enlargeCredit: The Other 98%

h/t Nicole Belle. The Supreme Court building gets Occupied. More photos here. Open thread below...

Duncan Clark writes: According [International Energy Agency] research, 37 governments spent $409bn on artificially lowering the price of fossil fuels in 2010. Critics say the subsidies significantly boost oil and gas consumption and disadvantage renewable energy technologies, which received only $66bn of subsidies in the same year.

[IEA chief economist Fatih Birol] said that a phase-out would avoid 750m tonnes of CO2 a year by 2015, potentially rising to 2.6 gigatonnes by 2035, a level sufficient to provide half the emissions reductions needed to limit global warming to 2C, considered the limit of safety by many scientists. "Fossil fuel subsidies are a hand brake as we drive along the road to a sustainable energy future," he said. "Removing them would take us half way to a trajectory that would hold us to 2C."

Most of the world's fuel subsidies are given out in transitional and developing countries—especially those which themselves export fossil fuels. Sometimes the policies are seen as a way to alleviate poverty, but IEA analysis suggests that the poorest members of society do not see their fair share of the benefits.

"Just 8% of the $409bn spent on fossil-fuel subsidies in 2010 went to the poorest 20% of the population," Birol said. "It's clear that other direct forms of welfare support would cost much less." He added that the poorest people were being "punished twice", because the money used to make fossil fuels cheaper could instead be spent on schools, hospitals and other public services.

Of course, getting rid of subsidies given the clout of the fossil-fuels industry is about as easy as imposing a carbon tax or persuading Rick Santorum that climate change is real.

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003:

Bush I built an impressive coalition to help drive Iraq from Kuwait. GHWB was a consumate diplomat, with a deep understanding and respect for our allies and the need to build legitimacy through existing international frameworks. This is how things are done in the sequel:
As the dispute heated up, leaders reacted angrily Thursday to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's dismissal of France and Germany as the "old Europe," saying the comments underscore America's arrogance.

Of course, it's time for the Chickenhawk Right to start demonizing the French and Germans. They're either "with us" or "against us," right?

One interesting turn of events has been the emergence of a more hawkish Powell. Does this mean he has surrendered to the Chickenhawk brigade within the administration?

Tweet of the Day:

High Impact Posts are here. Top Comments are here.

Title: Sparkle CityArtist: Shuggie Otis

It's Monday, but Shuggie's here to make it alright. Mellow out to these sweet sounds and Friday will be here before you know it..

Also our sister site Newstalgia has The Specials in session from 1979.

Whatcha listening to this Monday evening?

Inspiration Information Artist: Shuggie Otis Price: $49.99 (As of 01/23/12 05:11 pm details)

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or Daily Kos.

7:33 PM PT: I think Newt Gingrich just claimed partial credit for developing supply-side economics. Dude, think big. Take all the credit. We're happy to give it to you.

7:35 PM PT: Rick Santorum decides he might as well start attacking Mitt and Newt, and he starts howling about cap and trade and mandates.

7:37 PM PT:
I think that's probably the best answer Santorum has ever given in a debate.

— @ezraklein
Too bad for him it comes after the winnowing. He's not relevant unless both Newt and Mitt collapse.

7:38 PM PT: Romney brags about making Ted Kennedy take out a mortgage on his house to pay for the 1994 campaign. Weird thing to get your jollies over.

7:39 PM PT:
What did Mitt Romney do for conservatives? He made Ted Kennedy take out a mortgage on his house. Booyah, everybody.

— @jimgeraghty
7:41 PM PT:
Wow, Mitt made a guy mortgage his house. He really "gets" the little people, doesn't he?

— @HunterDK

7:41 PM PT: And just like that, the debate, mercifully is over.

7:42 PM PT: So, who won? Well, whoever is hosting the debate on Thursday night definitely won.

7:43 PM PT: Ah, it's CNN—Thursday night at 8PM ET, in Jacksonville.

7:44 PM PT:
Newt Gingrich can blow me. #FLDebate

— @SaulAlinksy

7:47 PM PT: The highlight reel replay of the Newt-Mitt skirmish isn't kind to Newt. I don't think it's automatically a win for Mitt, but if he can figure out a way to get the crowd on his side during Thursday's debate, he could change the dynamic, and he may have planted a small seed to that end tonight.

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or Daily Kos.

7:24 PM PT: Mitt Romney panders to Florida and NASA, but doesn't want to admit it would cost money, so he says he wants to partially privatize NASA, and create a military-government partnership. I thought the military was part of the government? My heads spinning from him his bullshit.

7:26 PM PT: Okay, why isn't Mitt Romney attacking Newt Gingrich anymore? Does he think he landed a knockout punch?

7:27 PM PT: I'm not one who thinks you need to pound, pound, pound always—once you've planted the seed, it can be best to back off a little (that's what Newt did with Bain). But I'm not convinced Romney has planted the seed. And if he hasn't, then this debate isn't doing him any good. But he still has plenty of time—Thursday's debate will be more important.

7:29 PM PT: We're on another commercial break, by the way: I think the next segment is the last.

7:32 PM PT: Mitt Romney says the best thing he's done for the soul of the GOP is raising a family, the second best thing is running a business and creating "thousands and thousands" of jobs, and the third best thing was being governor.

