AND THEN I TOLD MARIANNE… – “Darlin’, I got some serious junk here and there’s just too much of Newt to not share the wealth.”

Newt Gingrich has an ego as big as all outdoors, or at least a big as Donald Trump’s. He’s a historian with only a nodding acquaintance with text book history and his own self-professed place in it.  The other thing Newt has is a propensity for pissing people off. People like voters and political allies in his own party. While this isn’t an altogether useless skill in an election, it isn’t so great when a President has to work with people rather than through them. If cockroaches will survive nuclear holocaust Newt will be right there tossing garbage to them.

Newt and the Bulldog
The Grey One has already screwed the pooch in the opinion of most political pundits. Screwed the bulldog just like The Crazy One, The Pizza Deliverer, Governor Big Hair, and The Unknown Candidate. He’s left competing with The Even Crazier One, The Crazy Little Old Man, and The Moronic Mormon.  As long as evangelicals, pissed off white guys, and the rest of the Ignorati from small, unimportant states vote like lemmings he’ll still be winner take all on pure political gutsiness.

Make no mistake, Newt will become the candidate. I’m not a believer in legislating personal behavior , but a man pandering to values voters while having none of his own isn’t a problem. The values folks vote that way all the time and a little pecker-waving is a small price to pay beating The Messiah (oh, and BTW, when’s he going to show us his birth certificate?). By election time, the Mormon will have as big a reputation for never meeting a position he didn’t like and revealing his birth certificate instead of his 0% tax rate forms will be the least of his problems.

Newt is Newt
Newt will stride across the GOP stage like John McTheusela and try to convince the Republicans that running as President and Vice President at the same time is a good thing. After all, he’s Newt and Newt is more powerful than God. Still, some single-payer corporate grifters will kibosh the idea and force Newt to take on a wildly ridiculous running mate, maybe a Dan Quayle comeback.

The Dems will float a Biden Presidential run because they are just as afraid of Newt as the few thinking Republicans are.  But eventually, The Messiah will clinch the nomination after some public cat herding. Eventually, the Obamunator will win by the skin of his socialist nose after Newt’s hubris trips him up by saying something so weird even the Republicans can’t overlook it – perhaps moving into the White House immediately after his nomination.

Never underestimate the power of a man who can schtup wife two while taking on the Stepford Wife with the bad hair and can explain that the whole thing was Calista’s doing.

Hey, it could happen.

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In keeping with the long and ignoble tradition of plastering the Lord’s Prayer on every flat surface in creation, Christians in the Indiana legislature have introduced a bill to require reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of every school day.

I’ve no issue with the Lord’s Prayer itself. I suppose it’s as useful as anything in helping accomplish the bill’s goal of, “establishing character and becoming a good citizen.” But prayers seem a little weak for such an important job and there is no proof it works anyway.

I also have no issue with teaching about religion in public school provided it is taught from a sociological or historical perspective and includes all religions and non-theistic points of view. After all, it is an important part of the nation’s history and understanding it can help pull us all together.

I don’t even care if religious groups want to use the school building to hold services as long as they pay the freight for that use and school isn’t in session.

But, I draw the line at requiring the Lord’s Prayer or any other religious custom or action in schools.

It’s true the bill only requires prayers at charter schools which may be partially funded by non-governmental groups. However, charter schools are, more often than not, at least partially funded with government money. And therein lies the rub.

By virtue of that government money, charter schools are open to everyone, not just Christians. Requiring kids to repeat their prayers is heavy handed and a back door to killing the concept of separation of church and state – a separation that inhibits the idea of a thriving and expanding theocracy. And BTW, wouldn’t this bill fall into the category of tyrannical Big Government that steals our liberties in a much more fundamental way than light bulb or low-flow toilet regulations?

If you insist on required prayer take your educational business to a religious school. There you can freely pray or require prayer as you wish. I don’t even care if you want to sacrifice goats (they go swimmingly with a little mint sauce BTW) on an altar. Your school, your money, your rules.

But the worst of these sorts of laws is that they are 100% unnecessary. Nothing prevents in-school prayer now. You’re free to pray all you want, any time you want. Kid got a dicey test coming up? They can put in a few quiet words to the Big Guy before they pick up their pencil. Scared they’ll be picked last for the volleyball team? “Oh dear Lord, don’t let them pick me last. Amen.”  Prayer doesn’t need to be required or recited aloud to be effective.

“Dear Lord, I beseech thee. Show those who would rob one person’s religious freedom in order to make it only for their own understand there is a way of compassion and understanding. A simple solution to a simple problem. Let them trust in your wisdom and show them the bright light of respecting all others as they ask to be respected.”

“In the Lord’s name we pray. Amen.”

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ADRIAN! - "In this corner...Rockin' Rick 'Rocky' Santorum"

I don’t know if Rick Santorum is a racist. I know he says many stupid things, so he might be an idiot, or maybe a racist idiot. It is hard to tell when a person has a brain the size of an empty, withered walnut.

But, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume he’s an earnest man without a trace of racism and that he really believes, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families. The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”

Minorities are as Rare as Untipped Iowan Cows
Let’s forget that most welfare payments go to white people and let’s forget that 91% of Iowans are white. Minorities in Iowa are as rare as untipped cows.

Getting manufacturing going is important. If it was working everyone in the economy would be better off, even the rich. However, many American manufacturers are so far gone they can’t come back. Plus, there are fewer people who can afford products, regardless of where they’re made. The golden goose has been fed rat poison by over-consumption and under-manufacturing.

Santorum rightly makes the point that while minorities aren’t the bulk of the welfare population, they are disproportionately represented. You know, sort of like the 1 Percenters. So, programs to help them get out and, “give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families,” is a tough, withered walnut shell to crack.

Santorum and others of his ilk want to put the poor back to work without funding schools, job training, medical care, affordable housing, or anything else that jacks up Bill Gates’ tax rate. In fact, some Republicans want the poor to pay more in taxes. What sort of math allows you to raise the poor’s taxes by 50% without understanding that 50% of nothing is, urm, NOTHING?!!

Welfare programs are hugely expensive, though not as expensive as other expenditures being stalked by ravenous budget-wolves. But assuming welfare will magically go away if we simply stop paying is wishful thinking – like absorbing millions of illegal aliens and then assuming they’ll disappear if we throw up some chain link halfway between Arizona and New Mexico.

Yes Rick, there is a problem. But no, busying yourself with the sex lives of other people doesn’t solve it. And further, this isn’t a new problem. It is the result of kicking a very large can down a very long road.

Many welfare programs were born of LBJ’s Great Society. The Great Society was an admirable effort to lift poor sharecroppers above poverty by trying to balance the economic and racial inequities of American society. In the end, all it did was move people to housing projects were there is no sharing or crops and minorities are contained so they wouldn’t be so noticeable.

The great failing was assuming you could start by giving kids something to eat, a place to live, and a school to go to while ignoring the generations of people who were already past the point of lifting up.

Mommy the Crackhead and Daddy the Pimp
You can teach a kid how to read and count, but Mommy being a crackhead and Daddy being a drug-dealing pimp isn’t exactly world-class role modeling. Too many people are simply warehoused in crumbling housing, ducking gang raids, and learning that dealing drugs makes way more money than flipping burgers. All the while listening to nitwits preach that fixing the problem is as simple as stopping payments for the crumbling housing and decrpit schools.

Santorum probably thinks that being poor trumps being a minority. He may not want black folk in his neighborhood, but that wouldn’t be as bad as a white family of project transfers moving in next door. He just doesn’t like one, the other actually drives down his property values.

Being poor or a minority is a problem in this country. Sometimes they’re inextricably linked, other times you can tease economics from bigotry. But either way simply stopping funds and pretending that all the downtrodden need is some paternal advice to get a job won’t make it go away. No matter how hard he might try, Rick can’t make these people and their problems invisible. He can’t pretend their problems aren’t the nation’s problem.

In the end Rick’s solution is no solution at all, it’s merely another kick of the can. If we want to lessen the need for welfare, we’ll need to reform what we spend on, not how much we spend. Throwing cash at ill-advised, half-assed, ineffective programs is just as bad as doing nothing.

And nothing is exactly the change Rick’s plan will make.

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Jerusalem

Minor skirmishes broke out when Christian, Jewish, and Muslim supporters fought for hours over which calendar – Gregorian,  Hariji, or Hebrew – to use in planning the move. Chinese representatives remain neutral on the calendar question and the Romans voted in absentia for the Julian Calendar.

The fighting broke out after the Christian delegation charged the Muslim and Jewish delegations of declaring a War on New Year.

“They declared a War on Christmas and now they’re trying to steal the entire year from us,” said Hank Hucklebuck, Chairman of the God Says We’re Right and You’re Wrong Alliance. “Like Christmas, New Year has been part of a Christian tradition leading all the way back to 1582 when St. Greg of the Equinox threw out that evil Julian calendar.”

“Look, Christians are a fair-minded lot and we would never want to deprive others of their right to celebrate the New Year as they wish. However, we’re right, they’re wrong and only God can change that. We have already contacted his representative, Pat Robertson, to negotiate when our calendar will be chosen. We are looking forward to resolving this issue peacefully,” Hucklebuck said.

Muslim representatives had a different point of view.

“Those Christians are always going around shoving Jesus into our faces. To me this has nothing to do with the calendar. Mohamed is clearly the most important of any prophet in any religion and he chose the Hariji. Of that, there is no question,” said Isaiah Mustafa.

Israel’s Hebrew Calendar Defense League threatened violence if the Gregorian or Hariji calendars were adopted.

