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It's on CNN, and promises to be a drunk fest for the dog whistle drinking gamers.

Debate open thread below....

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As we approach the time where Newt Gingrich is given yet another opportunity to sound the dogwhistles tonight about our "Food Stamp President," it's my duty to report that among some contingents in South Carolina, it's working. Listen to the syrupy, condescending tone of voice of this woman as she lauds Mr. Gingrich's performance in Monday night's debate:

MATTHEWS: ...Listen to this exchange from a Gingrich event earlier today.

(clip)

SPEAKER: I would like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for putting Mr. Juan Williams in his place the other night.

(applause)

His supposed question was totally ludicrous, and we support you.

Watch the look on Newt's face when she praises him, especially when she gets to the part about putting Williams in his place. He's almost bursting with pride.

Watch the clip to the end for a palate cleanser. Donna Edwards does a great job of putting little Miss Uppity Place-Putter right back where she belongs.

In the interest of providing fair and balanced perspective, I'd like to suggest that perhaps the woman who made that comment could possibly be related to this one:

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On his Tuesday program, Thom Hartmann had on former Tea Party Express leader and current radio host Mark Williams to discuss why Williams is so anti-union and how inconsistent that is with his professed beliefs in democracy and freedom.

Hartmann is clearly debating Williams with one hand metaphorically tied behind his back and it's really too easy to show not only the inconsistency but the ignorance from which all of Williams' reactionary anti-union stance (himself a member of the AFTRA union) originates. But that's what I find of most of these tea party types: their stances rarely are consistent with their professed values and as soon as you carry their statements to their (il)logical conclusions, they immediately backtrack and say, "wait, I don't mean that!"

Sadly, it takes far more self-awareness than Williams is capable of to re-evaluate his point of view, but kudos to Thom for trying.

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It looks like Newt Gingrich is set on pandering to those "tea partiers" in South Carolina that are still fans of the half-term Governor Sarah Palin. After Palin came close to endorsing him in the primary on Fox the previous evening, Gingrich told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he'd consider asking her to take "a major role in the next administration" if he's elected president.

As if we didn't have enough other reasons he should never come anywhere near the White House, I'd say that's a disqualifier right there.

BLITZER: A lot of us noticed last night that Sarah Palin virtually endorsed you. She said if she lived in South Carolina, she would probably vote for you right now, which, in my mind, and I suspect in others, immediately raised the possibility if you were to get the nomination, would she be on your short list as a potential vice presidential running mate?

GINGRICH: Well, look, I don't want to suggest anything. We haven't talked about anything at all.

Governor Palin is somebody who I think was a very good reform governor. She was extraordinarily effective negotiating with big oil. She did a good job in the state of Alaska. I think she's a very articulate leader of the Tea Party conservative movement.

I was honored and delighted last night when she said if she were in South Carolina, she would vote for Newt Gingrich. I hope everybody who likes her decides she's right, and I hope they vote for me.

Certainly, she's one of the people I would call on for advice, I would ask her to consider taking a major role in the next administration if I'm president. But nothing has been discussed of any kind, and it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss it at this time.

I'm just delighted that she and Todd -- both have been so supportive of my candidacy, and they recognize that, you know, I am a Tea Party reform conservative. I'm not part of the Washington establishment. And I think that's the signal that her endorsement last night really sends.

BLITZER: Mr. Speaker, good luck. We'll stay in close touch. Thanks very much for joining us.

GINGRICH: Stay in touch. Thanks, Wolf.

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Via MSNBC:

The Republican Party of Iowa announced Thursday that Rick Santorum finished ahead of Mitt Romney in its Jan. 3 caucuses, meaning the contest resulted in a virtual tie between the two candidates.

After more than two weeks of certifying the results, the former Pennsylvania senator pulled ahead of Romney by 34 votes despite Romney being declared the winner on Jan. 3 by an 8 vote margin.

The final official numbers stand at Santorum with 29,839 and Romney with 29,805, but the results from eight of the 1774 precincts could not be located and certified, leaving lingering questions as to who is the actual winner of the Iowa Caucus.

Eight precincts missing? How convenient. For whom, I'm not sure. Depending on where those precincts were located, it could have affirmed Romney as the winner or widened Santorum's lead. Unfortunately, we'll never know because not only can they not locate the paper ballots used to vote, they can't find the vote tallies either.

