Newt Gingrich was a tour de force in tonight’s debate. He took a narrative the media hammered at al day, flipped it, and effectively killed it in the span of five minutes. He received another standing O for his rhetorical display thereby insulating himself from further attacks by the other candidates.

No candidate would repeat John King’s remarks after watching the audience’s reaction. He rode the wave for almost the entire debate. Gingrich has repented for his trangressions; as voters we are trying to decide whether he’s genuine. Some will decide that he is; some will decide he’s not.

Santorum bombed on the SOPA question. Internet piracy is a problem but SOPA is akin to shooting goldfish in a bucket with a shotgun. Santorum argues that there should be protections for IP holders on the Internet and says that SOPA goes too far, but I’m not convinced of his resolve. As my friend Derek Hunter notes, tell that to Napster.

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Here is new video from RebelPundit’s continuing coverage of Occupy the Dream, an event held at the Peoples[sic] Church of Chicago, Sunday January 15th. The following video reveals the overwhelming and until now, unseen tone of the event.

The event had little to do with Martin Luther King, Jr., or any of his larger than life accomplishments in the civil rights movement, or changing dynamic of the racial divide in America. Perhaps this is not very surprising. What it did have plenty to do with, however, was in fact, occupying the dream.

Progress Illinois even titled their coverage, “Occupy Chicago, Religious Leaders Use MLK Holiday As Means To Call For Change.” There could not have been a more appropriate description of the event.

Religious leaders, community organizers and local politicians joined Occupy Chicago to occupy the dream, occupy the church and occupy the state for one grand revolutionary extravaganza.

Community organizers even called elected officials of the Democrat Party to the pulpit to get their commitment to pushing forward the radical agendas of the groups participating in the event. State senator Heather Steans took to the pulpit to blast Republicans, with other members of the Illinois general assembly calling for progressive tax reform in Illinois. (video) And Jesse Jackson spoke of spending a “mere $900 billion” in taxpayer dollars for the federal government to directly hire 15 million workers at $40,000 per year. (video) Jan Schakowsky was also present and demanded that millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. (video)

But what was not so present at the event was a celebration of the victories the King achieved and how different the landscape of this country has become since his death. The sermon, delivered by Dwight Gardner of the First Trinity United Baptist Church of Gary, Indiana, only referred to King periodically in his address, but only to emphasize the need to “occupy the dream of King” while making tremendous calls for revolution.

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Only the mainstream media could make Newt Gingrich sympathetic on a personal level.  All you need to know about the CNN South Carolina debate happened in the first three minutes, when moderator John King began the night by questioning Newt on allegations made by his ex-wife Marianne.  Gingrich proceeded to do what he’s done best in the campaign—and better than any other candidate on the stage by a wide margin—and that’s rip into the MSM for their malignant and pathological liberal bias.  For Gingrich, a man largely known for having a sordid personal history, to spin the interview that we were told could “end his career” into a net-positive is simultaneously a mega-victory for him and a loss for the increasingly embarrassing CNN.  That is, of course, unless the media can keep the “open marriage” story alive somehow…  The standing ovation last night wasn’t just for Newt; it was for all of us who have raised awareness about the Democrat Media Complex.

Mitt Romney’s night will likely be defined by his mealy-mouthed non-answer when pressed on his reluctance to release his tax returns. I’ve been a proponent of saving anything that could be potentially useful in the general election for the general election, so up until recently I was sympathetic to Mitt’s plan to hold off on disclosing those documents until the likely event he squares off with Barack Obama.  Why not try to trade them for Obama’s illusive college transcripts?  Alas, it has become a political football, so Mitt’s probably best advised to drop them now.  My only hope is that the other candidates’ insistence Mitt releases his tax returns post haste isn’t so that they can use them to play the divisive and dispiriting Occupy-style class warfare politics we saw last week.  It’s startling that the record national debt wasn’t discussed last night, but the candidates talked about Romney’s tax docs until they were blue in the face.

