Wingnut Catholic slash-fiction blog National Review Online insisted, at 4 a.m. today (!), that fake Catholic convert Newt Gingrich quit losing the GOP primary and instead let authentic Catholic wingnut Rick Santorum continue losing against Mormon liberal Mitt Romney. This is apparently news, even though Kathryn Jean Lopez has always loved Rick Santorum nearly as much as she loves Joseph Ratzinger in his lovely Prada slippers and bejeweled hat and silken dress. Will Newt respect the decision of K-Lo and immediately drop out of the race, to allow Rick Santorum a longer public moment to discuss sperm and gynecology and the right holes to ejaculate into, etc.? There is, after all, a sense that America needs this, for the next 10 or 11 months straight.

Here, from K-Lo’s LiveJournal update in the middle of her lonely night, because Sunday night is always the loneliest, after all the masses are over and she has to go home again, home to that lonely apartment with the Trent Reznor noises coming from the walls and the weird dripping from the refrigerator with the blinding white light ringing the doorway … the doorway, but to what? To where?

Santorum has been conducting himself rather impressively in his moments of triumph and avoiding characteristic temptations. He is doing his best to keep the press from dismissing him as merely a “social-issues candidate.” His recent remark that losing his Senate seat in 2006 taught him the importance of humility suggests an appealing self-awareness. And he has rightly identified the declining stability of middle-class families as a threat to the American experiment, even if his proposed solutions are poorly designed. But sensible policies, important as they are, are not the immediate challenge for his candidacy. Proving he can run a national campaign is.

Romney remains the undramatic figure at the center of the primaries’ drama.

Is it not dramatic that the Ghost of Jesus wandered America a thousand years before the first Vikings arrived? Is it not dramatic that the early people of America — not the actual Native Americans, but the Weird Fake Biblical Tribes — met the Ghost of Jesus and hung out with Him, for fun? Is it not dramatic that such a people could, eventually, end up running major American car companies back when they were huge profit machines and not sadsack welfare cases propped up by Ben Bernanke or whatever?

WE HEREBY DEMAND a Wizard Duel between K-Lo and the Newt. Best (non-pedophile) Catholic spell wins. [National Review Online/New York Times]

Republicans reacted happily to Barack Obama’s Compromise last week on contraception — the big political issue of the day, this day, this 2012 day — in which religious employers were allowed to opt out of covering contraception in health plans and the insurer would pay for it instead. Not “reacted happily” in this sense that they were satisfied with this at all, mind you, but more that they could then push even further in their quest to end hot sex. Are we really going to see congressional votes in the near future on bills allowing all employers to opt out of covering contraception in their health plans?

TPM reports on Turtle & Co.’s latest bold plan for creating jobs and repairing the beleaguered economy:

Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.

“If we end up having to try to overcome the President’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,” McConnell said. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.”

The Blunt amendment he was specifically referring to would “ensure that health care stakeholders retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions” under the Affordable Care Act. Similar legislation was introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) before the White House announced Friday that it would allow religious nonprofits such as charities, hospitals and universities to opt out of paying for contraception coverage and force the insurance company to do so instead.

Your Wonkette is excited with this new precedent, in which you can ignore federal mandates and laws that are inconsistent with your “religious beliefs and moral convictions.” When’s our tax rebate for all the money that’s gone to imperial wars over the years coming in the mail, Mitch? Roy? Hmm.

Not sure if this is a political winner!

[TPM]

Here is more fun typing from our contributor, Bilbo!

By Bilbo

Thankfully for the world, and reality, CPAC somewhat peacefully come to an end Saturday afternoon, at least the official administrative meeting and speechifying and seminaring and workshopping “official schedule” part of it, and it seems to have ended with the world intact, and no signs of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is about the only positive thing to say at this point. Because this monstrosity of a “conference,” in all of its full unrealistic, surreal, dishonest, slanted and bizarro glory, has ended with what else but a horrifying, terrifying, completely lie-filled distortion of time, space and reality in the form of a “speech” by one of the more grotesque symbols of CPAC terror, Alaska’s own mamma grizzly, Sarah Palin.

From 4:42 p.m. until about 5:19 p.m., if you can imagine surviving that long, Palin speechified in the Marriott Ballroom at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel Wonderland Amusement Park [& Conference Centre -- Ed.] about all sorts of truth-defying, lie-inducing, reality-denying, delusion-inspiring wonders of unreality. Thus the only way to accurately, objectively–yes, objectively–report on this delusion is call it Deconstructing Sarah Palin.