Brad Friedman at The Brad Blog hailed the Iowa caucuses as an example of true, transparent democracy because the votes were cast on paper and counted one by one. Of course, the problem with that conclusion is that it includes an assumption that when votes are cast, they're counted and retained. In this case, Republicans managed to corrupt true transparency yet again by "losing" eight full precincts of caucus voters. If nothing else, I think they've proved that Republicans simply cannot handle the most rudimentary aspects of democracy.

All of this is largely symbolic anyway, since delegates are not bound by the results of the caucus. Still, it exposes the hypocrisy of conservative hand-wringing over dead voters when they can't even count the ones who are alive properly.

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Wow, how tone deaf can these Republican presidential candidates get?

We live in a time when two-thirds of Americans and over half of Republicans believe that rich people should pay more in taxes. This is also a time when we're having a unprecedented national conversation about our troubling wealth inequality.

And here you have the fabulously wealthy Willard admitting that he pays a lower federal income tax rate than many middle class people pay -- while dismissing the nearly $400,000 in speaking fees he rakes in as funny money. And now the fabulously wealthy Newt gleefully cheers him on.

Remember, right-wingers mocked Warren Buffett's claim that he pays less in taxes than his secretary. But it looks like Republicans are about to nominate a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars who admits he pays a lower rate than...Warren Buffett's secretary.

It's really quite something.

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In all of the smoke and mirrors and true protests and political posturing over the Keystone XL Pipeline, one of the least-reported issues has been the conflict between the state of Nebraska and the United States government.

That debate has not yet been settled, as Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer patiently explains to an incredulous, disbelieving Neil Cavuto.

Back in October, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman called a special session of the state legislature. The purpose of the session was to discuss the Keystone XL Pipeline route through the state and whether the state should exercise its right to withhold approval of the route through Nebraska, since it seemed apparent at that time that the State Department was moving toward approval before the end of 2011. Since Heineman couldn't be certain that the Obama Adminstration would delay their decision, Nebraska chose to exercise their rights to block, or at the very least, delay, approval of the pipeline.

Two bills were passed as a result of that special session. The first is the Major Pipeline Siting Act, which requires pipeline owners to submit their plan to the state for approval. From the Nebraska legislature, this explanation:

LB 1 adopts the Major Oil Pipeline Siting Act, which sets out a procedure for pipeline carriers to follow. An application must be approved by the Public Service Commission prior to beginning construction of a major oil pipeline in Nebraska. One or more public hearings would be held. In making the decision as to whether the pipeline is in the public interest, the Commission can evaluate evidence of the impact due to intrusion upon natural resources, including evidence regarding the irreversible and irretrievable commitments of land areas and connected natural resources and the depletion of beneficial uses of the natural resources. The Commission can also evaluate the reports submitted by related agencies, as well as the views of the governing bodies of the counties and cities in the area of the proposed route. The Commission is preempted by federal law from looking at safety issues when making their decision. Furthermore, LB 1 requires the approval of an application prior to the use of eminent domain.

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The Colbert Super PAC ads just keep getting more deliciously whacked as they go along. This one is narrated by actor Sam Elliot. The ad starts out decrying the negative attack ads used by the republican candidates against one another and the millions spent by their respective Super PACs, and how this is having such a deleterious effect on our democracy. Then asks for unlimited donations to blast the other Super PACs "out of existence" so we can all return to more idyllic times before these hated Super PACs appeared.

Brilliant.

That viral Youtube may be the most famous American cri de coeur of the new century --- a shot heard round the political world announcing that Elizabeth Warren was not just running for the Senate in Massachusetts, but that she was going to do it by redefining the political framework that's governed this nation for the past 30 years. Warren's message put fear in the hearts of the big money boyz and the political establishment and they reacted. Strongly. This is not a person they want in the Senate and they are going to do whatever they can to ensure she isn't elected.

As someone who has been fighting for the middle class for many years as a researcher and advocate, Warren is a rare politician who has knowledge of the way Washington works while not being of Washington. As her recent battles setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau showed, the wall of resistance to her ideas is formidable and a lesser person would have done her work and gone back to her secure and happy life as a professor and lecturer. But those battles only made her more determined.