Hopefully people will also remember Romney’s excellent answer when King asked what the candidates would have done differently during the campaign.  Romney delivered a witty and self-deprecating line about how he would have made sure to secure 34 more votes in Iowa and then that he should have focused even more narrowly on Barack Obama, which has been the cornerstone of his campaign. (more…)

Today, in 1981, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President. Twenty minutes after, Iran released 52 American hostages.

The collective of hackers known as Anonymous attacked numerous government and recording industry websites this evening, shutting the sites down for hours as of this posting.

The attacks stem from a two year investigation into content sharing website Megaupload.com.  The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment today (after waiting an extra day to avoid coinciding with the SOPA protests), shut down the Megaupload website and arrested up to eight people in connection with the bust, including Megaupload founder Kim “Dotcom” Schmitz.  The actions provoked anger and triggered retaliation from Anonymous, according to Twitter accounts that regularly tweet news related to the collective of hackers.

The list of affected targets includes the Department of Justice, the FBI, Recording Industry Association of America, UniversalMusic.com, and others.  There are also reports that the US Patent and Trademark Office may have been targeted as well.

From the Washington Post:

Federal authorities Thursday indicted two firms and shut down one of the Web’s most popular sites for sharing illegally pirated material, triggering a quick response from hackers who claimed credit for taking down the Web sites of the Justice Department, Recording Industry Association of America and other media companies in retaliation.

The grand jury indictment, which caps a two-year investigation, charges seven people and Megaupload.com and other related sites with running an international organized criminal enterprise. Investigators said the group generated more than $175 million in income and cost copyright owners more than $500 million.

Justice Department officials said yesterday that the timing of its indictment was coincidental and had nothing to do with a debate on Capitol Hill over a bill that took aim at piracy online.

“This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States,” the Justice Department and FBI said in a statement.

Nevertheless, the federal action angered hackers, escalating the growing battle between the Web’s powerbrokers, both legitimate and illicit, and Washington, which has been seeking ways to clamp down on pirated content.

The Department of Justice released a statement on its website tonight, stating in part (since the DoJ site is down, portions of the statement are available at Mercury News, Silicon Valley):

“The Department of Justice web server hosting justice.gov is currently experiencing a significant increase in activity, resulting in a degradation in service,” the agency said in a statement. “The Department is working to ensure the website is available while we investigate the origins of this activity, which is being treated as a malicious act until we can fully identify the root cause of the disruption.” (more…)

And, then, there were 4. Perry’s sudden departure from the race mixes up the dynamic for tonight’s debate. Expect nasty exchanges between Romney and Gingrich. The wild card is Santorum, who is quickly fading in the polls. He may shift his criticisms of Romney to Gingrich now. Fireworks start at 8pm EST on CNN. We’ll have reactions from the Breitbart world after the debate.

Despite an anemic economic recovery and an increasingly antagonistic Iran, President Obama decided to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Creating thousands of jobs and securing American access to oil, the much-discussed Keystone project would transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada to American refiners in Oklahoma and Texas.

For years the pipeline was an innocuous project slowly making its way through the convoluted federal approval process. After receiving all but one permit, radical environmentalist—feeling affronted two years into the Obama Administration—set their sights on the soon-to-be approved Keystone pipeline. What should have been a non-controversial construction project became anything but. Before becoming the object of environmentalist scorn, the State Department approved and advocated for the nearly identical Canadian-American pipeline in 2009, arguing:

… the addition of crude oil pipeline capacity between Canada and the United States will advance a number of strategic interests of the United States. These included increasing the diversity of available supplies among the United States’ worldwide crude oil sources in a time of considerable political tension in other major oil producing countries and regions; shortening the transportation pathway for crude oil supplies; and increasing crude oil supplies from a major non-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries producer.