Palin, as if running for something other than Reality Show President of the World and Conservative Conference Speaker of the Year, tore into everything Obamaesque and tore it up with easy catchphrases about everything near and dear to her dwindling, equally delusional fan base–the extreme far-righters whose credo incredibly remains, in 2012, a political world continually centered around scarifying old reliables such as abortion, guns, religion, the military and big government. It is most interesting to note that 99 percent of what Palin said is completely, wholly, utterly untrue and a lie.

Palin said that the Obama administration created “a sinking ship” of financial problems, has created “trillions in debt” due to incompetence, and has “no plan to stop it…no plan.” Wrong. Of course, the Obama administration has not created any sinking ship of financial problems–his administration inherited it from the administration of George W. Bush, which increased the size of the federal government in all sorts of fun, crazy ways. And of course the Obama administration has several plans to decrease the federal deficit, decrease the size of the federal government, and work towards an actual budget surplus, not a deficit. The Obama administration has a deficit-reduction commission, and has commissioned another panel, or two, to literally decrease the size of the federal government.

Palin said Obama “barely mentioned” unemployment in his recent State of the Union address. Wrong. In fact, the core and central point of the address was jobs, employment, manufacturing and getting people back to work. Of course the administration is focused on, and working on, employment and decreasing unemployment.

Palin said there has “never been” such a disconnect between a president and the populace. Wrong. Reference points: The Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II presidencies, especially, oh, the Nixon adminstration circa 1972 to 1974. Palin bashed Obama on the pipeline decision and the solar energy company decisions. Obama said the government needs more time to study the pipeline–which is smart–and the Obama administration worked to study solar energy as an alternate energy source–which, you guessed it, some Republicans have said the country needs to do. Of course.

Palin went on a crazed stream-of-unconsciousness rant and said Obama doesn’t care about God or guns and women and religion. Wrong. Obama recently said in several interviews that he is a man of faith, he does go to church, he is for normal, civilized gun restrictions, and he supports a woman’s right to choose. In that respect, he does indeed care about women very much. Palin said the Obama administration likes to share military secrets “with the Kremlin.” That should be news to the Defense Department, the Homeland Security Department, the Justice Department and the 16 or 20 or so federal government intelligence agencies.

Palin’s entire speech was one long delusional rant of someone who has not followed government and politics, who has not followed the news, and who has not followed exactly what the Obama administration has actually done. It was a speech of soundbites, media bites, far-right bites. Palin kept saying that “the door is open” to some new version of reality. But the only door that is open for Palin is the doors of unreality and the doors to her home on the range in Alaska–doors that she needs to walk through, settle in behind, and close tight behind her.

Meanwhile, the world will now sleep much better for the next year–until CPAC Horrorshow 2013 rolls around again.

Like every year at CPAC time, the “no strings attached” sex Internet is busy busy busy with self-hating closeted homosexual Republican men who like to take a break from cheering on homophobic bible clods by going back to the hotel with a discreet dude who wants to give/receive some oral, “maybe more with the right guy,” etc. Republican homosexuals are so predictable!

The new twist in the “iPad era” or whatever is that there is now a special app for hunting free and easy GOP sodomy. It is called “Grindr,” because all Internet things must be spelled or at least capitalized in a dumb way, for Technology. And with this amazing social network sexytime GPS magick, you can be enjoying homosexual penetration within minutes of hearing Rick Santorum lisping about his lifelong dedication to thinking about gay men having nasty, dirty, unholy, hot pulsing homosexual intercourse.

Here’s Dan Choi and Dan Savage cruising Grindr for laffs at CPAC:

In the picture at the top of this page, which we just grabbed off Craigslist DC from a long list of M4M CPAC ads, a very fit 26-year-old Latino man would like to have some sexytime with other handsome self-hating Republican gays. Is he with Marco Rubio’s staff, or whatever, ha ha?

This next sexy patriot is a self-described twink who includes a patriotic American flag at the bottom of his post. That’s not what we want to see when we’re clicking M4M ads that have images, come on!

And here’s a collection of 10 craigslist posts from dudez seeking dudez at CPAC. Be discreet! No fatties!

The mere presence of muckraker Dan Savage should be enough to scare the erections away from all these CPAC self-loathing closeted queers, right? Well, not exactly! Remember that eventually being caught and humiliated into accepting your orientation is kind of the normal thing for the Republican homosexual. [HyperVocal]

People who are not Sarah Palin and/or “Snooki” may not understand the importance the Indoor Tanning Industry plays in making people look like wrinkled, rotten oranges with melanoma, but weeping boozebag would just be a bright red nose on a bloated clown face if not for the magic of the tanning beds down at the strip mall next to the “Cheap Smokes” shop. That’s why he’s happy to take the Indoor Tanning Industry’s big money to make sure burnt orange trailer trash Americans retain their White American rights to turn into cancer-ridden Medicare charity cases.

