(Politico)

JACKSONVILLE , Fla — This was Newt Gingrich’s last chance to shine on the big stage before Tuesday. It did not go as hoped.

Gingrich and Mitt Romney were supposed to be the main attractions, but Rick Santorum and Ron Paul won notice at the 19th GOP debate, hosted by CNN at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

For 120 minutes, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich essentially traded roles — Romney, often meek and shrill-sounding as he defended himself this cycle, became the aggressor, and Gingrich, who’s played the debate hall crowd like a musical instrument in the past, seemed to shrink from the attacks.

Romney came with balled-up fists to the debate stage, and swung hard at Gingrich during the first few questions — in the exact fashion that the former House speaker has typically gone at the front-runner.

It worked. Romney had the thing that has eluded him most this cycle — a “moment.”

The former Massachusetts governor, apparently having gotten the message that Florida’s outcome could be political life or death for him, slammed Gingrich hard for a now-pulled radio ad in which he described Romney as “anti-immigrant.” A newly confident Romney called the charge “repulsive” and even demanded an apology.

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Florida See-Saw Tipping In Mitt Romney’s Direction (The Note) ABC News (blog) - 1 hour ago

In-Depth: Romney Machine Takes on Gingrich Revolution in Florida‎ Bloomberg
Romney boosted in Florida by new poll numbers, strong debate …‎ Washington Post

(The State)

A political and legal battle is brewing between politicians in York County who are advocates of economic development but oppose the Catawba Indian Nation’s plan to open a casino on its York County reservation.

The problem is, plainly, gambling.

There is no way around it. This fight is over money and whether the Catawbas have a right to make it the way other Indian tribes do – huge casinos that attract thousands of visitors who spend not just millions, but billions.

 

By Monty Pelerin

The siren song of Socialism contains the seeds of destruction that now threaten the very foundations of civilization.  Socialism as a disease progresses slowly, but it has been underway for more than a hundred years.  The malignancy is now metastasizing.  Unfortunately, ours are the generations that will experience its pernicious outcomes.

Feckless politicians blame anyone and everything but themselves for the impending tragedy.  They are responsible for the condition of the world.  Ultimately, “we the people” are also responsible.  We allowed these political opportunists to create this world threat.

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(FITSNews)

A leading South Carolina Republican activist is standing up for the Port of Savannah, Georgia – as well as S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s ongoing defense of our neighboring state’s economic interests.

Lin Bennett – chairwoman of the Charleston County Republican Party – took to her Facebook page on Thursday to criticize a unanimous 111-0 vote by the S.C. House of Representatives opposing Haley’s appeasement. That vote aims to undo the “Savannah River Sellout,” a decision reached in November by Haley’s appointees to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) regarding the port of Savannah’s proposed expansion.

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(FITSNews)

WHAT’S DRIVING THE SUNSHINE STATE MEDIA TO IGNORE CERTAIN STORIES?

Having had their way with television sets, newspapers and websites in South Carolina, the 2012 “Republican” presidential candidates are now carpet bombing their cliches on the voters of Florida.

Lucky them, right?

In fact we were about to refer to those Florida voters as “poor” and “unsuspecting ..” but then we remembered we live in South Carolina.

In a piece worth reading, Crowley notes that Florida’s mainstream press is largely ignoring the story of Sheldon Adelson – a 78-year-old casino mogul who currently ranks as the eight-richest man in America. Earlier this month, Adelson pumped $5 million into Winning Our Future – the SuperPAC that’s supporting the presidential candidacy of former U.S. Speaker Newt Gingrich. Obviously that money did a lot of good for Gingrich – helping him win a landslide victory over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in South Carolina’s presidential primary.

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(Daily Caller)

As you surely have learned by now, Newt Gingrich operates on a different plane than most ordinary mortals. His ideas are bigger by at least a factor of 3 — or so he would argue. Which is why it comes as no surprise that he was thinking about space sex before anyone else.

TheDC’s Will Rahn reports:

“However, by 1996 Gingrich thought that the space program had lost its ‘spirit of adventure’ because of the pernicious influence of government bureaucrats. If they were to get out of the way and allow private space exploration, he wrote, private entrepreneurs could be given free reign to explore the heavens at a fraction of the cost. We could also have sex in space. ‘I believe that space tourism will be a common fact of life during the adulthood of children born this year, that honeymoons in space will be the vogue by 2020,’ Gingrich wrote toward the end of the chapter. ‘Imagine weightlessness and its effects and you will understand some of the attractions.’”

Also on Newt’s agenda in the 1990s was trying to create a real-life Jurassic Park. I don’t know how successful a Newt Gingrich administration would be, but I think we can objectively say it would be outrageously awesome to cover.

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Newt Gingrich Pledges Not to Cheat on 3rd Wife  – The Inquisitr