One can't help but sense that we're all in a bit of a collective "What decade is it?" moment, as Newt Gingrich climbs to the top of the Republican presidential nomination polls. Up until now, the liberal blogosphere and much of the mainstream media have been treating Newt Gingrich's candidacy as either a joke, a book-tour publicity stunt, or (at the very least) an outright impossibility. This week, it seems that everyone is reassessing Newt's chances (while Herman Cain reassesses his own chances). You can almost hear the cry from newsrooms across the land: "Newt? Really?"

To put this another way: it is time to start taking Newt Gingrich seriously, folks. Because he's got a solid chance of denying the Republican nomination from Mitt Romney. For better or worse, the possibility of Newt pulling this feat off is becoming a lot more concrete.

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[Program Note: Instead of our regular article today, we are going to attempt to shamelessly beg money off of you. Just thought I'd warn everyone up front. That's right -- it's that time of year when I tug on everyone's heartstrings in an effort to cover the costs of this site. So be warned -- I am not afraid to deploy the kittens in pursuit of this goal!

The 2011 Holiday Fundraiser should be completely up and running by now, so click on the Holiday Fundraising banner on this page, or any other throughout the holiday season, to take you to the page with instructions on how to donate. My wife mentioned that the actual "Donation" button is kind of hidden over in the right-hand sidebar, so I have included it in the article below, for easy use.]

The ChrisWeigant.com 2011 Holiday Fundraising Drive Kickoff

Because last year's fundraising drive was so overwhelmingly successful, we have decided not to mess with a good thing. In other words, to be blunt, there will again be kittens.

I discussed the scientific reasons behind this at some length last year, but this year there's a much better way to put it. I give you the "secret weapon" of Puss In Boots (from the Shrek movie franchise):

I am hoping, once again, that everyone will prove to be powerless when faced with this secret weapon. I admit it right up front, just so there's no confusion later. To drive this point home, here is a quick link to the Donations PayPal page itself, for easy reference:

Your generous donations help keep this site running.
Visa/MC/PayPal accepted.

Of course, there's another way to go about this -- the hard-sell tactic infamously used by National Lampoon magazine with their "If You Don't Buy This Magazine We'll Kill This Dog" cover (I refuse to provide a link -- look it up yourself if you're not old enough to remember it).

I cannot stoop to such methods, however. The closest I would ever come would be:

Now, in this instance, my money is on that kitten over that Dalek. Traditionally, Daleks did not climb stairs or fly around (humph! -- call me a purist if you must), they could be defeated by the simple expedient of knocking them over. And if there's one thing kittens excel at, it is knocking things over. In fact, I think the battle would go something like this:

Dalek: "EX... TER... MIN..."

Kitten: [Whap! Smacks Dalek upside the brain casing, Dalek tumbles off the bed to lie harmlessly on floor. Kitten pursues, to the amusement of all.]

[Note: If you don't know what I'm talking about here, then you should go watch some old episodes of Doctor Who as fast as you can.]

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right! Kittens! Christmas! Begging!

Let's just get right back to it, shall we?

How can you possibly resist that? You are getting sleepy... sleepy... you are reaching for your checkbook...

Heh. That's about as hard-sell as we get, around here. Well, OK, sometimes we go overboard on the kittens-to-text ratio, and try to cram in as many kittens as possible.

But more seriously... ChrisWeigant.com has been up and running since the summer of 2007. This is only the third pledge drive we have ever run, and what astonishes us here at Chris Weigant Global Media Enterprises, Inc., LLC is the fact that this fundraising drive -- like the last one -- was actually demanded by our loyal readers. This is truly, truly overwhelming.

We're going to try something new this year. In the previous two pledge drives, we have privately set our own target for fundraising, and then provided a logo with a thermometer graphic to show how close we've come to that goal. This year, we are going to publicly put a dollar figure on this goal, because we are incurable optimists. Last year, we raised between $600 and $700 (I would have to look up the exact figure), which definitely reached the goal we had set of $500. This year, we're going to set the bar higher -- twice as high, in fact. We're shooting for $1,000 this year, folks!

