Saturday Night Liveblog #5: Professor Gingrich
vs. Mandate Mitt (and four other Republiclowns)

Talk about it here. Watch it live on ABC or desmoinesregister.com.

6:56 PM PT: Newt says fidelity is important, and voters should look at it. He admits making mistakes. Says he's had to "ask forgiveness from God." But describes himself as a "68 year-old grandfather." My gut is that answer is fairly pleasing to Iowans.

6:56 PM PT: Diane Sawyer wants to drill down on immigration policy beyond merely securing the border. This is actually a good line of questioning ... no promises that she'll do a good job.

6:59 PM PT: Gingrich repeats what he said about immigration and people who have been here 25 years. But he kind of weakens his point because he suggests 25 years is a hard cutoff, and wouldn't allow people to stay who have been here 24, or 20, or 15 years.

7:01 PM PT: Romney says talking about anything other than securing the border is pointless. But he then talks about what he says is pointless: he says he wants to let people here illegally to register and apply for citizenship, but be put at the back of the line. I didn't catch whether he talked about touchback or not?that's an important detail in understanding his proposal.

7:04 PM PT: Ron Paul says Gingrich saying Palestenians are an "invented people" was reckless shooting-from-the hip, but he does say that he believes Gingrich is "technically correct."

7:06 PM PT: This whole thing is catnip for Gingrich, who launches into a bombastic condemnation of his critics. He gets huge applause from the crowd.

7:06 PM PT: Romney says he agrees with Gingrich, except he wouldn't have made the "invented people" remark. Then he says Gingrich would probably agree that he shouldn't have said that. Gingrich laughs and says no, he wouldn't agree.

7:12 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

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og-5:-ProfessorGingrich-vs-Mandate-Mitt-(and-four-other-Republiclowns)

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Saturday Night Liveblog #4: Professor Gingrich
vs. Mandate Mitt (and four other Republiclowns)

Talk about it here. Watch it live on ABC or desmoinesregister.com.

6:46 PM PT: ABC is replaying snippets of the debate during the debate ... almost like watching a game winning touchdown during the Super Bowl. Or, maybe, more like rewatching that two yard gain on second down.

6:49 PM PT: Stephanopoulos asks the Newt question: is marital infidelity an important issue for the presidential race? Rick Perry says it is.

6:50 PM PT: "Individuals who have been infidelity with their spouse" are bad, Perry says. He really needs to learn the English language.

6:51 PM PT: Rick Santorum says it's an important issue, but says it isn't disqualifying: sometimes people make mistakes, he says.

6:52 PM PT: Ron Paul says personal fidelity is important, but fidelity to your oath of office is far more important when it comes to judging public officials.

6:53 PM PT: Romney said the reason he went up with an ad touting his long marriage because the White House attacked his values ... sure, it had nothing to do with the rise of Newt "Thrice-married" Gingrich.

6:54 PM PT: Michele Bachmann says she's a Christian. She's "unashamed" and "happy to talk about that." Newt is up next.

6:55 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

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og-4:-Professor Gingrich-vs-Mandate-Mitt-(and-four-other-Republiclowns)

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Saturday Night Liveblog #3: Professor Gingrich
vs. Mandate Mitt (and four other Republiclowns)

Talk about it here. Watch it live on ABC or desmoinesregister.com.

6:30 PM PT: Bachmann says Newt Gingrich has been advocating for the individual mandate "longer than Barack Obama" and that she's the only true consistent constitutional conservative on the stage. She then coins a new phrase: "Newt Romney" and proceeds to basically accuse "Newt Romney" of socialism.

6:32 PM PT: Gingrich's response to Bachmann focuses on his personal business history, which is a mistake, because it leaves Romney out of the equation. George Stephanopoulos asks him to chime in, however. pulling him back into the debate.

6:34 PM PT: Mitt Romney says he wishes President Obama had called to ask him for advice about health care reform ... but (a) doesn't that imply that Romney believes there should have been health care reform of some sort and (b) Romney actually saluted President Obama for "copying" some of his ideas from Massachusetts.

6:35 PM PT: Rick Perry slams Newt Romney over mandate, focusing mostly on Mitt. He didn't remember to use that phrase?Newt Romney?but I kind of like it. Mitt Romney responds, denying he ever supported mandates at the federal level. Ahem: "We'll end up with a nation that's taken a mandate approach," he said in 2007.

6:38 PM PT: Newt Gingrich blames Hillary Clinton for his support for the mandates. (He means he supported mandates to try to beat HillaryCare.)