7:33 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or Daily Kos.

7:09 PM PT: Mitt's immigration solution requires a national ID card that everybody would need to use anytime they did any work for anyone. He doesn't quite make that clear.

7:10 PM PT: I'll bet you ten thousand dollars that Romney really regrets the self-deportation remark #fldebate
— @AliNBCNews 7:11 PM PT: Self-deportation is also the policy Mitt Romney exercises with his money. #CaymanMitt #FLDebate
— @DemocratMachine 7:12 PM PT: Mitt Romney: You have a lot of people in Florida hurting. Like me. I was up by ten points a week ago.
— @LOLGOP

7:14 PM PT: We're taking another commercial break. Discussion for the break: is a boring debate good for Mitt, or good for Newt? Or neither?

7:18 PM PT: Solution to GOP debates: self-immolation
— @Meteor_Blades 7:18 PM PT: Solution to the economic problem: self-employment #romneysolutions
— @DKElections

7:19 PM PT: Solution to the GOP's wingnut problem: self-moderation!

7:22 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

enlarge

Ardem at Blue Arkansas reports a horrifying case (with graphic pictures of the cat, may not be safe for children):

Last night, I got the most chilling phone call I have ever received. It was Jake Burris, Ken Aden’s campaign manager. Last night, Jake and his four kids had come back to their Russellville home. As they were getting out of the car, one of his children discovered their family cat dead on the front porch. One side of the animal’s head had been bashed in and an eyeball was hanging out of its socket. But there was something even more horrifying to be found on the corpse.

Written across the animal’s fur in black marker was the word “LIBERAL“.

It does make you wonder if the perpetrator of this act has himself one of those "Liberal Hunting Licenses", doesn't it?
Scott Keyes at Think Progress reports:

Pope County, where Burris lives, is a highly-conservative area of Arkansas. Aden has been running for the 3rd congressional district seat, currently held by Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), since August 2011. He released a statement on the matter this morning: “To kill a child’s pet is just unconscionable. As a former combat soldier, I’ve seen the best of humanity and the worst of humanity. Whoever did this is definitely part of the worst of humanity.”

Ken Aden is a Blue America candidate, so go read more about him.

As Ardem observes:

This is terrorism. There’s no other word for it. A police report has been filed. Jake said the kids seem to be handling it okay. The one that discovered the cat was too young to be able to read and Jake had quickly gotten the others into the house before they saw it. Pope County is an insanely conservative area and the Aden campaign has been shaking things up even there and it looks like another right wing sociopath with a taste for violence has come crawling out of the woodwork in response. I asked Aden for a comment on the record:

“This is sickening. To kill a child’s pet…I’m at a loss for words…I’ve seen the best and the worst of humanity, but this is something else.”

Both Ken and Jake though made it clear that they weren’t going to back down on the campaign trail, both agreeing that caving to this kind of behavior would only make things worse.

“I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it.”, Jake said. “If I have to protect my kids I’ll do it without hesitation.”

Most of you know I've written at length about this kind of right-wing behavior, especially in my book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. Unfortunately, the book's publisher went belly up in the past year, and it's currently hard to obtain, though we are working on at least making it available in Kindle form.

In any event, I thought I'd include some relevant passages, all from the Introduction:

These incidents – the nasty personal encounters, the ugliness at campaign rallies, the violent acts of “lone wolf” gunmen – are anything but unique. If you’re a liberal in America – or for that matter, anyone who happens to have run afoul of the conservative movement and its followers – you’ve probably heard it. Anecdotally, hundreds of Americans have similar tales to tell – unexpected and brutal viciousness, coming from otherwise ordinary, everyday people, nearly all of them political conservatives, nearly all directed at their various “enemies”: liberals, Latinos, Muslims, and just about anyone who disagrees with them.

This kind of talk – voiced sometimes as inchoate rage, and at others as perverse “humor” – is not aimed at public discourse, but its very antithesis: threatening and intimidating and, ultimately, eliminating opponents. It does this by framing them as the Enemy, verminous scum, disease-ridden and disease-like cancers on the body politic who deserve not dialogue but simple purgation.

This is called eliminationism: a kind of politics and culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas for the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.

Rhetorically, eliminationism takes on some distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as simply beyond the pale, and in the end the embodiment of evil itself -- unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus in need of elimination. It often depicts its designated "enemy" as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and loves to incessantly suggest that its targets are themselves disease carriers. A close corollary -- but not as nakedly eliminationist -- are claims that the opponents are traitors or criminals, or gross liabilities for our national security, and thus inherently fit for elimination or at least incarceration.

Eliminationism is often voiced as crude "jokes", the humor of which, when analyzed, is inevitably predicated on a venomous hatred. But what we also know about this rhetoric is that, as surely as night follows day, this kind of talk eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.

Two key factors distinguish eliminationist rhetoric from other political hyperbole:

• It is focused on an enemy within, people who constitute entire blocs of the citizen populace, and
• It advocates the excision and extermination, by violent means or civil, of those entire blocs.

Eliminationism -- and particularly the rhetoric that precedes it and fuels it -- represents a kind of self-hatred. In an American culture which advertises itself as predicated on inclusiveness, eliminationism runs precisely counter to those ideals. Eliminationists, at heart, really hate the very idea of America.

