On at least four occasions, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews mocked Sarah Palin for how he felt she’d do if she were ever on the hit television game show Jeopardy!.

In a delicious example of instant karma, the self-proclaimed brainiac got his chance to show America how smart he was in a special “Power Players” version of the show Monday, but came up quite short finishing dead last with the paltry sum of only $2,300 (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

CONTINUED at News Busters. Video at link.

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum endorsed his one-time fierce rival Mitt Romney on Monday, a move that may help the party’s presumptive White House nominee win over religious conservatives.

Santorum said in an unusual late-night statement that the two have differences, but that he came away from a meeting with the ex-Massachusetts governor impressed with Romney’s “deep understanding” of economic and family issues central to the campaign.

“Above all else, we both agree that President (Barack) Obama must be defeated. The task will not be easy. It will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious,” Santorum said.

CONTINUED at Reuters.

Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to meet other people with tribal roots.

“I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am. Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off,” said Warren.

The Harvard Law professor argued she didn’t use her minority status to get her teaching jobs, and slammed her Republican rival U.S. Sen.Scott Brown for suggesting otherwise.

CONTINUED at the Boston Herald.

Sen. Marco Rubio, potential Republican vice presidential candidate, will give a major address on foreign policy at Brookings Institution at noon EST today. Human Events obtained an exclusive early release of the speech. It will be posted on HumanEvents.com in its entirety at 11:30 a.m. EST.

In his wide-ranging speech, Rubio advocates for a more active and energetic U.S. foreign policy — both as an exporter of freedom and a promoter of capitalism abroad. Rubio repeatedly stresses that American engagement has made the world a better, freer and richer place.

While not as hawkish as some neoconservatives might like, Rubio hits a number of notes that will, undoubtedly, resonate with most Republicans. The Senator argues that, “while there are few global problems we can solve by ourselves, there are virtually no global problems that can be solved without us. In confronting the challenges of our time, there are more nations than ever capable of contributing, but there is still only one that is capable of leading.”

Rubio, who generally avoids taking shots at the Obama administration, will argue that the foreign policy debate had shifted beyond traditional left-right politics: “I found liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans working together to advocate our withdrawal from Afghanistan, and staying out of Libya,” Rubio will explain, though he did found himself partnering with Democrats “for a more forceful foreign policy.”

And it is inarguable that Rubio’s rhetoric will be more “forceful” than that of the White House.

On Russia, Rubio bluntly states that President Putin “might talk tough, but he knows he is weak. Everywhere he looks, he sees threats to his rule, real and imagined. And so he uses state-owned media to preach paranoia and anti-Western sentiments to Russians.”

Rubio assails China’s “curtain of secrecy,” explaining that “we hold out hope for a new China of tomorrow, but for now we must deal with the China of today.” The Florida Senator goes on to say that it would be “foolish” to count on China to “defend and support global economic and political freedom or take up the cause of human rights.”

You can watch the live video feed of Rubio’s address at Brookings Institution here. Human Events reporter Hope Hodge will be covering the speech and have a wrap-up later today.

Source: Human Events.

From his first days on the political scene, Sen. Marco Rubio has never strayed far from his close friend, Rep. David Rivera. The men first met while volunteering for then Florida State Senator Lincoln Diaz-Balart’s first congressional campaign in 1992.  A few years later, Rivera hired Rubio out of law school in Miami to work on Bob Dole’s doomed presidential bid.

By 2002, they were colleagues in the Florida state house and when Rubio was elected speaker in 2006, Rivera took up as his top lieutenant. They rode into Washington together on the crest of a powerful GOP midterm wave in 2010, Rubio as a senator, Rivera as the new house representative from Florida’s 25^th district.

Today, Rubio is one of the Republican’s party’s most buzzed-about young stars and an early favorite to run alongside presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the coming general election. Despite repeated statements that he “won’t be the vice president,” operatives in both parties told ABC News they believe Rubio is seeking the bid.

“He wants it,” one Democratic strategist said. “He can say what he wants, but he’s doing all the things that people who want to be the running mate do. He’s going to South Carolina [to speak before state party bigwigs at their annual Silver Elephant dinner] and working on some Republican version of the Dream Act.”

What Rubio has not done – and recently told POLITICO he never will — is break his ties to David Rivera.

Featured prominently in the non-partisan “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington” 2011 “Most Corrupt” list, Rivera has been “under investigation by at least five different law enforcement agencies for a range of violations,” including payments he allegedly received in connection with the successful campaign (led, at times, by his mother’s consulting firm) to legalize slot machines at horse and dog-racing tracks.

