram the giant computers to turn the missile around and strike the groovy lair inside the plastic volcano. Why not?

And did he say ‘laser’? Is he off his fucking rails–lasers?

A couple of defense contractors may have made some news recently by developing kilowatt-sized lasers capable of dinging targets, sure. One even claims to have knocked a drone out of the sky with a jeep-mounted weapon:

Boeing Laser Avenger Shoots Down Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in Tests

Jan. 26, 2009 — During tests last month at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Laser Avenger achieved its principal test objectives by using its advanced targeting system to acquire and track three small UAVs flying against a complex background of mountains and desert. The laser system also shot down one of the UAVs from an operationally relevant range. These tests mark the first time a combat vehicle has used a laser to shoot down a UAV.

But that press release indicates that the UAV was flying near and low (‘operationally relevant range’) so that the weapon could have a crack at actually hitting it, which it did. That’s nowhere near taking out a ballistic missile high in the atmosphere, traveling at Mach 3, and from God-knows-what location. Gingrich is completely bananas.

Look–North Korea loves the idea of being a missile power, but it’s programs are pathetic. There’s no reason to go to war here. Along with a couple of Nodong missiles, they launched a Taepodong 2 in 2006 that failed less than a minute out. Where was Gingrich’s ‘kill-them-all’ statesmanship then? Where was his ‘whatever pre-emptive actions are necessary’ patriotism and concern?

Newt Gingrich shouldn’t be allowed to launch a presidential bid, that’s what should be opposed at all costs. He’s supremely arrogant, stupid and given to fantasies. A lot like you-know-who.

[cross-post at Oxdown]