Canada is a stable and reliable ally and trading partner of the United States, with which we have free trade agreements which augment the security of this energy supply. Approval of the permit sends a positive economic signal, in a difficult economic period, about the future reliability and availability of a portion of United States’ energy imports, and in the immediate term, this shovel-ready project will provide construction jobs for workers in the United States.

Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, environmentalists threatened to sit out the 2012 election if President Obama approved the pipeline. Organizing daily protests outside the White House, environmentalists effectively turned a non-political issue into one of the most divisive topics of 2011.

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As the city of Troy, NY, awaits jury selection in the first trial involving two Democrats and their alleged roles in a “massive” voter fraud scheme, new details have emerged from the investigation.  Details involving two other veteran political operatives that have already pleaded guilty.

According to a recent Fox News report, Anthony Renna, a Democrat guilty of second-degree forgery, and Anthony DeFiglio, a Democrat guilty of first-degree falsifying business records, are trying to drag all local politicians, regardless of party affiliation, down with the ship.  Thus far, eight people have been charged in connection with the ballot fraud investigation, four of which have pleaded guilty.

Reports emerging from the investigation indicate that the Democrats are trying to implicate Republicans of the same conduct they have been charged with.  According to the state police, Renna and DeFiglio both claimed that, ”voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections, and faking absentee ballots was commonplace.”

Renna explained that the process of handing in forged ballots and fake votes ensures that “ballots are voted correctly.”  He adds, “‘Voted correctly’ is a term used for a forged application or ballot.”

DeFiglio added that such fraud is actually “an ongoing scheme and it occurs on both sides of the aisle.  What appears as a huge conspiracy to nonpolitical persons is really a normal political tactic.”

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The understandable rush to whip together an anti-Romney coalition in the GOP heated up with Rick Perry’s announcement that he’s leaving the race and endorsing Newt Gingrich. While an imperfect alliance, it is at least a bit more genuine than Jon Huntsman’s about-face when he dropped out to suck up to the Romney camp.

A far more troubling endorsement seems to be in the offing, with the rumor that some Tea Party “leaders” are going to announce support for Gingrich.

Calm down; it’s from a Democrat ad.

Having been involved in this movement since Day One, I’ve always intensely disliked anyone speaking for it as a “leader”. People who do so are playing into the progressive lie that this isn’t a true grassroots organization.

The glaring problem, of course, is that Newt Gingrich is not exactly standard Tea Party fare. In fact, if you’d told anyone in the movement a year ago that there would be a groundswell of support for him now the laughter would have punctured your eardrums.

In a Weekly Standard piece written last month, I was asked about some of the shifting attitudes towards the former Speaker. What ended up in the article made it seem as if I could quickly jump aboard Team Newt. The overall idea I was trying to convey was that “anybody but Romney” fervor could drive people to do strange things. And while that anti-Mitt sentiment would probably be the only reason I’d get behind Newt, I certainly wouldn’t pretend that we were ideologically simpatico. (more…)

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who infamously argued for the death of the private insurance industry, and whose husband drafted the political blueprint for Obamacare from federal prison, told Democrats at a rally today that they had to re-elect President Barack Obama in order to achieve single-payer health care.

The Hill reports (emphasis added):

Schakowsky, a vocal supporter of healthcare reform, warned liberals not to turn away from Obama because they didn’t get all they wanted in the new law.

“Losing in November is not an option,” she said. “It doesn’t make it easier to get single-payer or even a public option. It makes it impossible.”

Schakowsky’s remarks in 2009, together with those of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), among others, created suspicion at the time that Obamacare was a “Trojan Horse” for a single-payer system of socialized medicine:

Her remarks today would seem to confirm that suspicion.

While Republicans intend to vote to repeal Obamacare, Democrats are being urged to vote not just to defend Obamacare, but to expand it into a full system of socialized medicine at the federal level. (more…)

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (and its Senate alternative, the Protect Intellectual Property Act [PIPA]) have been taking a bipartisan beating.  Conservatives have joined with Leftists to savage the bill and thus its chances for passage.