“We may have nuclear weapons. We have a very capable fighting force. We have the might of the last remaining global superpower behind us. We will prevail,” said Bibi Badder, Chief of Israel’s Time Continuum Militia. “If our calendar is not chosen, as as God directs, we will bomb the US Congressional Prayer Caucus, Iran, and both Michele Bachmann and that other fool…Richard Santorum.”

Fighting calmed only slightly after several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a cease fire. Sources say that negotiations broke down when representatives could not agree on a calendar to use in setting up the ceasefire timing. A small group of Atheists tried to enter the meeting and offer a compromise based on a scientific calendar, but Islamic, Christian, and Jewish members threw stones at them until they drove them from the Temple on the Mount.

“We may not be able to agree on a calendar,” Hucklebuck said, “but we can all agree that whatever the atheists propose is complete scientific mumbo-jumbo.”

When it appeared the chance for an agreement was unlikely the Christian delegation decided to gear up their grassroots War on Christmas organization for a War on New Year. They’ve called on Fox News to launch the crusade immediately. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have already come aboard.

“People will call things by their proper Christian names or they will be hanged as enemy combatants for their violations of our family values. If we do not win this war – though that’s impossible because God is on our side – homosexualist indoctrinators will tell our kids they can’t pray in school and a massive outbreak of man-on-horse sex could rage,” said GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

“Mark my words.”

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Poll watchers are writing the obituary for Newt “I Got My Ass Kicked Over That Name A Lot When I Was a Kid” Gingrich. Pundits are screaming at each other with full-throated vigor and the public stands agog that none of the punditocrisy saw this coming.

“Newt’s a smart guy and will pull it all together!” Newt has too much baggage and doesn’t have a hope in hell” go the chants.

My opinion is that Newt has an ego that would give Donald Trump a hard on. And, he likes to play the “(revised) history professor” to a party well-known as the ignorati since medieval serfs used sticks for shovels… and housing… and, when necessary, food. Besides, everyone had a 7th grade history teacher that hated them. That memory is really hard to overcome.

Newt, the Small Salamander
In the end, Newt will fall into his own mouth and swallow himself into a heftily paid lobbyist and “professor” in some of the nation’s most academically-challenged institutions of higher learning. Besides, he’s named for a small amphibian and that’s a heavy cross to bear.

Noting unusual here. Politicians flame out all the time.  What seems to differ this time is that the Republican field is like the Kentucky Derby with 6 more horses than starting gates.

So far, the ultra-insane wing – Michele Bachmann and Governor Goodhair – have fallen prey to that old political disease, Village Idiot Syndrome. Herman Cain – who passes for a moderate in today’s Republican Party – went down with “I Can’t Keep it in My Pants” Disease.

Rick Santorum is a late bloomer angling for the “Uber-Ultra Insanitite With a Cherry on Top” vote. He’ll fare about as well as anyone who, when Googled, displays a picture of runny shit.

Jon Huntsman will die a quiet political death while trying to explain how his billionaire father has nothing to do with his campaign while accepting more money than God from him. Breeding truly tells.

Ron Paul will pull the hardcore daffies like he’s the second coming of Dennis Kucinich, but daffiness doesn’t sell nearly as well as bat-shit, full-moon lunacy.

That religious cultist Mitt Romney – who’s sole redeeming feature is that he isn’t one of the others – will still lose. It seems what you don’t say is almost as bad a saying something stupid. Wearing special underwear and having been named for a piece of baseball equipment will not overcome his challenges either.

I Love the Smell of Moose Urine in the Morning
Who’s left? No, not Donald Trump. He won’t find campaigning nearly as cool as delusional idol worship, gold-plated everything, and swag lamps. The White Trump House is simply not klassy enough for him.

But, is that moose urine or wolf carcass offal on the tundra I smell? Why of course, Yosemite Samantha Sarah is baaaack!

She’s nowhere as loony as Santorum or Bachmann, but they’ve been genetically bred for maximum hilarity – religious, anti-chimp/anti-evolution claims notwithstanding.  Perry gives her a run for her money, but in the end he still sounds like George the Lesser raised from the dead. And the one thing everyone agrees is that George the Lesser should be exiled to Sardinia… forever.

For some inexplicable reason, people will listen to her. Maybe it’s her folksy delivery or sexy schoolmarm schtick. Maybe it’s her “just plain folks” sensibilities. “She just seems so darn nice,” Republican women will gush. People see her as having the same troubles as them. After all, her reality show was cancelled and it’s replacement withered on the vine. Everyone can relate to that, can’t they?

Of course, Obama will win the election – not because people like him – but because they see how bad things are now and are absolutely terrified it’ll get even worse with someone else in the catbird seat.

Surprisingly, Republicans aren’t driving nails into their own coffin with this baffling array of candidates with donut holes for brains. No, they’ll just look like buffoons until such time as the Democrats out-buffoon them and then put up some yokel with lots of money and no morals for the win.

Sigh…

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