It has its origins, like slavery and war, in some of man's most ancient and most savage impulses: the desire to dominate others, through violence if necessary. However, in contrast, it goes largely unnoticed and largely unexamined, perhaps because it is a side of human nature so ugly we prefer not even to recognize its existence -- so much so that only recently have we even had a term like "eliminationism" with which to frame it.

The term's first significant use came from historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in his controversial text, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, where it appears extensively and plays a central role in his thesis that "eliminationist antisemitism" had a unique life in German culture and eventually was the driving force behind the Holocaust. In the text, Goldhagen never provides a concise definition of the word, but rather constructs a massively detailed description of the eliminationist mindset:

The eliminationist mind-set that characterized virtually all who spoke out on the "Jewish Problem" from the end of the eighteenth century onward was another constant in Germans' thinking about Jews. For Germany to be properly ordered, regulated, and, for many, safeguarded, Jewishness had to be eliminated from German society. What "elimination" -- in the sense of successfully ridding Germany of Jewishness -- meant, and the manner in which this was to be done, was unclear and hazy to many, and found no consensus during the period of modern German antisemitism. But the necessity of the elimination of Jewishness was clear to all. It followed from the conception of the Jews as alien invaders of the German body social. If two people are conceived of as binary opposites, with the qualities of goodness inhering in one people, and those of evil in the other, then the exorcism of that evil from the shared social and temporal space, by whatever means, would be urgent, an imperative. "The German Volk," asserted one antisemite before the midpoint of the century, "needs only to topple the Jew" in order to become "united and free."

Hitler's Willing Executioners is an important and impressive piece of scholarship, particularly in the extent to which it catalogues the willing participation of the "ordinary" citizenry in so many murderous acts, as well as in the hatemongering that precipitated them. And his identification of "eliminationism" as a central impulse of the Nazi project was not only borne out in spades by the evidence, but was an important insight into the underlying psychology of fascism.

The eliminationist project is in many ways the signature of fascism, partly because it proceeds naturally from fascism's embrace of what Oxford Brookes scholar Roger Griffin calls palingenesis, or a Phoenix-like national rebirth, as its core myth. And the Nazi example clearly demonstrates how eliminationist rhetoric has consistently preceded, and heralded, the eventual assumption of the eliminationist project – indeed, it has played a critical role in giving permission for it to proceed, essentially creating the cultural and psychological conditions that enable the subsequent violence.

Goldhagen's focus is almost solely the Holocaust and the virulently anti-Semitic form that took root in Europe prior to the Second World War. However, as a principle, we can see eliminationism playing a role in human history through the ages -- including its special role in American history and the shaping of American culture, right up to the present day.

I noticed this in part because, at the time that I read Goldhagen’s text, I was engaged in a historical research project involving the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and was struck by the similarity of what Goldhagen was describing regarding the buildup to Nazi power to both the rhetoric and the behavior of Americans not only during the nadir of that horrific episode, but over the course of the forty years and more that had preceded the event, toward Asians generally and the Japanese specifically.

But a familiarity with the darker corners of American history tells us the phenomenon has not been restricted to Asians. Eliminationist rhetoric, followed and accompanied inevitably by an actual campaign of often-violent eliminationism, has been a specter hanging over our most shameful episodes: the destruction of the native American people; the subjugation of African Americans, from slavery to Jim Crow, the “lynching era,” and “sundown towns”; and the nativist anti-immigrant campaigns of various eras targeting ethnic minorities from the Irish to the Germans to Italians, Asians, and today, Latinos. It lives today in the form of hate crimes and hateful rhetoric directed toward gays and lesbians, Muslims, and various minorities.

More recently the eliminationism has also come to be directed at not merely these minorities, but the “liberals” who are perceived as their enablers – antiwar activists, environmentalists, civil-rights guardians. Which means that the hateful rhetoric and its poisonous consequences are starting to spread.

I began observing this phenomenon back in 2003 at my blog Orcinus, almost as an offhand observation at first, but I asked readers to chip in and tell me their own experiences, as well as to link me to stories that fell into this category. It was like tapping into a high-voltage power line. Comments poured in to my blog, and there were as many if not more e-mails.

Incidents like these are difficult to catalog or quantify. Only on occasion (as in the Van Der Meer case) do matters ever reach the level of being reported in the press – indeed, it’s rare that police are even called or involved. But judging from the outpouring at Orcinus and elsewhere, it seems clear that, as far as many progressives are concerned, eliminationist rhetoric has so deeply infected the popular discourse that it is now almost pervasive, and indeed poisoning how we treat each other in our daily lives.

...

Eliminationism has become an endemic feature of modern movement conservatism – not bothering to argue the facts or merits of issues but to simply demand outright the suppression or violent oppression (and ultimately the purgation) of elements deemed harmful to American society. It is aimed not merely at Latinos and Muslims – the current major targets – but also its historical targets: blacks and Indians, gays and lesbians, Jews and other religious minorities. But perhaps most commonly and generically, and most casually, its target is the common liberal.

This kind of rhetoric doesn’t constitute actual discourse, but rather its opposite – it is, in effect the death of discourse itself. Instead of offering an opposing idea, it simply shuts down intellectual exchange and replaces it with the brute wish to silence and eliminate.