I too am opposed to this iteration of SOPA – it remains too overly broad.

But something similar and more finely, sharply crafted – must become law.  And conservatives will need to reorient themselves when a better version of the bill comes along – and support it.

—–

We cannot look at the SOPA debate without putting it into the broader context of the immediately preceding Network Neutrality debate.

Conservatives rightly became highly tuned to Internet censorship as a result of the Left’s drive to impose the truly censorious Net Neutrality by any means necessary.

Following so closely on Net Neutrality’s heels, SOPA got swallowed up in this righteous protect-free-speech verve.

But there are some fundamental differences between SOPA and Net Neutrality that must be acknowledged.

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Sheldon Adelson wasn’t always eighth on the Forbes billionaire list, but the Boston-born son of a poor cab driver is now a casino and resort hotel magnate. He’s a college dropout who tried his hand at many different businesses before he hit the jackpot in Las Vegas. He is a real self-made man who has given away much of his fortune to pro-Israel and Republican causes.

And while speculation is rife that Adelson gave Gingrich’s Super PAC, “Winning the Future,” a $5 million donation to stop Mitt Romney, the truth is that Adelson has given money to Mitt Romney and the Massachusetts State Congressional Committee in the past (Hotline, November 8, 2005). In 2005, Romney worked the room at a fundraiser for the United States Holocaust Museum where Adelson was a guest of honor. Then-Governor Romney and Adelson have also discussed opening up casinos in Massachusetts, though Romney declined to make a decision on the matter during his term as governor.

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I just received an email from Congressman Darrel Issa’s office, containing a copy of a letter that was just sent Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. The letter announces that Cunningham has just been subpoenaed for “repeated refusals to testify voluntarily” before the House Oversight Committee, concerning accusations that he relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Justice Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

Wrote Issa to Cunningham:

During the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office – and you specifically – in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious. Senior Justice Department officials have recently told the Committee that you relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used.  In fact, documents obtained confidentially just last week appear to confirm that you remained steadfast in your belief that no unacceptable tactics were used, even after the Department’s initial response to the congressional inquiry.  Given that the Attorney General has labeled these tactics as unacceptable and Fast and Furious as “fundamentally flawed,” this position is startling.

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Attention, Juan Williams – don’t presume that you speak for Eddie Slaughter when you accuse Newt Gingrich of dog whistle racism for his statements on food stamps and America’s work ethic. Readers of BigGovernment will remember Eddie Slaughter as the South Georgia farmer was gone on record talking about Pigford fraud and how his Congressman, representative Sanford Bishop tried to cover up that fraud. Mr. Slaughter had personal and political dealings with Newt Gingrich years ago that run very counter to the narrative that Juan Williams was trying to push during the recent presidential debate on Fox, as revealed in an interview I did with  Mr. Slaughter this morning.

Mr. Slaughter originally told me about his positive dealings with Gingrich about a year ago, when he both spoke at a press conference at CPAC about the Pigford settlement. Before Pigford became a vast fraud scheme benefiting attorneys and the political class, it began as a legitimate effort by a small group of black farmers to fight discrimination at the hands of the federal government. The issue for the farmers was that the statute of limitations was very short and because the civil rights office of the USDA had been shut down, there had been no real way to report any discrimination for close to 15 years. In order for the bona fide black farmers like Mr. Slaughter to file suit, they would need an extension of the statute limitations.

The black farmers approachedNewt Gingrich to get support. Now, according to the Juan Williams school of thought, Speaker Gingrich was Republican and therefore a presumed racist. Mr. Slaughter told a very different story however. When asked directly about in my interview he said, “I feel that he was more sincere than most in Washington DC.” And “I think he was more fair than most people running for office, from what know about him personally.”

