Newt Explores

Newt Gingrich, the ethically challenged former House Speaker, has announced an exploratory committee to determine the feasibility of a run for the Republican presidential nomination. As thrice married and serial adulterer, Gingrich brings considerable baggage is trying to sell Republican primary voters, many of whom reflexively frown on such domestic arrangements, that he is their man.

Goodbye CP

The Washington Redskins' release of veteran running back Clinton Portis was hardly surprising; indeed, a ballooning payment due of millions of dollars coupled with assorted injuries that kept him off the field - only 13 games in the last two seasons - made the decision inevitable. Portis, who is 77 yards shy of 10,000 yeards in a career, will likely try to latch on with another team, but at 30 years of age his best days are probably behind him.

Doing the Huck

In a radio interview, former Arkansas Gov. and erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee posited that President Obama's liberal views differ from most Americans because he grew up in Kenya. Later the Fox commentator, through a spokesman, admitted that he misspoke, the president having been raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. Of course Mr. Obama's father was from Kenya but, as is well-known except among the willfully ignorant, Obama didn't set in Kenya until he was 20. Huckabee, I believe, was obviously pandering to the Republican base, many of whom fall in the category of the aforementioned willfully ignorant, birthers and assorted other numbnuts, who question whether Obama was actually born in the United States.

Out of Africa

This is an unpublished letter to the Washington Examiner, a right wing newspaper that never tires of attacking President Obama and never allows the facts to interfere with its overzealousness:

In the editorial criticizing President Obama for failure to call for madman Moammar Gaddafi’s removal (an omission subsequently overtaken by events), you write that the dictator “has used mercenaries from Africa and Libyan soldiers still loyal to him to slaughter demonstrators in street.” For your edification, Libya, like neighboring Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria, is located in the continent of Africa; so, if it matters to be perceived as having a rudimentary knowledge of geography, it should have been read “mercenaries from other African nations.”

I

Holding On

Libya's Col. Moammar Gaddafi, the often comically eccentric but monstrously brutal dictator, seems resolutely determined to hold onto power and not follow the path of his Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts who relinquished power albeit reluctantly. Gaddafi has shown no hesitation in cracking down on protestors, killing upwards of more than 200 people thus far. The strongman has vowed to "fight until the last drop of my blood." On this point, may he accommodated, sooner rather than later.

Silent Clarence

According to those who keep track of such things, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, with the Supreme Court about to began a new term, looks to continue his 5 year streak of having never uttered a word from the bench during oral argument. Now if only he would adopt a similar reticence in deciding cases and writing opinions.

Ban Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day should be banned because, after you've stripped away all of the nonsense about love and romance, what you have is a faux holiday where the real beneficiaries are the greeting card, floral, chocolate, and restaurant industries. Now don't get me wrong: expressions of love and affection are fine but they don't have to be mandated by a day that is driven more by commerce than anything else. If one needs to be reminded by Valentine's Day to do something special for a loved one, what's the point? Damn, you should have been doing that all year long and on the regular. Happy Valentine's Day.