6:40 PM PT: Perry accuses Romney of supporting mandates in his book "No Apologies." Romney denies Perry's accusation, and offers Perry at $10,000 bet (ooh rich man!) that he never supported it in the book. Perry says he's not a betting man. The fact is that Romney did say something like "we can do the same for the nation" in his book. He was talking about MassCare. And he removed that line from the second edition. So while Perry may have pushed the envelope with the way he phrased his critique, he was basically right.

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og-3:-ProfessorGingrich-vs-Mandate-Mitt-(and-four-other-Republiclowns)

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Saturday Night Liveblog #2: Professor Gingrich
vs. Mandate Mitt (and four other Republiclowns)

Talk about it here. Watch it live on ABC or desmoinesregister.com.

6:17 PM PT: Michele Bachmann falsely claims that the payroll tax cut in 2011 took over $100 billion out of the Social Security trust fund, out of the hands of seniors. She said the same thing about 2012. But the truth the tax cut is paid for out of general funds?not Social Security funds. Diane Sawyer fails to correct her, but helpfully notes that Mitt "Dreamy Eyes" Romney supports the payroll tax cut.

6:19 PM PT: Santorum repeats Bachmann's false claim that the payroll tax cut will take money out of the Social Security trust fund. (Repeat after me: it is paid for by the general fund! Too bad the moderators are either unaware of this fact or are unwilling to say it.)

6:22 PM PT: Mitt Romney says that unlike Newt Gingrich, he doesn't want to mine the moon, get rid of all capital gains taxes, or repeal any child labor laws. But the real difference, he says, is his personal background as a businessman. So I guess he's running as Gordon Gekko.

6:25 PM PT: Newt points out that if Romney had won in 1994, he'd have been a career politician too. Crowd boos him. He defends space exploration, but not the mining idea, and defends his idea of making poor kids work in schools, and the crowd erupts in applause. They love it. And he saves capital gains for last, slamming Romney for not wanting to eliminate capital gains taxes, and accusing Romney of running to Obama's left.

6:26 PM PT: Romney says "losing to Teddy Kennedy was probably the best thing I could have done for preparing me for the job I'm seeking." Of course, the job he's seeking is the GOP nomination...not president. And not being able to win in 1994 isn't something to brag about. Romney concludes by conceding that he actually agrees with Gingrich on the school work stuff.

6:28 PM PT: Ron Paul slams Newt Gingrich over Freddie Mac lobbying, albeit in a sort of meandering way. Gingrich says he was "in the private sector" on Freddie Mac, and the crowd laughs. He laughs too. I'm not sure if they were laughing with him...or at him.

6:29 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

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og-2:-Professor Gingrich-vs-Mandate-Mitt-(and-four-other-Republiclowns)

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Where To Watch

Tonight's debate starts at 9 PM Eastern on ABC. We'll be covering it live here at TPM. [...]

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GOP Debate Open Thread

enlarge

Just remember: Gingrich is the smart one.

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"Family Guy" writer: My Occupy LA arrest
(violence alert)

Patrick Meighan is one of the writers on the series Family Guy and a member of one of L.A.'s Unitarian Universalist churches (those infamous "UU"s, the ones where you don't even have to believe in Jesus to join, the Buddhisty bunch that Ralph Waldo Emerson had a hand in transforming).

Back to Occupy L.A. and our story. Meighan offers this first-hand account of this arrest. Needless to say, he was treated very badly while offering no resistance at all.

Here's the worst of it, though the jail part was no trip to the executive dining room. First, the set-up (h/t Naked Capitalism for the link):

I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh?s ?Being Peace? when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in. I was in a group of about 50 peaceful protestors who sat Indian-style, arms interlocked, around a tent (the symbolic image of the Occupy movement). The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted ?We Are Peaceful? and ?We Are Nonviolent? and ?Join Us.?

Then the cop pulled out knives (which they had conveniently remembered to bring) and ripped to shreds everything these people owned and had brought with them ? every tent and everything in the tents.

Then they calmly took on the people. Those who refused to unlink arms (a high crime, it seems) were treated like this (my emphasis):

Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor?s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor?s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor?s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor.

It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us. At least I was sufficiently terrorized. I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist.

My hands were then zipcuffed very tightly behind my back, where they turned blue. I am now suffering nerve damage in my right thumb and palm.

Read that again, especially what happened to him after he promised not to resist.

There's much more, including the "why won't you take my bail" story. Please do read.

President Obama, in his "I get it" speech, nobly rejected an us vs. them mentality. His nation's militarized police force is getting a different message. Patrick Meighan's face touches the ground so Charles Prince's feet don't have to.

There are two take-aways from this, not just one:

? This really was a violent attack, not just a rough arrest. Cops using shields as opportunities to cause pain. A violent attack.