(On Wednesday night, The Miami Herald reported that Rivera would not be charged by state prosecutors for actions detailed in a scathing report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement because the statute of limitations had expired on the alleged crimes. The same Herald story maintains that the IRS and FBI are still investigating his role in a $510,000 payment made by dog track owners to his mother and godmother’s firm.)

The alleged dog track shenanigans cap off a decade of sometimes odd brushes with the law. On Sept. 6, 2002, the Florida Highway Patrol recorded an incident in which a car driven by Rivera ran a truck carrying flyers authored by a political opponent off the road, forcing it to the shoulder. The delay kept the potentially damaging mailers on board from arriving at the post office before a 6 p.m. deadline.

Rivera said in a statement shortly after the incident that the truck was carrying his mailers, too, and that he was only trying to retrieve his own materials.

Earlier this year, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor expressed “concern” about the probes and at least one GOP strategist, speaking to ABC News, referred to Rivera as one of the “possible skeletons in [Rubio's] closet.”

Asked if he was concerned that the allegations, from the 2002 highway incident to the dog track controversy and the revelation that he had not, despite reporting it as a source of income, ever worked for USAID, could hurt his friend Rubio’s standing in the party, Rivera told ABC News, simply, “No.”

When pressed for specific details about the timeline of events surrounding a threatened foreclosure on — and eventual decision to sell — a home he and Rubio bought together in Tallahassee during their time in the statehouse, Rivera said, “You’ll have to ask Marco.”

Faced with that, a spokesman for Rubio wrote: “The issue over the home mortgage payments has been really well documented. There was confusion over the payments, and Sen. Rubio paid the bank as soon as he became aware of the issue.”

The reality is a bit more complicated. Rivera said the bank “was overcharging us,” so he and Rubio decided to withhold payment until the dispute was settled. But it was only after Deutsche Bank filed suit and threatened to foreclose that Rubio delivered a check to the mortgage company’s lawyers.

Later on they tried and failed to sell the home. “The real estate market is still really struggling there,” Rivera said. The property is now being rented.

Even with allegations and investigations swirling, Rubio has remained steadfast by his friend’s side. He will hold a fundraiser for Rivera in Washington, D.C., later next month and, according to Rivera, Rubio speaks to him regularly about matters both personal and political.

“I don’t think there’s another vice presidential candidate that could energize the ticket the way Marco could,” Rivera said over the phone Monday night. “Both in substance and style, he has the ability to communicate an optimistic and conservative message.

“But he’s told me in private exactly what he’s said in public, that he’s not going to be picked. He has told me he’s not going to be picked [as Romney's running mate.]”

One GOP strategist with strong ties to Florida state politics, Tim Baker, said he “takes Sen. Rubio at his word that wants to remain a great senator from Florida.”

And that may well be the case, but after years operating at the center of South Florida’s politically powerful Cuban-American community, Rubio must maneuver carefully. Breaking with Rivera could solve one problem, but create another, more damaging set of circumstances.

If Rubio’s appeal as a running mate is primarily rooted in his perceived ability to rally the Hispanic vote, which broke strongly for President Obama and the Democrats in 2008, it is critical that he has the full support of his constituency back home. Should Miami turn its back on him, his very reason for cutting ties with Rivera — ending their very real friendship — would be mooted and his Florida-based political career placed in unique peril.

Source: ABC News.

Even though by his own estimation he has very little prospect of winning the Republican nomination, Newt Gingrich is still likely costing the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars a day with his Secret Service detail on the campaign trail.

Gingrich reportedly requested Secret Service protection in February and was granted a detail in early March. In April 2008, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that it was then costing the agency roughly $38,000 a day to service each candidate receiving protection, which was then just Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

A source with knowledge of the inner workings of the Gingrich campaign told The Daily Caller that Gingrich recently had three people on his personal security detail, though sometimes there are “many more.”

“Others on the campaign told me that some of the Secret Service members were even saying it was a waste of time and that he shouldn’t have it,” the source told TheDC. “Staff members thought it was ridiculous too, and just another example of Newt’s arrogance and self-importance.”

In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain didn’t request Secret Service protection until late April — months after the point he was considered the presumptive GOP nominee.

CONTINUED at The Daily Caller.

A 23-year-old City Councilman from Riverbank, California was charged with a litany of offenses after crashing his Corvette into a parked car, while drunk, with his four-year-old kid strapped into the car. Councilman Jesse James White then proceeded to leave his bleeding son in the car as he ran away, only to be “tackled and held by bystanders” until the police arrived.

After spending nearly $69,000 to remove White from office, the City Council of Riverbank gave up because it was too expensive oust him.

It’s a victory for small government.

White’s accident happened back in February, but the story has continued as the young Councilman — who was elected when he was 19 — has fought to keep his seat and clear his name. Or, well, clear his name from the current set of charges.