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Matt Boyle to discuss Fast and Furious, how Eric Holder has publicly dodged any involvement, and whether or not someone will be held accountable.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Fast and Furious Roundtable with Katie Pavlich and Matthew Boyle
Holder may be holding on to private emails about Fast and Furious
Justice Dept. silent as Holder charges critics with racism

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New York City government schools have had some pretty outrageous policies.  Rubber rooms were a great example.  They were special places created for teachers accused of crimes, incompetence and the like. Due to state tenure laws, it actually cost less to house the failed teachers in a location where they couldn’t inflict more damage on students, than to go through the lengthy and expensive legal process necessary to fire them.

Thanks Big Labor!

Now New York administrators are trying to deep-six a program created a few years ago in the collective bargaining agreement with the United Federation of Teachers: the Absent Teacher Reserve.

What’s this?  A creation of bureaucrats, politicians and labor bosses, the ATR is comprised of teachers who literally have no classroom for one reason or another. Due to a labor contract stipulation, they can’t be fired or laid off, and continue to draw the same salaries as full-time teachers. They’re put into the ATR pool, where they may be assigned to work as substitutes, clerks, or perhaps to do nothing at all.

They’re clearly not needed, and collectively they make a great deal of money. How’s that for management of taxpayer dollars?

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John Podesta, Center for American Progress

The Washington Post has just published an article reporting that the Center for American Progress, the left-wing think tank whose policies and personnel have close ties to the Obama White House, has been “accused of anti-Semitic language.”

The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank closely aligned with the White House, is embroiled in a dispute with several major Jewish organizations over statements on Israel and charges that some center staffers have used anti-Semitic language to attack pro-Israel Americans.

The controversy reflects growing divisions among important allies of President Obama over Middle East policy that could complicate the president’s reelection outreach to some Jewish voters, just as he is seeking to assure them of his commitment to Israel’s security amid fears of an Iran nuclear threat.

Among the points of contention are several Twitter posts by one CAP writer referring to “Israel-firsters.” Some experts say the phrase has its roots in the anti-Semitic charge that American Jews are more loyal to a foreign country. In another case, a second staffer described a U.S. senator [Mark Kirk of Illinois] as showing more fealty to Israel and the prime U.S. pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, than to his own constituents, replacing a standard identifier of party affiliation and state with “R-AIPAC” on Twitter….

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Remember when Herman Cain was doing what no one thought he could do? He was beating Mitt Romney nationally, telling us that “9-9-9 means jobs, jobs, jobs,” promising to gut the EPA and repeal Obamacare, all with a southerner’s grin and a gentlemen’s manner. But as he pulled further and further ahead, and people actually wondered if he might upset Romney’s bid, a funny thing happened: there was an orchestrated attack on him based on rumors about a relationship he denied having with a woman nearly 20 years ago.

When that failed to stop him, the attacks were stepped up so as to include comments from less-than-savory characters who claimed to have actually seen Cain sexually harass that woman but who would not, or could not, provide details.  So the pile on game began, and rumors of Cain’s harassment of other women began to be floated. Some of those women were even paraded out before TV cameras in hopes of finally getting the American voter to turn on Cain. Who can forget watching Romney’s supporter-and-chief, Karl Rove, declaring Cain “finished” in late October then watching Gloria Allred parade out “a fourth accuser” for a press conference in early November?

Long story short, Cain eventually had to pull out of the race. And my point here isn’t to try and defend Cain, as much as it is to remind everyone of the tactics of the Republican establishment and their willing cohorts in the media who all want to see Romney get the nomination. (The establishment wants him to get the nomination because he’s an establishment guy and the media wants him to get it because they plan to watch Obama beat him in just the way Gov. Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh have predicted.)

Enter Newt Gingrich: He’s gaining on Romney not only in South Carolina but also in polls nationally. His Reagan-like statements at the GOP debate are being replayed again and again and praised for their conservative substance. So ABCNews is now debating whether or not to air an interview with his ex-wife, wherein she unloads on him.

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