We may not make this, of course, but we're going to try going public about the actual figures, as an experiment. Operating costs for ChrisWeigant.com's website run about $75-80 per month, which works out to over $900 in an average year. This is bare-bones, and doesn't count any extras (such as junkets to Netroots Nation, for instance) -- this is just the cost of doing business and keeping the lights on, in other words. Advertising doesn't bring in much, either, towards paying these bills. So we're going to shoot this year for slightly above the break-even point, because $1,000 is such a nice, round figure.

Sorry, this is getting too wonky, isn't it? OK, how about:

And, for our readers up in Canada, Maine, Montana, and other points north, we even have a special photo for you this year:

OK, that one kinda looks Photoshopped, I admit, but hey....

From now until the end of the year, we will display on our site at the top of every major page our Holiday Fundraising banner logo. The drive may not have officially started until now, but we've already got $50 in "the kitty" (sorry, just could not resist that one), and several very creative "matching pledges" in the comments (and one "I may annoy the heck out of everyone, but I certainly do pay for the privilege" pledge, from a commenter who knows very well who he is). Heh. If you'd like to make such a pledge, please feel free to do so, as we never would have come up with the idea on our own, but we heartily encourage them!

Look deep into the kitten's eyes. Doesn't she seem to be saying: "Have you made a pledge yet?"

Or, perhaps, you'll appreciate the following kittens, who appear to be saying in chorus: "You just pledged how much?!? Wow!!!"

To close on a serious note, I thank all my readers for their support over the last year. Support, to me, means visiting the site and reading my meandering prose on a regular basis. Without such support, I would have quit doing this years and years ago. But you folks stick with me through thick and thin -- and we're definitely in a "thin" period. Regular readers will know that this past August I started a book project. This writing has limited the time I devote to this website, and I am happy to say that the proposal I've been getting together is about 70% done at this point. I have especially been grateful to everyone for not abandoning me while the level of output has dropped.

Such support is what I blog for -- people reading what I write, and the dialog which follows in the comments. This support is worth more than money -- it is, quite literally, what keeps me going. I always feel sheepish (if not downright ashamed) to beg you to donate not only your time and interest here, but also financially. These pledge drives are not easy for me to do, because I still feel it kind of crosses the line of trust between reader and pundit. On the other hand, nobody else is paying me to write, so it can be viewed as "subscribing" to our little pamphleteering press here.

Nah, that's much too serious to close on. Let's end instead with the best motivator we can think of, in this holiday season. Because in December, as we all know, Santa is always watching:

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Have the Republicans in Congress painted themselves into a corner on taxes? They seem to be in the position of choosing between a number of courses of action, most of which would normally be seen as going against their principles. They may have dealt themselves a losing hand, to put it another way.

Metaphors aside, though, it's hard to see how Republicans are going to escape this dilemma. First, the history: President Barack Obama got a "tax holiday" declared, which cut everyone's payroll (Social Security) taxes by hundreds of dollars. The White House says this amounts to a $1,500 tax cut for an average family, while others use the metric of saving $1,000 for an average worker making $50,000 per year. By any measure, all year long all workers have been getting more money in their paychecks. This tax holiday is about to expire, at the end of this year.

What this means is that, if Congress does not act, taxes are going up substantially for "the 99 percent," starting with the first paycheck everyone gets in January. Republicans -- supposedly the party which never saw a tax cut it didn't love -- have the power to block this action.

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Excuse me... excuse me ladies and gentleman... [sound of microphone squeaking with feedback, then several thumps, until sound clears]... Hello, can I have everyone's attention for a moment? Thank you.

