1.) Break a leg, Attorney General Eric Holder — Today might not be a fun day for Eric Holder. The last time he testified before Congress, he said some things that maybe weren’t so much true, and it didn’t go very well. He’s back up again today, as TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports:
“On Thursday morning, Attorney General Eric Holder will appear before the House Judiciary Committee and he’s set to get grilled over Operation Fast and Furious… Holder first testified about Fast and Furious before the House Judiciary Committee on May 3, and then testified about it before the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 8. This is Holder’s third major appearance before a congressional hearing on the operation, and second before the House, which Republicans control… On another front, Issa is expected to press Holder to fire people at the Justice Department. ‘Chairman Issa intends to press Attorney General Holder on the need to clean house at tomorrow’s hearing,’ Issa spokesman Frederick Hill told TheDC on Wednesday. It’s unclear who Issa thinks should be fired but his Senate counterpart, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, called for the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer on the Senate floor on Wednesday. The Daily Caller has reported extensively on what Illinois Republican Rep. Joe Walsh has called Attorney General Eric Holder’s ‘undercurrent’ of using Fast and Furious to promote gun control.”
And in case you still doubt that, there’s this just in from Matthew Boyle:
“Emails from inside the Department of Justice appear to indicate Obama administration officials were plotting to use the consequences of Operation Fast and Furious to further a gun-control agenda. Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News reported Wednesday that the emails show agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussing how they would use Fast and Furious to ‘argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.’ ‘ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3,”‘ Attkisson reported. ‘That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.’ In the emails CBS News acquired, lead Fast and Furious agent Bill Newell and ATF Field Operations Assistant Director Mark Chait discussed how to use the scandal’s aftermath to promote the long-gun reporting requirement for multiple sales.”
How about that. Well, there’s probably a perfectly good explanation. Good luck keeping a straight face, AG Holder!
2.) An oral argument against Gingrich — Another day, another woman accusing a Republican presidential candidate of sexual impropriety. TheDC’s Steven Nelson reports:
“A woman who worked for Newt Gingrich’s first successful congressional campaign in 1977 is sharing allegations of an adulterous affair with her boss in an attempt to stem the rise of the current GOP front-runner. Anne Manning says that she had an adulterous relationship with Gingrich 34 years ago. At the time, he was married to his first wife, Jackie Battley, and campaigning for Congress with the slogan ‘Let Our Family Represent Your Family.’ Manning told the National Inquirer that she performed a sexual act on Gingrich in a Washington, D.C. hotel room, but adds that they didn’t have sex so that ‘he could say he had not slept with me.’ ‘He always talks about being big on family values but he doesn’t practice what he preaches,’ Manning said, according to London’s Daily Mail newspaper. ‘I wasn’t planning to say a word about him, but voters need to know what sort of man they’re being asked to support…’ Gingrich has publicly acknowledged his past infidelities: He cheated on his first wife with Marianne Ginther, who he later married. In turn, he cheated on Ginther with his current wife Callista Gingrich.”
Assuming Manning’s allegation is true, we’ll see if all the people who defended Bill Clinton — “It was only a BJ! It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is!” — will be as forgiving of Gingrich. At least a few conservatives might be willing to give him a pass, as TheDC’s Alex Pappas reports:
“Influential Iowa conservative Bob Vander Plaats told The Daily Caller in an interview he thinks religious voters could still coalesce behind Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich despite his well-publicized history of marital infidelity. ‘The centerpiece of our faith is forgiveness,’ Vander Plaats, the leader of the Family Leader organization, said during a discussion at a diner here on Wednesday. Gingrich, he said, has ‘admitted that he’s hurt people’ and ‘wishes he could do things differently’ and therefore Christian voters are open to him… He added: ‘Now, that doesn’t mean we’re over everything. There’s still baggage we need to address, you know, personal and policy wise.'”
That there is. And the MSM is going to sift through that baggage like a team of meth-addled TSA agents, because Gingrich isn’t a Dem.
3.) Yes We Can (recycle the same old liberal cliches) — One of the great things about President Barack Obama is all the bold new ideas he doesn’t have. TheDC’s Alexis Levinson reports:
“Which presidential candidate said this in an ad: ‘I refuse to make your family pay more so that millionaires can pay less?’ Who promised to ‘fight for seniors’ against opponents who wanted to ‘slash Medicare?’ If you answered President Barack Obama, you’re about 27 years too late. Those pronouncements came from an ad for Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic pols who ran against Ronald Reagan in 1984. (Mondale’s ticket lost to Reagan in a landslide, winning only one state.) This year Obama is pushing the same themes as Mondale, and other former Democratic presidential candidates.”
Candidates like, um… Dukakis. Yeah, but when they said that stuff, they weren’t Obama, were they? Just give him the ball.
4.) Chris Christie tells protesters to occupy a baby carriage — Here’s another one for the “Why Isn’t This Guy Running for President?” file. Alex Pappas reports from Des Moines:
“New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie gave a group of Occupy protesters here a taste of his Jersey charm when they disrupted a rally he was headlining in support of presidential candidate Mitt Romney Wednesday night. ‘You’re so angry, aren’t you?’ Christie said, mocking the protesters to the delight of the crowd. ‘Work it all out. Work it all out for yourselves.’ Several minutes into his remarks at the headquarters of the Iowa-based Kum and Go business, at least a dozen protesters who blended into the audience wearing stickers for Romney’s presidential campaign began shouting phrases like, ‘Make Wall Street pay…’ After the protesters departed, Christie said to laughter: ‘Where was I before I was so New Jersey-ly interrupted? … Let’s talk about these folks for a second … Their anger is rooted not in me or in Mitt Romney, their anger is rooted in the fact that they believed in this Hope and Change garbage that they were sold three years ago by this president.”
They’re rubes, and they’re embarrassed by their own naïveté, so now they put up tents in public parks and yell things at people they don’t like. Oh, and they also rape and kill people, or make excuses for their fellow travelers who rape and kill people.
5.) Beckel and Brzezinski sittin’ in a tree, etc. — It’s stilettos vs. potatoes! Louis Vuitton vs. gravy and veal chops! TheDC’s Jeff Poor reports:
“An unlikely feud has broken out between two left-of-center cable TV commentators who appear in almost opposite time slots. Nonetheless, Fox News Channel contributor and ‘The Five’ co-panelist Bob Beckel has taken issue with something MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ co-host Mika Brzezinski may or may not have said. On both the Tuesday and Wednesday broadcasts of ‘The Five,’ Beckel chimed in on some vague details of Brzezinski’s ignorance of the existence of ‘The Five.’ ‘Before we get into [Tim] Tebow, I understand that Mika Brzezinski said that she didn’t know what “The Five” was,’ Beckel said on Tuesday’s show. ‘Let me tell you something, darling — It’s about 18 times bigger than the dumpy show you got.”
Co-panelist Greg Gutfeld also got in a good shot, saying of Morning Joe, “I believe it’s a medical condition.” As usual, though, Beckel was exaggerating: The Five has only three times as many viewers as Morning Joe, not 18. Feel free to hit back with that, Mika!
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Alec Baldwin’s Truther, er, Twitter feed — “…“
VIDEO: NY Dem Congressmen say, “Fast and Furious? What’s that?”
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