She's going to be the next Senator from Massachusetts if we have anything to do with it --- and if her track record is any indication that ossified institution isn't going to know what hit it.

Elizabeth Warren is staking her race on a commitment to resist the lures of big money and special interests. Wall Street, for obvious reasons, has her in their crosshairs and will pour unlimited amounts of cash into the race to defeat her and the GOP establishment is desperate that they do so --- after all, her win could keep the Senate in the hands of the Democrats.

But despite all that, it's not impossible for her to win this, not by a long shot. There's a limit to what money can buy and Elizabeth's message is resonating strongly as she crosses the state meeting people. She's consistently running ahead of her opponent Scott Brown in the polls, but she needs our help to stay competitive.

This week her campaign is running a money bomb collecting donations from like-minded individuals all over the country who understand that Elizabeth Warren doesn't just represent the people of Massachusetts, although she does. She represents all of us who want to see the American dream restored and the middle class strong and thriving again in this country.

Howie, John and I were thrilled to have Blue America be among the very first to endorse her campaign and we couldn't be more excited that she's found a few minutes to join us here today.

Please give as generously as you can--- and please welcome her to Crooks and Liars!

Who would have guessed we’d have a national conversation about urinating on corpses? And worse yet to have people with a media megaphone attempting to defend it. The video of four marines desecrating the remains of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan surfaced on YouTube last week.

The first thing worth noting is this treatment of war dead is absolutely against the Geneva Convention. The second thing is we threw out the Geneva Convention when we invaded Afghanistan.

Which leads me to the following conclusion: It’s time to end this war. It’s time to leave.

President Dwight Eisenhower, in his 1963 memoir, noted that in Vietnam “the mass of the population supported the enemy.” This was an insurmountable obstacle (at the time) for the French and an ominous foreshadowing for a full-scale American conflict to come. A war the U.S. would engage in for 20 years through five presidents and an estimated 200,000 dead or wounded American soldiers.

Yet that is where we are with Afghanistan: The population is not on our side. I was recently on a television program with Michael Hastings, a reporter at Rolling Stone on Afghanistan. He said some of the Afghans still think they are fighting the Soviets (a nine year war which ended in 1989).

That is the best indication this war, for us, is unwinnable: We don’t really know who we’re fighting there and they don’t really know who they’re fighting there.

We’d actually have to educate people as to who it is they are trying to kill first…in order to “win their hearts and minds.”

We’ve been in a country called the graveyard of empires for a decade. Last year General David Petraeus announced his COIN or counterinsurgency strategy, integral in Iraq, would be implemented in Afghanistan too. The pillars of a COIN strategy are “security, political and economic.” Or as Petraeus wrote in the field manual “Success in COIN operations requires establishing a legitimate government supported by the people.” Basically, nation building. We have to build a nation that will be stable, legitimate AND support the U.S. How does that happen? More time; more soldiers; more money.

Just one decade is not enough to make little progress in a country whose last successful conqueror was the Mongols…roughly 800 years ago. And whose type of government historically can be best described as tribal.

Front-runner for the Republican nomination Mitt Romney said in his New Hampshire primary victory speech, “He [Obama] doesn’t see the need for overwhelming American military superiority. I will insist on a military so powerful no one would think of challenging it.”

We have the largest navy in the world (twice as big as the second largest) and we’re in a ten-year-long struggle in a landlocked country.

This is a Romney “let them eat cake moment.” Oh we’re not winning with the biggest military in the history of the planet? The solution is to make it bigger!

Enough. Eisenhower, the last five-star general to be President of the United States, warned Americans upon his leaving office of the “military industrial complex.” Part of this complex is the insistence of “listening to the commanders on the ground.”

The commanders still insist we can win if we just try harder, stay long and commit more troops. But this is in their nature. Asking commanders on the ground if we should continue with a war is like asking a football coach if we should continue to have football games. Of course they say yes, they’re professionals and this is their livelihood. Their opinion should be treated as such.

In 2008, Obama was the recipient of more donations (6:1) from soldiers serving overseas than his opponent, former POW, John McCain. It was specifically because then-Senator Obama spoke of ending the Iraq War.

Iraq is over. Let’s end our involvement in Afghanistan too.

Cross posted at TinaDupuy.com