I'd like to welcome everyone to the first annual Pentagon bake sale. This event was made necessary, of course, because Congress pulled the "trigger" on cutting a half a trillion dollars of the Pentagon's budget over the next ten years. [audible booing from crowd] We all know the Pentagon simply cannot accept this slower rate of the growth of their budget, which in the same period is going to total at least six or seven trillion dollars -- and more, if we have anything to say about it! [loud applause]

Since the politicians quite obviously won't patriotically support the healthy growth of our military-industrial complex any more, we are going to have to make up the difference ourselves. At first, we thought this would be a simple matter of asking for donations. After all, if Warren Buffett doesn't think he's taxed enough, he should just sit down and write a check to the U.S. government, right? We felt certain that there would be a tidal wave of such checks coming in from the hawkish folks on the Right, to preserve the American defense industry's God-given right to make a fortune no matter what else is going on in the world. Unfortunately, to date, we've only received $1,379.42, mostly in coins collected in elementary schools with zip codes near military bases.

This still leaves us about $45 billion in the hole for the first year alone. Or, to be strictly accurate, only $44,999,998,620.58 to go! Which is why we decided to hold the first annual Pentagon bake sale! So welcome to you all! I can see you're eager to get to the goodies, so I'll keep my remarks short.

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It's pretty common in America, these days, to hear denunciations of various outlets of the media, or even of the media universe as a whole. From a Lefty excoriating Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, or just Fox News in general, to a Righty heaping scorn on Rachel Maddow, Arianna Huffington, or even more generically, "the liberal press," you don't have to look too far to find people expressing the opinion that our media conversation is too coarse these days, and that partisan screaming fills the airwaves to our collective degradation. Gauzy memories of some "Golden Age" of media often go hand-in-hand with these statements.

It's all bunkum, of course. America has always enjoyed a rousing good political fight, and our media has almost always reflected this (to their profit). Read the following excerpt, if you have a problem believing this, and see if you can put it in context. When, in other words, was the following written?

When an instrument [the media] so potent is committed to the weak, the ignorant, and the vicious, the most baneful consequences must be anticipated. When men of small talents, of little information, and of less virtue, undertake to be ... directors of public opinion, what must be the result? We may expect to see the frivolity of weakness, the errors and malignity of prejudice, the misrepresentations of party zeal, the most corrupt doctrines in politics and morals, the lacerations of private character, and the polluting language of obscenity and impiety, daily issuing from the press, poisoning the principles, and disturbing the repose of society; giving to the natural and salutary collisions of parties the most brutal violence and ferocity; and, at length, consuming the best feelings and noblest charities of life, in the flame of civil discord.

I'll even make it easier. Try to guess the decade this was written. I'll offer no hints, other than to say it was written in a book on history -- the author had devoted a chapter to the press in America. It could be recent history, and it could be further back.

I'll post the answer in the comments tomorrow, but I am interested to see who even comes close to guessing when this was written. The language is a bit dated (although not much), but with a few minor word and sentence updates, the exact same sentiment could have easily been expressed by anyone looking at the past decade of the American media. OK, that's one hint: it wasn't written about any decade in the twenty-first century, how's that to get you started? [Note: No fair cheating by using Google!]

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

The race for the Republican presidential nomination has certainly been anything but dull this year. Every time you turn around, it seems another name pops up as the alternative to Mitt Romney.

I treated this satirically last week, with a suggestion that the seven major Republican candidates band together and run as "Anybody But Romney, Incorporated," so if you're not in the mood for a sober analysis of the Republican field today, I suggest you read last Monday's column instead.

I've been viewing the Republican field so far as a national contest, taking into account their standings in national polls of Republican primary voters. But, as we all know, primaries are not national, they are state-by-state. Meaning we must transition from surveying national standings to looking at the state polls in the first primary states. Before we do this, a final wrapup (as things stand today -- although these have been so volatile that we'll doubtlessly mention them in the weeks to come if they radically change) of the national standings is in order.