In 2009, a grand jury concluded he wasn’t a registered voter in Riverbank when he ran for office initially. He was also arrested in 2010 on drug charges. But leaving your bleeding kid in a car you crashed while three-times above the legal limit is a bridge too far even for Riverbank’s non-discerning voters.

“What are you gonna do, you know, if people keep electing these idiots?” asked resident Elsa Bayly in in interview with the Sacramento CBS affiliate.

White pleaded not guilty to the charges and said he was going into rehab. His attorney then blamed the media for their coverage when they asked if he actually was going to rehab, saying “That’s not your business.”

The City Council is hoping voters will take care of White when his term is up in November, but White is apparently still running claiming people shouldn’t “believe the hype.”

My campaign will continue; I will not be deterred from initiating a petition to cut the huge executive pay raises in Riverbank rather than a sewer rate increase. This is at the core of recent events, liberal progressives who want to raise taxes.
None of the recent events alters that I am the only candidate who has been, and continues to work for you before asking for your vote. I have kept my promises as a Riverbank city councilman. I shall continue my crusade.”

You hear that liberal progressives? He will continue, even if he has to abandoned 100 bleeding, crying offspring in 100 wrecked Corvettes.

Source: Jalopnik.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum claims he no longer reads the Drudge Report anymore because it contains “propaganda” that helps rival Mitt Romney.

“I’ve stopped reading Drudge,” Santorum says of the influential news website in “Inside the Circus,” a soon-to-be released eBook on the 2012 Republican race for president.

Added Santorum: “It’s gotten ridiculous—Romney propaganda.”

The Daily Caller obtained an advance copy of the new eBook, authored by Mike Allen and Evan Thomas. The book comes out Tuesday.

Santorum has aired complaints about what he calls the Drudge Report’s bias against him before. Last month, the former Pennsylvania senator referenced a story on the news website during a radio interview, saying, “Drudge, again showing for Romney, gets the facts wrong.”

Source: The Daily Caller.

Late last week, Spike Lee re-tweeted the address of ‘George Zimmerman’ to his quarter of a million followers.

Except it was the wrong address. It was the address of an elderly Florida couple whose son… William George Zimmerman (no relation to shooter) – lived briefly there in 1995. Now the 70-year-old school cafeteria lunch lady with a heart condition and her 72-year-old husband have been forced to move out of danger into a hotel temporarily after receiving hate mail, threats, harassing visits from reporters and fearful inquiries from neighbors.

The woman’s other son Chip Humble told the Orlando Sentinel, “It’s scary because there are people who aren’t mentally right and will take this information and run with it. To endanger people who are innocent because people are angry is not the answer. That’s not how we’re going to heal. It’s not [going] to help the Martin family for someone else to be hurt.”

The O’Reilly Factor contacted Spike Lee’s production company “40 Acres and a Mule.”  Instead of issuing a statement or an apology, the executive office told Factor producer Jesse Watters that Spike Lee had “no comment.” That’s it. The famous filmmaker is coming under heavy pressure on Twitter to apologize. Lee’s tweet has been removed, but it continues to be retweeted. Developing…

Source: Fox Nation.

UPDATE: Spike has since apologized but the media is reporting that his Tweet could potentially lead to a lawsuit.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Finding myself flying down U.S. 41 in Naples, Florida yesterday had my mind racing. As VNV Nation’s song “Control” was blasting throughout my stock speakers and I was weaving in and out of a sea of giant Canadian turtles out for a Sunday drive, I found myself thinking about a lot of the news reports on Rick Santorum that have come out over the last few days. This whole Etch-A-sketch farce is laughable, as Mitt Romney’s aide’s now infamous gaffe, has been criticized by everyone from the lowest bottom-feeding liberal pundits all the way up to conservative presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum – who both brought Etch-A-Sketch toys to their most recent rallies. Personally, I don’t care about the mistake made by Eric Fehrnstrom, who has been by Romney’s side for decades now. People make mistakes and focusing too deeply on this is pointless. It was a stupid mishap on his part but when guys like Santorum and Gingrich are so desperate to overtake Romney, they of course have to make a big ass deal about it. As if these two haven’t put their big elephant sized feet in their mouths again and again. None of us are immune to making mistakes, however some of us continue to make blunder after blunder and with that said, Rick Santorum is the blunder master!

Hell, Rick Santorum, in trying to lambast Mitt for his campaign’s simple slip up, has actually committed worse gaffes than the Romney staff. However, the blind religious zealots, the Fox News zombies and the Tea Party hypocrites are seemingly blind to this man’s stupidity and his bratty whiney infantile nature. Rick Santorum, when under fire, is like the kid who lied to his parents and throws a fit when he’s caught – refusing to admit that he is a punk ass hellion. Emotionally, the man is a child and that alone makes him unqualified to hold any sort of public office, let alone the Oval Office.