As we’ve seen from the preceding examples, a lot of eliminationist talk occurs on a small, personal level, often during chance encounters with other drivers or shoppers or diners-out. But it is not occurring in a vacuum. Much of this kind of talk in fact has been publicly encouraged by a steady patter of similar talk from prominent right-wing media and political figures. It's being promoted at the highest levels of movement conservatism, by everyone from media figures to religious and political leaders.

It can be heard not just in bizarre road-rage incidents and ugly exchanges among former friends, but from the very fonts of public information that are the mass media. Figures like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Lou Dobbs, and Glenn Beck routinely engage in it and inflame it with bogus stories -- nonsensical conspiracy theories and outrageously inflammatory misinformation – derived from fanatical far-right sources. What happened to Timothy Burke is becoming a commonplace because it’s being openly encouraged by major figures in the conservative movement, both in the media and in officialdom.

...

The problem with eliminationism isn’t that it is simply unpleasant or ugly or even uncomfortable discourse, which is what can often be fairly said of the left’s frequently charged rhetoric. The problem, as we already noted, is that it implies the death of discourse, as well as its dissolution into violence and the use of force.

These are not mere jokes, even when they’re presented as such. The humor in them – whatever might be funny about them – is entirely contingent on an underlying attitude about conservatives’ fellow Americans that not only demonizes them, but reduces them to subhuman level, prime targets for violent elimination. The people telling them and repeating them may think they are mere jokes, and perhaps in their own minds, they are. But they have a concrete real-world effect -- because inevitably members of their audience (particularly the more hate-filled and mentally unstable types) will eventually act them out.

...

It is by small steps of incremental meanness and viciousness that we lose our humanity. We have the historical example of 20th-century fascism to remind us of this. The Nazis, in the end, embodied the ascension of utter demonic inhumanity, but they didn't get that way overnight. They got that way through, day after day, attacking and demonizing and urging the elimination of those they deemed their enemies. They did this by not simply creating them as The Enemy, but by denying them their essential humanity, depicting them as worse than scum -- disease-laden, world-destroying vermin, in desperate need of elimination. But that kind of behavior has hardly been restricted to the Nazis; indeed, it has a long history in America as well.

This is why eliminationism is such an acute warning sign: It has historically played the role of creating permission for people to act out their violent impulses against its targets. More than any other facet of para-fascism, it poses the greatest specific danger of transformation into the real thing.

This is why there is a special quality to eliminationist rhetoric. It has the distinctive odor of burning flesh. And when it hits our nostrils, that is a warning we dare not ignore.

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or Daily Kos.

6:58 PM PT: Still on commercial break. I'm watching in Columbus, Ohio. Most of the ads are for cars and furniture.

6:59 PM PT: Adam Smith, Tampa Bay Times political editor, and Beth Reinhard of National Journal, join Brian Williams, who gives Rick Santorum a chance to say he wants to go to war with Iran, because he didn't get a chance before the break.

7:00 PM PT: If Santorum and Paul and their podiums were just gone when they get back from commercials, everyone would understand.
— @pourmecoffee

7:02 PM PT: Reinhard to Santorum: "Drill baby drill?" Santorum to Reinhard: "Drill baby drill."

7:03 PM PT: Newt's performances are better when taped before a live studio audience. #FLdebate
— @KailiJoy

7:04 PM PT: Newt explains why he's happy to campaign in Greek or Spanish but wants the official language to be English.

7:06 PM PT: Lack of big crowd reaction compared to SC debates makes #fldebate feel less of a prize fight than it has been.
— @dickstevenson

7:07 PM PT: Both Romney and Gingrich say they'd support a Dream Act focused on military service and nothing else.

7:08 PM PT: Mitt Romney's solution to immigration: "Self-deportation." That's an exact quote.

7:09 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or Daily Kos.

6:44 PM PT: Whoa ... Mitt Romney talking about how there wasn't enough regulation of mortgage lenders. Free enterprise!

6:44 PM PT: And in the midst of an interesting discussion about housing policy, Brian Williams asks Mitt Romney what he'd do if a boat full of Cuban exiles showed up at his door.

6:46 PM PT: Newt pledges a covert war against Fidel Castro. Raul cackles.

6:47 PM PT: But what if Fidel Castro raped Kitty Dukakis? #fldebate
— @nachofiesta

6:48 PM PT: Ron Paul delivers a huge dose of you all are fucking crazy to want to go to war with Cuba.

6:49 PM PT: Can you imagine any of these guys as president? Not in a million years. Romney probably comes closest, but only because he could play the part in a crappy movie-of-the-week on a little-watched cable channel.

6:49 PM PT: I don't want Mitt to apologize for being successful. But I'd gladly take an apology for tying Seamus to the roof of the car.
— @delrayser

6:51 PM PT: Newt gives himself starbursts: "Jihadists attack the World Trade Center."

6:52 PM PT: What's taking Obama so long to execute these four? #FLDebate
— @KimJongNumberUn

6:54 PM PT: Mitt Romney: "Blah blah blah, Obama failed in Afghanistan, blah blah blah, Obama is a wimp, blah blah blah, we have to beat the people who attacked us, blah blah blah." Dude. Osama bin Laden is dead. Dead! Shut the fuck up already.