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We're going to try something new here today. Well, before we get to that, we have to apologize for not warning readers last week that we were taking a break for Veterans' Day. Which brings up a related subject: there will be no Friday Talking Points next week, either (the day after Thanksgiving), as we plan to be lounging on the couch in a tryptophan haze. Consider yourselves warned, this time.

Back to today's column, though. We're going to try an experiment today, and try to tighten these columns up significantly. They started off as very simple columns which didn't run all that long, and now they've grown to monstrous proportions. So we'll be (mostly) doing away with this introductory bit here, and moving straight to the awards and the (hopefully, shorter) talking points. We'll see how it goes, and we'll see what readers think. Let us know in the comments, as always. Comments which start with: "You know, it's really annoying how you revel in the editorial 'we' during these columns..." will, as usual, be ignored (by us). We, to coin a phrase, will not be amused.

OK, enough silliness, let's get on with the show.

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Washington is all abuzz these days with talk of the deficit reduction committee (the so-called "supercommittee"). The deficit committee has a deadline which is now less than a week away to produce legislation to cut $1.2 trillion out of the next ten years of federal budgets. Pundits have been predicting they'll fail almost from when the committee was set up, during the last round of brinksmanship over the budget this past summer.

I have no idea whether they'll come up with anything next week or not. Betting on failure seems to be the popular thing to do, but the committee members have been showing some willingness to move closer to a solution in the past few days, so maybe they actually will get seven votes for some plan or another.

If the committee fails, though, there are supposed to be "triggers" pulled -- automatic cuts to both domestic spending and military budgets. But you know what? I am confident that these triggers will never be pulled. To put it another way, these automatic cuts are never going to happen. Oh, sure, there may be some noise about them, accompanied by handwringing and teeth-gnashing inside the Beltway, but I remain confident that the actual budget cuts will never take place.

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The big question for the Occupy protests has now become: What next? With the multiple evictions across the country, the Occupiers have been given an ultimatum of sorts by the powers-that-be: protest and rally all you want, but you can't "occupy" these places any longer by erecting tents and making them your residences.

Of course, this could wind up being a silver lining. Because a lot of the Occupations were getting bogged down in the minutiae of the occupation itself, which seemed to draw the focus away from why they were there in the first place. If the cops and the mayors aren't going to tolerate an encampment, then that (in a way) solves all the problems arising from that encampment itself. Which could free up the protesters to focus more on the larger movement, rather than the details of each individual protest.

There is no guarantee, though. This could still wind up very badly, if the Occupiers decide that occupying is more important than any other goal. Which could easily lead to even uglier confrontations between police and protesters than we've already seen. And if the protest devolves into just fighting cops, it is going to lose both support and legitimacy among the general public. The protesters may be OK with this, but it certainly would be a shame.

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[Sorry for the repeat column today, but I have been too busy to keep up with the fast-developing situation with Occupy Wall Street. So I felt anything I wrote about it today would have been inadequate. I will be addressing the subject in detail soon, but for now wanted to run a column from a few weeks ago, which has some generalized advice which still seems to be appropriate to offer up. Once again, this is kind of generic and has nothing to do with addressing recent developments, which I'll be doing soon.]

[Originally published 10/27/11]

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement seems to be at a crossroads. The path it chooses to take next may be the deciding moment for whether it declines into irrelevance or grows beyond its current boundaries into something larger.

As always, addressing the subject of what I prefer to call the "99 Percenters" movement should or shouldn't do next is fraught with emotion, because one of the strong messages emanating from lower Manhattan is "Don't tell us what to do -- we're doing fine on our own, thanks." Which is why I don't write about the subject all that often, as it can be a minefield for anyone who can't claim street cred of camping out overnight in the park. But several disturbing trends seem to be emerging, which if not addressed could doom the movement to irrelevancy. So I feel it's time to offer some unsolicited (and possibly unwanted) advice.

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