? This was deliberate and reflects training. In other words, the violence was planned and the cops were trained in these techniques.

It's the second one that concerns me. There's evidence of national coordination in these militarized Occupy responses. Expect more coordinated attacks like this one.

This is the Top 0.1% linking their own arms, fighting back. At some point, those union cops are going to have the Tahrir Square choice. Good luck with that.

GP

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Follow-ups: on Buddy Roemer's campaign for "a
clean election," and cell-phone robocalls

by Ken

Last night I raised the question: "Is Buddy Roemer any worse a candidate than "Brokeback Rick" Perry? (Probably not, but is he any BETTER?)" This was in response to Eli Saslow's Washington Post Style-section piece "Buddy Roemer among those struggling for a slot in GOP presidential race," about the really marginal GOP presidential candidates, including the former one-term governor of Louisiana, who last held public office in 1991, when he was defeated for reelection running as a Republican. (He had been elected as a Democrat.)

Now I don't really enjoy kicking a guy when he's down, unless he asked for it. But in Buddy's case, well, it all seemed so pathetic.

He had been out of politics for almost 20 years, but he still felt confident that his opinions would resonate. Repeal health-care reform. Raise the eligibility age for Social Security. Seal the border and enforce immigration laws.

Worst of all, "he thought an audience would be waiting for him," and it apparently came as news to him "that becoming president is not always about experience and ideas. It?s also about money, fame and momentum.?

As I wrote Howie back when he passed along the above tweets: "as if we needed any more proof of how pathetic his 'campaign' is?" I mean, really now, a guy who's paying attention to what I write here?

I'd be surprised if there's any DWT reader who wouldn't love to see elections where the determining factors weren't money, fame, and momentum. And who wouldn't like to see what Buddy calls "a clean election." (The Post article points out that "had never accepted political donations of more than $100." However, that's running in no larger election venue than the state of Louisiana, and it was also 20 years ago. My guess is that these days even statewide elections in Louisiana -- even Governor Booby's recent cakewalk reelection -- are more expensive to buy than that.) But really, does the degree of cluelessness on display in the Post story offer any hope for improvement in our electoral system?

Let's take Buddy at his word:

I want nothing more than to prove that a candidate can run a clean campaign. Maybe I'm naive, but I believe in my message.

If he really still believes his message, doesn't that go beyond "naive" to "totally out of touch"? Because hasn't he in fact proved that he can't run "a clean campaign" and get enough attention to raise himself above the grade of electoral laughingstock?

You'd think it would at least be a source of some comfort to him that his current party (as of the last time I checked, anyway) isn't lacking for candidates committed to repealing health-care reform, raising the eligibility age for Social Security, and sealing the border and enforcing immigration laws.
#

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Foreclosure Not Stopped by Invisible Sky Wizard

By @KYYellowDog

I am thrilled those middle-class public servants and middle-class employees of a private company both realized the right thing to do and summoned the courage to do so. It's too bad that people involved gave unearned credit to a dangerous myth.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

Cops and movers in Atlanta refused to remove a 103-year-old woman and her 83-year-old daughter from their home in foreclosure proceedings. Nice to know some public servants still have consciences -- unlike bankers:

In a heart warming story just in time for the holiday season, a 103-year-old woman in Atlanta avoided foreclosure of her home Tuesday afternoon, thanks entirely to the kindness of strangers.

According to WSBTV Atlanta, movers hired by Deutsche Bank AG and police were ready to go through with the bank's request to remove Vita Lee and her 83-year old daughter from their home.

However, when they first got sight of Lee, they had a change of heart and declined to go through with it.

"I saw the sheriffs who came to put them out, take off and leave," community activist Michael Langford said to WSBTV. "I gave all glory to God."

Lee, whose daughter was rushed to the hospital to the hospital from the stress of possibly facing an eviction, was relieved that the movers and police had compassion for their condition.

"I know God said when things go wrong, he'll make it right," she said.

And Lee decided to give Deutsche Bank a message if they pondered to still go through on the foreclosure.

"Please don't come in and disturb me no more," she reportedly said. "When I'm gone you all can come back and do whatever they want to."

Human conscience, sense of community and compassion saved Lee's home. It's an insult to those wonderful people to give credit to an invisible sky wizard that doesn't exist.

Human beings consumed by greed and arrogance stole the homes of tens of millions of hard-working Americans without the direction of any mythical being. Human beings inspired by justice seek redress for that crime, again without the direction of any mythical being.

Put the blame where it belongs, and give credit where it's due.


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Republican Debate #6,743: Des Moines ABC

Another debate between GOP candidates for President, sponsored by ABC News, the Iowa GOP, Yahoo News, WOI-TV and The Des Moines Register,[...]

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