6:54 PM PT: After this commercial break, Brian Williams promises to subject us to two of his colleagues.

6:56 PM PT: Times reporter @susansaulny watching the debate with undecided voters in Fla. http://t.co/...  Mixed views on Romney and Gingrich.
— @thecaucus

6:56 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or Daily Kos.

6:33 PM PT: Mitt Romney, implying that he was talking about Fannie and Freddie, said congressmen have publicly said Newt lobbied them. But it turns out that her was talking about Medicare. Newt defends himself, but Mitt stands his ground that Newt is an influence peddler, albeit now with respect to Medicare.

6:33 PM PT: And just when things were starting to get interesting ... Brian Williams interrupts and calls for a commercial break.

6:35 PM PT: I'm not sure Romney won that exchange but Gingrich certainly lost it
— @fivethirtyeight 6:38 PM PT: Evangelicals & a casino mogul have united to help a thrice-married disgraced-politician-turned-lobbyist lecture us on morality.
— @LOLGOP

6:40 PM PT: Ron Paul is talking. Hoo, hah! Cherry Soda! (Get it?)

6:42 PM PT: Romney says "of course we help people" end the foreclosure crisis—exact opposite of his "let it hit the bottom" policy. Then he says we need to get government out of the way because government is the problem. So who is the "we" who will help people?

6:43 PM PT: Newt says Dodd-Frank is at the heart of the housing crisis, proving who thoroughly crazy he is.

6:43 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or Daily Kos.

6:18 PM PT: Ron Paul gives a long and rambling answer. Says he doesn't want to run as a third party candidate, but who knows?

6:21 PM PT: So Mitt Romney released 23 years of tax returns to John McCain as part of McCain's VP selection process, and says the means he was vetted? Uh, dude, McCain picked SARAH PALIN.

6:23 PM PT: Mitt Romney is trying to complain about how Newt Gingrich's tax plan would mean he would pay a 0% tax rate.

6:25 PM PT: Is it just me or is Brian Williams dull as dirt? This should be an epic debate. Instead, it feels like we're watching the middle rounds of a ho-hum golf tournament rebroadcast on the Golf Channel.

6:26 PM PT: Rick Santorum assures us he's a capitalist. Also, he's not a frothy mix.

6:26 PM PT: Who ARE those guys sitting behind Brian Williams?

6:30 PM PT: Romney finally gets Newt Gingrich to show a flash of anger, pounding on the Freddie Mac thing. And Newt doubles down on the idea that he was paid largely because he was a historian. This is pretty hilarious that he's still claiming that.

6:31 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

enlargeCredit: SomeECards

A senior vice-president at NBC (yeah) actually said,

[W]e look forward to hosting a substantive and stimulating forum for the candidates to make their case to the voters in this crucial state and the whole country.

Or we could have a drinking game.

Live stream at NBCPolitics.com at 9 pm Eastern. NBC plans to tape delay the debate on the West Coast until 9 Pacific.

Open Debate Thread below...

Talk about it here. Watch it live on NBC, MSNBC, or right here.

5:57 PM PT: There's a gameshow on NBC right now, and I momentarily thought the debate had already started. But then I saw none of the cash prizes are as big as the $5 million that Sheldon Adelson's wife is steering Newt's way. (Through his Super PAC.)

5:58 PM PT: So will Mitt Romney come out swinging and punch the living daylights out of Newt Gingrich? Something tells me Newt won't want to throw the first punch, but who knows. But I'm not sure Mitt can hurt Newt face-to-face. If he doesn't do it, however, it'll be like Tim Pawlenty's "Obamneycare" humiliation multiplied by a 10,000.

5:59 PM PT: Ha, the show is called "Who's still standing?" Answer: Newt, Mitt, Ron, and Rick. But Ron is not participating in the Florida primary. (However, he's in the debate, for some reason.)

6:02 PM PT: Thank you Brian Williams for putting this whole debate in context for us.

6:04 PM PT: First question is about electability, to Newt. Newt humbly informs us that he's Ronald Reagan.

6:05 PM PT: And now he's claiming credit for Bill Clinton's presidency. Forgets to mention he impeached him.

6:06 PM PT: A look at the debate stage:

6:08 PM PT: Mitt Romney starts landing what he thinks are haymakers against Newt. Newt says he doesn't want to waste people's time refuting them and that he'd refute them on his website tomorrow morning. And then he says Romney is guilty of misinformation and is a liar.

6:09 PM PT: BW asks Romney about his problem connecting with Southern conservatives. Romney's answer—I kid you not—is that he did well with New Hampshire conservatives. And now he's going back to attacking Newt for having been forced out of office. And now he switches gears and starts flogging the Freddie Mac attack.

6:10 PM PT: Remember when Romney said his biggest regret was attacking his fellow Republicans? BW does. Romney now says he realized he was wrong to have that be his biggest regret.

6:11 PM PT: Smackdown: Newt says Romney is a bad historian!

6:12 PM PT: At issue: Newt says he didn't resign until late 2008, but the ethics probe was in early 2007.

6:14 PM PT: I think it's really stupid that they don't let the crowd get involved. All of BW's questions are about the horserace aspect of the campaign; given that he's treating it like a sporting event, why not let the crowd get involved?

6:15 PM PT: Just in from Public Policy Poling: Gingrich leading Romney in Florida 38-33. Is Newt the frontrunner yet?
— @ThePlumLineGS

6:16 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.

Given what has happened over the last week in this absurdity of the Republican primary, the numbers we see today are wholly predictable, aren't they? At least, as predictable as anything has been in an election cycle where the only certainty has been an incessant uncertainty about the outcome and the vectors that its various candidates have taken.

For the moment, however ... and this is subject to change by lunchtime on Wednesday ... Newt Gingrich is ascendant, and it is plausible to see his path to the nomination. Today's numbers, by and large, make that case:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 29, Gingrich 28, Paul 13, Santorum 11, "Other" 5

FLORIDA (Insider Advantage): Gingrich 34, Romney 26, Paul 13, Santorum 11

FLORIDA (PPP): Gingrich 38, Romney 33, Santorum 13, Paul 10

FLORIDA (Rasmussen): Gingrich 41, Romney 32, Santorum 11, Paul 8

On the general election front, the Gingrich surge does not appear to be making him much more "electable", at least according to what will now be a daily tracker of the presidential general election done by Rasmussen. Obama leads both men, but the margins are quite different, according to the House of Ras.

NATIONAL (Rasmussen): Obama d. Romney (45-43); Obama d. Gingrich (48-39)

Some thoughts to kick off Florida primary week after the jump...

Three cheers for Ryan Lizza. On "Morning Joe" on Monday morning, he refuted the conventional Beltway wisdom that "both sides" are to blame for the political gridlock in Washington.

MEACHAM: What does the White House, I should say attribute the polarization to at this point and if the identified the problems can they do something to solve them?

LIZZA: I think two things that aren't that complicated, polarization, two parties moving to the left and right, but it’s not just polarization and I think where a lot of reporters have trouble describing this phenomenon accurately. Frankly, you have one party that has gone much farther to the extreme than the other. The Republican party has been pushed much farther to the right than the Democratic Party. So we don't have polarization, we have asymmetric polarization.

SCARBOROUGH: I just want to state for the record -- let the record reflect, I disagree. Go ahead. This is your time.

LIZZA: I think there’s some pretty, if you look closely at some of the political science behind that – I think you’d have a hard time making the case that the Democrats in Congress have gone as far to the left as the Republicans have gone to the right.

Scarborough lamely tried to refute Lizza’s point by suggesting that what unnamed Democrats said about George W. Bush was just as bad as what Glenn Beck is saying today about Obama. That’s nonsense, of course – there were no elected Democrats comparing George W. Bush to Hitler on the floor of the House or calling him a racist on national television.

But political rhetoric isn’t what Lizza was talking about.

As Nate Silver demonstrated with hard data, the Democratic Party is still a party primarily of moderates, and the GOP is totally dominated by conservatives. And even that doesn’t take into account how far right the scale has been titled over the past 30 years.

Back in the '50s, an era conservatives romanticize, Dwight Eisenhower presided over a 91% marginal rate on the wealthy and launched the biggest public works project in US history -- which was paid for by tax increases.

During the '80s, another favorite decade of the right-wing, Ronald Reagan raised taxes 12 times -- including one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history -- and signed a bill that provided a path to citizenship for immigrants. Both of which would be unthinkable in today’s GOP.

Today, we live in an era in which a 35% tax on the highest earners constitutes tyranny, a $787B emergency measure to stave off a second Great Depression – over a third of which was tax cuts – is characterized as a historically unprecedented spending binge -- and the GOP's answer to immigration is to forcibly deport 12M people. Not to mention the fact that Senate Republicans have used the filibuster more than any other minority in history -- and that now it's commonplace for Republican presidential candidates to argue that the most popular programs of the New Deal and the Great Society should be eliminated.

Lizza should be applauded for getting this right. This “both sides have become equally extreme” stuff is just lazy and uninformed -- and should be throughly refuted every time it comes up.

Earlier we posted on the Newtmentum in Florida based on the Rasmussen and InsiderAdvantage polls. Tonight, Public Policy Polling (which is having a great year) weighs in with the pre-debate numbers, putting Newt Gingrich ahead by 5 points over Mitt Romney:

PPP's first post-South Carolina poll in Florida finds Newt Gingrich with a small lead.  He's at 38% to 33% for Mitt Romney, 13% for Rick Santorum, and 10% for Ron Paul.

Gingrich has gained 12 points since a PPP poll conducted in Florida a week ago. Romney has dropped 8 points. Paul and Santorum have pretty much remained in place. Their favorability numbers show similar trendlines. Gingrich's has increased 8 points from +15 (51/36) to +23 (57/34). Meanwhile Romney's has declined 13 points from +44 (68/24) to +31 (61/30).

The full results, all 304 pages, are here (.pdf)

Among the interesting findings:

We asked a question about both Romney and Gingrich pertaining to the general election, and the results are telling. 50% of primary voters say they would enthusiastically support Gingrich, while only 46% say the same for Romney.  But at the same time 15% of primary voters say they would not vote for Gingrich in the general election, while only 9% say that about Romney.  GOP voters might be more excited about Gingrich than Romney...but Romney would be the stronger candidate against Barack Obama, with most people willing to unify around him whether they love him or not.  Voters may need to decide just how badly they want to win in the fall. Indeed. When you watch the debates, that's the key point. For all of Newt's surge, and for all of the very real questions about Romney's core and whether there's a "there" there, Romney has not lost yet and Newt has not won yet.

More:

Newt's continuing to do well with all the groups he dominated with in South Carolina.  He's up 42-23 with Evangelicals, 46-20 with Tea Partiers (Mitt's actually in 3rd with them), 42-28 with men, and 44-23 with voters describing themselves as 'very conservative,' which is the largest ideological group in the Florida electorate.

Losing Florida would be a major setback for Romney, and the only way for him to win it is to beat Newt. And that's something he's going to have to do in tonight's debate, without surrogates.

In less than an hour, game on.

Click here to view this media

Despite the fact as was noted yesterday on Chris Hayes' Saturday show on MSNBC, that Newt Gingrich's national favorability ratings nationwide are absolutely terrible, that didn't stop Sen. Lindsey Graham and former Gov. Haley Barbour from trying to put their best positive spin on his win in the South Carolina Republican primary race.

Gingrich may be winning over Republican primary voters with the race baiting and a repeat of Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy, but that doesn't necessarily translate well to a national election. I'm sure Graham and Barbour are well aware of that, but that didn't stop them from trying to paint South Carolina Republican primary voters as being typical of the mainstream of the rest of the country.

Transcript via CBS.

SCHIEFFER: All right, if you can help me and call Governor Romney, I think we can make this work. Senator Graham, what happened down there? Did-- is-- is South Carolina just too conservative for Mitt Romney or is there a problem here that goes deeper than that with his campaign?

GRAHAM: John McCain won, Bob Dole won. Not the most conservative people in the world but good-- good Americans who impressed South Carolina in sobriety, Newt won. The debate Monday night in Myrtle Beach was probably the best explanation of conservatism in a bold fashion coming from Newt Gingrich I've heard in decades. And Newt not only won the debates. He convinced people that he could beat Barack Obama and electability was the issue before South Carolina primary, during the primary and on voting day. And Newt won. He's the guy that we saw forty percent of us, the best to go into the arena and beat Barack Obama. Governor Romney did fine. Rick Perry did very well. He had some stumbles by Romney. We had six hundred thousand people vote. The largest Republican primary in history occurred yesterday. And people were energized. They were looking close and they picked Newt. This was Newt winning more than anybody else losing.

SCHIEFFER: Are you ready to endorse him that sound, those were very complimentary words.

GRAHAM: Well, here's what I am willing to say. That Newt Gingrich has changed a lot in a positive way. This immigration issue is tough for our party, tough for our country. And Newt is putting on the table an idea that once you secure your borders and control who gets the job and you have to deal with the twelve million, we're going to have a rational system, most of them will have to go back. But if you've had a lady who has been here twenty-five or thirty years and has done nothing but be part of the community, committed an immigration violation, we're going to give her a second look. She'll have to learn English, pay a fine. She can have legal status, not citizenship. That's a-- that's a way of thinking that I think will help our party because she may have a young son or grandson who is in the Marines in Afghanistan. And I don't want a party who says to Sergeant Gonzalez, congratulations, you just won the Purple Heart. Unfortunately, we're going to have to deport your grandmother. I hope you get home before she leaves. Newt's putting on the table real solutions in a way today that he wouldn't have done in 1994. And that kind of maturing and thought I think is going to help the party and help him.

SCHIEFFER: Well let me turn to Governor Barbour here. Governor, you heard Newt Gingrich. He is painting Mitt Romney as the candidate of the Republican establishment. What I'm wondering, what is the Republican establishment these days?

BARBOUR: Well, of course, the Republican Party is a conservative party of the United States. The Democratic Party is the liberal party becoming more liberal daily under the Obama administration. But ours is a very diverse party, you have got economic conservatives, social conservatives. About sixty percent of the people who voted in South Carolina are like me they're Evangelical Christians. But I was interested and Lindsey touched on this. Two thirds of them said in the exit polls their first criteria was to vote for the person who had the best chance to beat Obama. And I think that's what most Republicans want. They're looking for the candidate as-- as Bill Buckley used to say years ago, we want the most conservative person who can win in November. And Newt was really helped by the fact that lot of people who maybe didn't think he could win three months ago have come to that conclusion. Of course, if we would have said three months ago that Bob, that Mitt Romney was going to win the South Carolina primary, we'd all laughed at that too. So a little of this was according to Hoyle, but I think Newt has-- Newt had a great week and debates really help him because as Lindsey says he can make it very plain why we're for the right things.

SCHIEFFER: Well let me ask you this. Do you now agree with the majority of those who said that they voted for-- for-- for Newt Gingrich that he is the one now who has the best chance of beating Obama? Do you think that?

BARBOUR: I think that-- I think that remains to be seen, Bob. Newt-- Lindsey mentioned Newt has become a much better candidate. He is a-- he is tremendous in debate. He's the best debater by far, not close. Romney strengths are more managerial and Lord-- there are a lot of people in the United States who understand we need some management after watching this administration for the last three years. We need somebody that knows how to get things done. Romney has in my opinion been very courageous to tackle the entitlement programs of the-- of the Obama administration. When the President makes his state of the state address this week, I predict he's going to say we need bigger government. We need more of people to be paid for the-- by the government. We need more people to be taken care of by the government. And Romney's had the courage to say now that's a losing proposition in the long-term. America is not based on an entitlement society but an opportunity society. So I think both of them have something really strong to offer. A long primary season, I think, is healthy in many ways as it gets personal. That's negative. But not nearly as negative as the Democrats are going to be, I mean, Obama can't run on his record--

SCHIEFFER: Let me.

BARBOUR: --so he's going to make the Demo-- he's going to make the Republican, whoever it is, somebody that his grandmamma wouldn't recognize or vote for.

Seriously, is it likely that such a murky enterprise was set up without being approved by someone higher up the food chain, like Tenet? Of course not. The question is, did the authorization reach even higher?

The top lawyer at the CIA never approved sending one of its officers to help the New York Police Department create a domestic spying program, raising the possibility that the agency may have violated a ban on domestic spying.

Last August, the Associated Press reported that the CIA had violated that prohibition when it “played a key role in transforming the New York Police Department’s intelligence unit into a cutting edge spy shop dedicated to gathering information on Muslims.”

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly insisted in October that the arrangement was legal under a 1981 presidential order, which allows the CIA to provide local law enforcement with “specialized equipment, technical knowledge or assistance of expert personnel,” provided the guidelines are spelled out in advance and the agency’s general counsel approves of the arrangement.

The AP is now reporting, however, that according to intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, neither of those things was done in 2002 when then-CIA director George Tenet sent a veteran officer to set up “spying programs that transformed the NYPD into one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies.”

An internal CIA investigation launched in September by newly-appointed Director David Petraeus concluded there had been no wrongdoing, but the AP report casts fresh doubt on that conclusion.The AP story points out that the role of CIA officer Lawrence Sanchez — and of a second, unidentified, CIA officer who succeeded him in 2010 — was “murky,” which enabled US officials to claim his presence did not violate the ban because he was never directly instructed to help set up the spying programs.“Officially, he is there on a sabbatical to observe the NYPD’s management,” the AP story notes.

What you missed on Sunday Kos ...

• Sunday's comic was Super PACmen by Matt Wuerker.
• DemFromCT looked at the South Carolina Republican primary results to see where (win or lose) Newtmentum goes from here, whether Romney can pull off a hostile takeover of the Republican base, and what Santorum's key Iowa win means for the surging campaigns of Rick Perry and Herman Cain.
• On Wednesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released its first list of candidates for its "Red to Blue" program, which assists candidates in competitive contests—a key part of taking back the House in 2012. David Nir took a look at these races to see who made the cut—and who didn't.
• Mark Sumner continued his series on writing a novel.
• Typically, the target list for the party out of power is loaded with freshmen Congressmen of the other party, imperiled by their first bid for re-election. Steve Singiser looked at the Democratic Red-to-Blue list and examined why that typical targeting pattern has gone out the window somewhat in 2012.
• brooklynbadboy described his long love affair with books. The printed kind.
• New York City retail workers face low wages, "flexible" schedules that give all the flexibility to management, and racial gaps in wages and scheduling, a new study finds. Laura Clawson looked at a few of the low points.
• Scott Wooledge presented the second in a two part series on LGBT employment discrimination.
• As we approach the anniversary of the ratification of the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on January 23, Denise Oliver-Velez examined the history of the poll tax, struggles for enfranchising those denied the vote, and current Republican efforts towards voter suppression in "The Battle for the Ballot".

Mitt Romney's South Carolina concession speech
  Mitt Romney, during his bitter concession speech on Saturday night, not only confusing questions about his record at Bain with a "front assault on free enterprise," but effectively saying that Republicans should support him because he's rich. When my -- when my opponents attack success and free enterprise, they're not only attacking me, they're attacking every person who dreams of a better future, he's attacking you. I will support you. I will help you have a better future. I will make sure that America is a place of opportunity for all.

I'm passionate -- I'm passionate about our economic liberty because I have witnessed our free enterprise system as it rewards the hard work of many and creates prosperity for all in this great country. And over the past few weeks we have seen a frontal assault on free enterprise. We expected this from President Obama. We didn't anticipate some Republicans would join him. That's a mistake for our party and for our nation. Ours is the party of free enterprise and free markets and consumer choice.

The Republican Party doesn't demonize prosperity. We celebrate success in our party.

And Karl Rove loves the argument, praising Romney for having said the same thing during Thursday's debate:

His best moment on Thursday night was when he said, I didn't inherit this money, I made it my myself, and I'm not going to apologize for it, and anybody who attacks me is attacking the free enterprise system. And I thought that was a very strong moment for him.

Of course, all this talk about free enterprise is nonsense, and voters know it. Hell, even Mitt Romney knows it. If he really believed that voters would blindly "celebrate success" without caring how he achieved that success, he'd have released his tax returns long ago—and he'd have answered the questions he's gotten about how Bain made its money. And that's one of the reasons his campaign is struggling: one of his core arguments is bullshit, and he knows it.