No doubt one of the most enjoyable entertainments to emerge from the GOP primary fight is the rise and fall and rise and spectacular fall of one Newt Gingrich. Those of us who remember him from the Clinton impeachment hearings know well what a loathsome individual he was, and still is. So it is with particular glee that we read today that The Gingrich Group LLC has just filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

In a Chapter 7 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Georgia, The Gingrich Group LLC, doing business as the Center for Health Transformation, filed for bankruptcy Wednesday. (Chapter 7 is “the chapter of the Bankruptcy Code providing for ‘liquidation,’ that is, the sale of a debtor’s nonexempt property and the distribution of the proceeds to creditors,” as defined by the federal courts.)

The vast majority of Gingrich’s net worth is tied up in the Gingrich Group. Gingrich is worth overall between $7.1 million and $31 million, according to his financial disclosure. He lists a promissory note from Gingrich Group as being worth between $5 million and $25 million.

Gingrich was chairman of the group until May of last year, when he announced he was running for president. Since focusing his efforts on his presidential run, the “Gingrich Group” has struggled to raise money, leading to its eventual collapse.

So in honor of this hilarious turn of events,  please enjoy this recent video of a cocksure Newt Gingrich explaining how it’s basically impossible to imagine how he won’t be the GOP nominee come November. Think of it as the maraschino cherry topping your schadenfreude sundae:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3m_o8IcC9U

Nine years ago in anticipation of my eldest daughter’s birth, my wife and I undertook the ritual preparation of the baby’s bedroom. We cleaned out the space we had set aside the occasion, and scrubbed and plastered the walls with the patterned paper we had picked out the week before at Lowes. It was a pretty combination of yellow and white stripes and we accented it with a lower border of colorful tulips sprouting up from behind a white picket fence. As soon as the paper had dried I capped the whole project off by installing crown molding –a tedious, arduous and frustrating task I hope never again to repeat (the contractor who installs that stuff for a living earns every penny of his wages and then some, in my opinion). And all in all, it was a charming, warm and welcoming environment for a newborn. Read more »

Karl Rove, in a Wall Street Journal Op Ed on Thursday, lambasting Barack Obama’s presidency:

As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film “that’s the call I would have made.” For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.

What president Bill Clinton actually said:

He took the harder and the more honorable path. When I saw what had happened, I thought to myself, `I hope that’s the call I would have made.’

What Karl Rove’s Op Ed says today, after Rove’s lie was exposed, decried and widely discussed in the blogosphere and the mainstream media:

As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film “I hope that’s the call I would have made.” For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.

How the Wall Street Journal explains the correction:

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this column included an incomplete quote from Bill Clinton in the last paragraph.

(Hat Tip: Plum Line)

Once upon a time a toad hopped into the offices of the Washington Post editorial board and explained to the staff “If you kiss me, and hire me on as an opinion columnist, I will turn into a prince and write brilliant, insightful pieces for your paper.” As it happened, neither of these statements was true. But the toad was hired and kept on nonetheless. (This is, after all, the newspaper that leapt at the opportunity to hire war whore William Kristol after the New York Times editorial board came to their senses and severed ties with the least talented human being to ever put crayon to construction paper and slide it under the door of the Editorial Board offices.)

Today the aforementioned toad (nee Richard Cohen) regales us with another example of his searing intellect in a piece promisingly titled: “ Sarah Palin’s Foolishness Ruined U.S. Politics.“
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I forget, is this the fifth or the sixth sign of the Apocalypse?

“We live in an era that seems to discover new rights every day,”

-Cardinal  Timothy Dolan,   (NYT 3/2/12)

And he says that like it’s a bad thing. Some of us, on the other hand, find it refreshing that government and society are coming around to a more inclusive and expansive view of human liberty.

So in case you haven’t heard, ol Mitt Romney is in a bit of a tizzy over what’s happening in Michigan. As Nate Silver has noted, polls that until recently seemed to suggest that Romney would likely carry his home state have swung suddenly and violently in the direction of his principal rival for the GOP nomination, and now the race between Romney and Rick Santorum is too close to call.

A frustrating development for Romney, moreover, is a sudden bout of Democratic enthusiasm for his opponent, with the Santorum Campaign and UAW officials hoping to mobilize a large Union turnout in favor of the onetime Senator from Pennsylvannia and present day candidate for Pope of America. The Romney campaign is alleging that this mob of temporary turncoats is little more than a dirty trick designed to weaken Romney and ensure that the least electable GOP candidate gets the Republican nomination:

“It’s outrageous to see Rick Santorum team up with the Obama people and go out after union labor in Detroit and try and get them to vote against me,” Mr. Romney said.

Is it a dirty trick, as Romney alleges?

Maybe, maybe not. OK, probably. But before vociferously accusing his opponents of dirty tricks, Mittens might want to re-visit an interview he gave to ABC News back in 2007:

Read more »