Think Progress reports on this not-really-shocking development in the Lobbying World of amoral congressional leadership:

The Indoor Tanning Industry’s political action committee has contributed $5,000 House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) campaign account and another $5,000 to the National Republican Congressional Campaign’s Boehner for Speaker Committee.

A small reward for Boehner putting tanning beds into the Affordable Care Act! [Think Progress via Monsieur Grumpe]

Uhh, wasn’t this supposed to be wrapped up by now? No. Not when all your candidates are so terrible. Rick Santorum is back in the race, in other words. He won Missouri! That’s … let’s see, 55% for Santorum, which is DOUBLE Mitt Romney’s second place finish. Meanwhile, in the “near the Mormons” state of Colorado, Mittens is making an impressive showing of … third. Newt Gingrich should have this nomination wrapped up pretty soon now, whenever “Texas” happens, right? Mitt Romney is the world’s lamest front runner since, we guess, Walter Mondale? And now Santorum has officially won Minnesota, too. Will it be a THREEPEAT, or whatever? UPDATE: Oh boy, it’s a threepeat. After his triple-penetration three-way, Santorum said “that conservatives are beginning to get it that we present the best opportunity to beat President Obama.” We sure hope so!

Screengrab via Wonkette operative “Rod T.”

Missouri somehow has more delegates than Florida — because Florida’s GOP pissed away half its delegates in order to have an earlier primary, to benefit tourism or something? They’ve got that new Harry Potter ride down at the theme park.

Rick Santorum is currently killing in the Minnesota and Colorado results — in Minnesota, Ron Paul is a distant second place, and Romney’s at 17%, hahahaha. What is happening? Will the Republican Party finally self-destruct for the amusement of everyone sane on Earth? Were the Mayans talking about the GOP all this time?

Rick Santorum was poised for a breakthrough night on Tuesday in three contests that could provide a boost to the former Pennsylvania senator’s efforts to slow Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination.

We will either update this post, or perhaps because “Newell got out of bed,” we will have a new post, with LIVEBLOGGING? Text #NEWELLCOMEON using your Android pro-life phone and let’s see what happens. [Washington Post]

“Florida is a microcosm of America,” we just heard one of the Romney and/or Gingrich spin-whores say on the MSNBC just now. Yes, because Florida is a limp dick dangling over a sex-slave resort in the Dominican Republic or whatever. Also, America is truly a symbol of America. Just look at the map, and look at it in profile. What you’ll see is a morbidly obese man with a pinhead and a dangling, useless dongle, with a massive ass to the west and a couple of unloved children from his first or second marriage literally “out to sea.” Anyway, how badly will Mittens beat the jewelry piglet tonight? Or will there be a surprise?

7:45 PM — Polls are closed in the “fancy part” of Florida, with the Jews and the Blacks and the Cubanos and the gay CIA retirees, while polls remain open for another fifteen minutes in the “Dukes of Hazard” part of Florida, with the angry 60-year-old thrice-divorced small-time property speculators fuming in their single-wides tonight. Which part of the state is “more American,” anyway?
7:48 PM — The important thing, for comedy reasons, is that Newt WILL NOT DROP OUT, not for many more weeks or possibly even many months. This is *crucial* for the nation’s comedy industry.
7:50 PM — Speaking of the comedy industry, we don’t know who all might be showing up to liveblog tonight’s mini-festival of graft and No Shame. So, perhaps the various contributors will introduce themselves when they take the Relay Dildo of Freedom? Probably not. Probably it will remain mysterious.
7:55 PM — But with the half of the state that has already finished, Romney is apparently leading with 48%. The Newt waddles behind with 31%, Internet joke Rick Santorum has 13%, and all the laser-printed Ron Paul flyers in Florida can’t keep the old newsletter confederate from topping 7%.
8:01 PM — And now it’s “official,” Mittens Moneybags “Willard” Romney won Florida, yayyyy!
8:41 PM — Uhh, and that was all of the news, wasn’t it? We will look for some funny video clips?

8:55 PM — Haha, why is Mormon Frenchman Mitt Romney forcing Holocaust survivors to eat this actual Arab pig meat for Passover? Vote Newt Gingrich to stop the outrage.
9:40 PM — Newt Gingrich refuses to prank call Mitt Romney to congratulate the liberal atheist on his big victory!
9:48 PM — But what did the “web pundits” say about Newt’s frothing speech?