In attacking the comments by Mr. Fehrnstrom, Rick Santorum came out and alluded to Barack Obama being better than Mitt Romney would be as president! Yes, this Republican idiot bashed the frontrunner of his own party in an effort to build himself up while tearing down his party and helping Barack Obama in the process. Rick Santorum truthfully doesn’t care about the GOP, he just cares about Rick Santorum and like the brat bastard he is, publicly throws tantrums to get his way. Unfortunately, unlike the typical brat bastard who throws a fit in Wal-Mart because mommy won’t buy him the new Green Ranger action figure, no one is there to put this ungrateful delinquent over their knee for an old school ass whoopin’. Shit, I’d make that pretentious little rascal climb the damn tree and pick out his own switch like my uncle used to do to me. For reference sake, here’s is Santorum’s exact quote:

Pick any other Republican in the country, he (Romney) is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.

It may not seem that bad at first glance but the underlying tone to the comment is pretty straightforward. Now while some in the liberal side of the media have been having a field day with this and rightfully so, the conservative side of the coin has basically ignored it. The Fox News jokesters continue to perpetuate this 2012 circus and probably can’t even see how their contribution to this presidential race is pulling apart the GOP and the country by the seams. So ignoring Fox News’ carelessness and incredibly biased “fair and balanced” reporting – not saying that other networks are fully off the hook here, at least some of the other mainstream media outlets have questioned Santorum’s remarks. And really, Santorum endorsed Romney in 2008! All this knowledge about Romneycare and Mitt’s questionable record were well known back then, so why the change and the anger and the rage? It’s because Rick is losing and he is panicking like the prettiest girl in school coming to the realization that she might not be prom queen.

So how has Ricky Baby responded to the criticism? Well, he has thrown even more tantrums! Do the conservative and religious sects of the voting public seem to notice? Nope, they still support the douchebag, which is confirmed by the fact that amongst all of his bitching, whining and temper tantrum madness he magically won the primary in Louisiana! How does this keep happening? Do people really want a weak infantile bastard leading them through some of the toughest times this country has ever faced? Was Mike Judge right and the events of ‘Idiocracy’ were some sort of prophetic vision of what’s to come? A person of sound mind would certainly have to think so, as the dumbing down of American society has never been more apparent. This country falling behind this man’s leadership would be like having Eric Cartman for president! If that thought doesn’t scare the shit out of you, congratulations – you are a fucking idiot.

Over the last few days, since making his stupid comment, Santorum has tried to backtrack and reiterate it into something else. In doing so, it just makes him look like more of a bratty bitch and less like a man who can own up to his own mistakes and move forward. In a fantastic turn of events, for those of us who would love to never see this moron’s mug again, he went off on a New York Times reporter just yesterday. When asked about his Romney comments which were correctly quoted, Santorum put on his angry baby face and threw a typical spineless and emotionally weak fit where he cursed publicly at a New York Times reporter. Santorum told the reporter who questioned him:

What speech did you listen to? Stop lying!.. ..Quit distorting my words. If I see it, it’s bullshit! C’mon man!

Here’s a clip of it:

I guess even compassionate Christian mouthpieces can have anger issues. Then again, his compassion is pretty much anti-gay and anti-everything that isn’t in line with theocratic fascism. I guess Kevin McCallister is still pissed that his parents left him “home alone”.. twice.

The point is, this guy is really the worst Republican candidate in the country. The man shouldn’t even be in this race and never has anyone, in my lifetime, been this ill-equipped to handle the pressure that is going to come with the job of POTUS. Santorum is already cracking and has been a punk ass bitch since he emerged from his mother’s womb and graced the world with his everlasting thin-skinned toddler rage.

Responding to Santorum’s recent conniption fits, Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams hit the nail on the head:

Rick Santorum is becoming more desperate and angry and unhinged every day…He’s panicking in the final stages of his campaign.

Williams is right and as this race winds down, it is apparent that Romney is running away with this thing and Santorum is being left in the dust. Thank the stars for that but as history has shown again and again, after four more years of Obama, it will be Santorum taking the GOP nomination in 2016. If that sounds crazy, just remember that the guy in second place always becomes the Republican Party’s candidate four years later. I hope that this is a trend that changes and truthfully, for Republicans to survive – it has to! Otherwise, the likelihood of a President Santorum could very well be a reality four years from now.

Don’t say that this whiskey-sipping fiend behind his MacBook Pro screen didn’t give you ample warning.

Bonus – Santorum at his most intellectual: