Let’s hear it.

Also, this is pretty cool.  It’s live webcams all over the damn place.

Happy New Year, Y’all.

While you’re waiting for the ball to drop or the police to arrive to get Uncle Melvin off the roof with his shotgun, celebrating Texas style – drunk and armed, here’s a little quiz to see how much you’ve learned about Republicans this year.

Gail Collins at the New York Times stumped me a couple of times.

Thanks to Brain for the heads-up.

Get this from Newt Gingrich:

“It was a positive, issue-oriented campaign that fall,” he told the Rotarians. He said he had wanted to do the same in the presidential campaign but had been blindsided by how nasty and “cynical” the contest was.

This from the man who created the politics of personal destruction.  The man who, along with his former friend Tom DeLay, vaulted Rush Limbaugh type politics to the forefront.

Whining.  Victimized.  Crying for his Momma.  Yeah, yeah, the same Momma who told Connie Chung that Newt called Hillary Clinton “a bitch.”

Oh Karma, you are a sweetheart sometimes.

Don’t you know that Bill Clinton is chuckling just a little bit right now? He lived to see Newt Gingrich self-destruct in flaming self-pitying glory not once, but twice.

There a fairly famous case in Texas.  It’s called Lawrence v. Texas and it threw out Texas’ anti-sodomy law.

It’s so famous that Rick Perry wrote about it in his book.

Oops.

When asked about it yesterday in Cedar Rapids, Perry responded —

“I wish I could tell you I knew every Supreme Court case. I don’t … I’m not a lawyer,” Perry told the person who posed the question. “We can sit here and play ‘I gotcha’ questions on ‘What about this Supreme Court case’ or whatever, but let me tell you — you know and I know that the problem in this country is spending in Washington, D.C. It’s not some Supreme Court case.”

Asked directly later by a journalist whether he knew what the case is, Perry said, “I don’t.” He added, “I’m not taking the bar exam.”

As my freind Sharon says, “Thank the lord he isn’t taking the bar exam because the folks at TABC just don’t hand out bartender licenses.”

It was in your damn book, Rick.  I know you didn’t write it but at least you could have had someone read it to you.

And this is fun —

Asked Thursday if there was any Iowa outcome that could change his determination to press on with his campaign, Perry said, “That’s God’s will. There might be an outcome that He decides that I wouldn’t go on.”

Yeah, I think God has had his little fun with you, Rick.  You can come home now.

Thanks to Sharon for the heads-up.

Bless his heart, Noot has gone from testy to creepy in 60 seconds or less.

Now he’s claiming he’s middle class.  Because everybody in the middle class has a half million dollar line of credit at Tiffany’s, vacations on a Greek cruise, and scams the government out of millions of dollars.

While criticizing Michael Bloomberg for “buying” his mayoral position in New York, Newt said —

My dad served in the Army for 27 years; I was a college teacher. I’m a middle class person,” Gingrich said.

Dude, you are not middle class just because your wife looks like she’d fit right in at the bowling alley in Lufkin.

Thanks to Stephen for the heads-up.

I am on Rick Perry’s mailing list.  I put myself on it because watching guys who are too big for their britches is entertaining.

I think things ain’t going too well at the Perry household, and it ain’t like that’s virgin territory.

I got a letter from Anita Perry this morning.  You know the drill – click the little one to get the big one.

Okay, let me start by translating here.  You know where she says, “hearing from so many Americans who just want their country back?”  That means “white people.”

But look at Anita.  She’s got one of those “I’m gonna hose you down and set you in a draft” looks on her face.  Damn, I know that his whole campaign in Iowa – which, as you recall, was ordained by God because Anita said so – has been about as cheerful as a coroner’s inquest, but Holy Smokes! that woman looks like she’s about to drop a pound of fire ants in his pants.

If you see Rick Perry the day after the Iowa primary, it’s only because he can run faster than she can.