Santorum told the audience about a radio interview out of Boston he did earlier today. According to Santorum, the interviewer said, “We don’t need a Jesus candidate, we need an economic candidate.” “My answer to that,” Santorum added, ”was we always need a Jesus candidate. “We need someone who believes in something more than themselves and not just the economy,” he added. “When we say, ‘God bless America,’ do we mean it or do we just say it?”
Seriously: this is where Republicanism is now headed?
Huntsman is sort of the Granite State version of Rick Santorum, right? He’s been camped out in the state for months, hitting its smallest hamlets and indulging even the tiniest of crowds. His profile–in this case semi-moderate and dogma-bucking–hits the state’s traditional sweet spot. And he’s the only candidate who still hasn’t surged! If past is prologue in this race, he’s about to take off and change the shape of the race one more time. Or not. It’s hard to conceive of the voter who doesn’t already support the former Utah governor and Ambassador to China but may yet wind up voting for him.
Along the same lines, Lois Romano's reporting doesn't inspire confidence:
"He's plenty conservative, but his unwillingness to give the base red meat and his penchant for relying on logic and common sense doomed him from the start. Also, his rollout was horrible,” says Democratic operative Rodell Mollineau, president of American Bridge to the 21st Century.
GOP strategist Keith Appell puts it more bluntly: "Clueless is as clueless does. 'Hey, everybody, I'm running to be your nominee, and my biggest qualification is that I worked in the Obama administration and even supported some of his failed and pathetic policies. Who's with me? And just for kicks and giggles, I think Obama's right about global warming, China is our friend, and I can tell really flat and dumb jokes.’”
(Image: New Hampshire projections from Nate Silver)
Eric Cantor's wife recently expressed her support for marriage equality:
Along the same lines, Cindy McCain recently cut a new ad in support of equality. Queerty is unimpressed:
Is this some kind of conspiracy by the Republican Party to look progressive without alienating its bigoted base? Because a few nice words from the little lady ain’t gonna cut it. It means less than nothing.
For a party of which some segment believes that the wife should be absolutely submissive to her husband, these women are undoubtedly positive role models. And while it’s true that they themselves don’t vote on legislation, it does not follow that their words and actions are somehow less meaningful than their spouses’. If anything, their support of civil rights for gays is all the more powerful because it has survived the conforming pressures of marriage.
Households making more than $1 million would get an average tax cut of almost $300,000, largely because, as owners of capital, they’d receive the bulk of the benefit of Romney’s very generous corporate tax reductions.
The fact is that the dinosaur moderate Republican wing of the party has no home right now. Obama will make a pitch for them by emphasizing the rogue, insurgent right-wing elements of their party that create litmus tests on taxes, climate change and immigration that are anathema to moderates. The Republican nominee will try to call on their tribal instincts and inclination to still identify with their team. And Americans Elect, the organization with anonymous donors that could put an as-yet-unidentified candidate on the ballot in all 50 states, will try to serve as a spoiler and lure them away from both parties.
Walter Shapiro doubts Romney's strength in New Hampshire. Jacob Weisberg tells you not to listen to reporters like Shapiro:
Romney coasting to victory is a weak story. Were the press any other industry, cynicism about its self-interest in promoting marginal challengers would prevail. Local television stations (many of them owned by media conglomerates such as Slate’s owner, the Washington Post Company) count on election-year revenue bumps from political advertising in important primary states. If the nomination contest is effectively over by, say, the time of the Michigan primary on Feb. 28, valuable money will be left on the table. But for reporters, rooting for the underdog, any underdog, is really a matter of wanting a more dramatic story. The straight-laced front-runner winning Iowa and New Hampshire before securing the nomination early on does not count as a compelling narrative. Hence the media’s pretense of taking seriously a succession of nonviable candidates with outlandish views. Rick Santorum is not, under any circumstances, going to be the GOP nominee.
PBS has a blockbuster report on how Syria tries to stifle American expat dissent by torturing their relatives – even elderly parents – if they speak out:
[I]t's not just Syrian expatriates making that allegation. In mid-October, the FBI arrested Mohamad Soueid, a naturalized citizen from Syria and a former car salesman in Northern Virginia. Among the charges leveled in the indictment, that Soueid was acting as an agent of the Syrian Mukhabarat, which is their national intelligence service. The indictment alleges he was actively spying on the expatriate community here and passing information back to Syria, where relatives of U.S.-based protesters would then be threatened or killed. Prosecutors say he had protests videotaped for delivery to Syrian agents.
If you believe you've been threatened by Syrian informants and want to publicize your story, contact PBS here. Benjamin Weinthal exposes even more troubling Assad intimidation in Europe. Bassem Mrou writes up new evidence of Assad running full-on torture chambers. Naturally, the Arab League is over its head, running to the UN for help with the flagging monitoring mission. Walter Russell Mead rolls his eyes:
For most of its history, involvement in wholesale human rights abuses was more a badge of courage than a mark of shame in what was mostly a dictators’ club…The Arab League will change only after its member governments change. Even then, change won’t come quickly. It lacks the standing, the skills, the resources and the leadership to play the kind of role Syria needs. Naming a notorious genocidaire to a humanitarian mission is only one symptom of this much deeper disease. The Arab League can bless initiatives of the west (as in Libya) or perhaps of Turkey and others in Syria; it is a very long way from having the capacity to act on its own.
A recent high level defector, Mahmoud Souleiman Hajj Hamad, is now speaking openly about Iran and Iraq's financial role in enabling the crackdown, but Brian Whitaker argues this support isn't enough. Below are protestors in Arbeen getting all up in the Arab League's face:
This man was murdered in Homs:
Amazingly, these political prisoners not only risked the same fate, but smuggled out this video of a protest inside the jail:
Supporters look on as Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, speaks during a "Faith, Family and Freedom" Town Hall at Merrimack Valley Railroad on January 5, 2012 in Northfield, New Hampshire. Fresh off of a second place finish at the Iowa cuacus, Rick Santorum is trying to carry his momentum as he campaigns a week ahead of the New Hampshire primary. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
If Santorum can survive New Hampshire, the Palmetto State will finish him off. The media, rather than look at the actual record of the S.C. primary, continues to see the word "South" and think of religious-right voters. But South Carolina went for Dole over Buchanan in ’96 and McCain over Huckabee in ’04. It’s the state that put Lindsey Graham in the Senate, after all, and if I’m not mistaken it’s the state with the highest number of political consultants per capita in the country. It has an unusual, highly establishmentarian political culture.
Romney’s hope for South Carolina is that Gingrich, Santorum, Congressman Ron Paul and Texas Governor Rick Perry will split the conservative vote sufficiently to allow a low showing—perhaps even less than the 25% he won in Iowa—to give him a win.
Sylvia D. Lucas pens a paean to the male physique in film:
We love your strong, solid thighs and calves. Your penises in their wide variety of shapes and sizes (and sometimes, angles), which, by the way, are just as enjoyable to look at when they’re soft as when they’re not. (Penises are no weirder for dangling there than breasts are for hanging where they do—all of these parts are exactly where they belong, and we very much like where the penis belongs, both aesthetically and on a more utilitarian level.) You have broad shoulders. Wide chests. That V shape as the back narrows to the waist.
Yes, we love the naked male body. And we’d like to see more of it in movies. We’ve been deprived for too long because someone, somewhere (probably a man who didn’t want to see naked men in movies) started the rumor that men’s bodies are ugly and awkward. There’s no reason for men to think women feel this way about them, or for men to have adopted the opinion, themselves. As much scrutiny as the female body has endured over the years, it doesn’t make me feel any better to know men have been made to feel their bodies are somehow unattractive or inadequate. Your bodies are damn beautiful.
Jason Segal, male nudity pioneer, talked a lot about showing his wang in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Money quote:
As long as it's completely flaccid, it's still a R-rating. It was very important professionally that it remain completely flaccid, but it was very important for me personally that it not be completely flaccid. You know what I mean? It's a fine line. You wanna be like 8% aroused.
The Dish 