DOWNLOADS: (171)

PLAYS: (1160)

Embed

In a win for those in favor of child labor, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has announced that business mogul Donald Trump will employ at least 10 poor children as "apprentices."

On Monday, Gingrich became fifth GOP candidate to meet with Trump ahead of a Newsmax debate hosted by the notorious birther.

"As a number of you know, I've been making the case that we need work very hard to help poor children in poor neighborhoods acquire the opportunity to work," Gingrich said at a press conference with Trump.

"I've asked [Trump] to take one of the poorer schools in New York and basically offer at least 10 apprenticeships to kids from that school to get them into the world of work, and to get them into an opportunity to earn money, and get them into the habit of showing up and realizing that effort gets rewarded, and that American is all about the work ethic."

For his part, Trump gave Gingrich all the credit for the idea.

"It was a great honor to have Newt up here," the business mogul remarked. "He did mention if I could do something for some of the kids in very, very poor schools throughout the city. I thought it was a great idea. We call it apprenticeship and we all know about 'The Apprentice.'"

"We're going to be picking ten young, wonderful children, and we're going to make them apprenti. ... It was Newt's idea, and I thought it was a great idea."

(The word "apprenti" doesn't actually appear in the English dictionary. The plural form of apprentice is apprentices.)

The initiative is Gingrich's attempt to put a positive spin on his call to do away with some restrictions on child labor, which he has called "truly stupid."

"Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school," the former House Speaker told an audience at Harvard University’s Kennedy School in November.

Last week, Gingrich continued to call for the poorest kids to enter the work force.

"Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday," he said. "They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash, unless it is illegal."

DOWNLOADS: (161)

PLAYS: (1415)

Embed

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman won't be puckering up for Donald Trump anytime soon.

Huntsman, along with Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), has declined to take part in a Newsmax debate moderated by Trump later this month. Appearing on NBC Monday, the notorious birther slammed Huntsman as someone who wasn't going to win the nomination anyway.

Later on Monday, Fox News host Martha MacCallum gave the GOP hopeful a chance to respond.

"I'm not going to kiss his ring, and I'm not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy," Huntsman explained. "This is exactly what is wrong with politics. It is show business over substance. If he had any courage at all, he would be running for president of the United States of America as opposed to manipulating the process from the outside."

"The presidency of the United State of America is more important than these silly game shows and reality shows."

An obviously-bitter Trump had also assailed Huntsman in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd Monday.

"By the way, Mr. Huntsman called my office a number of times trying to set up a meeting," the billionaire claimed. "I didn't have a meeting with him and then he went on the debate and said, 'I didn't meet with Mr. Trump like everybody else in the room.' So, you know, I'm sure he'll tell the truth about that because he's a Mormon."

In a statement to Think Progress, Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller didn't address the religious attack, but did dismiss the meeting claim as something that had been "litigated in the press before."

"You’ll be surprised to find out that it's Mr. Trump who is not telling the truth," Miller said. "We never requested a meeting. We are focused on issues that matter not presidential apprentice."

DOWNLOADS: (740)

PLAYS: (816)

Embed

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday compared his war against reproductive rights and gay rights to the Civil Rights Movement, and attacked Newt Gingrich for putting social issues "in the back of the bus."

"In terms of social issues [Gingrich] has been married three times, he has two divorces, he's admitted to infidelity," ABC's Christiane Amanpour noted during an interview with Santorum. "Should voters hold that against him?"

"I think character is definitely an issue," Santorum opined. "I've been married 21 years, I have seven children. That's a factor that people are going to look at and should look at when it comes to the person you are going to have lead the country."

"Is he a real conservative with the social values?" Amanpour asked.

"I think that Newt has consistently put those, let's say, in the back of the bus," Santorum replied. "He's never really been an advocate of pushing those issues."

Earlier this year, Santorum also likened the the fight against abortion rights to African Americans' struggle for equality. The former Pennsylvania senator pointed to President Barack Obama's stand on the subject.

"I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'We're going to decide who are people and who are not people,'" the candidate told the Christian News Service.

"For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the constitution," Santorum wrote in a message to supporters several days later. "Today other human beings, the unborn of all races, are also wrongly treated as property and denied the right to life for the same reason; because they are not considered persons under the Constitution."

DOWNLOADS: (97)

PLAYS: (266)

Embed

Struggling Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) says that a recent poll showing more people disagree with the tea party is hogwash -- and that it's really the Occupy movement that is out of step with public opinion.

The Pew Research Center found last month that 27 percent of Americans disagreed with the tea party, while only 20 percent agreed.

"Is it possible that the tea party has overplayed its hand and is seen as too hardcore?" CNN's Candy Crowley asked Bachmann Sunday.

"Oh for heaven sakes, no," Bachmann remarked. "Most people agree with the tea party."

"The strength is not with Occupy Wall Street. If you go to the essence of what Occupy Wall Street stands for, it's having other people pay for their stuff. That's not where the American people are at."

The polling organization Gallup recently found that 25 percent of Americans approved of the Occupy movement, and 16 percent disaproved.

An earlier Time magazine poll determined that the Occupy movement was roughly twice as popular as the tea party.

DOWNLOADS: (331)

PLAYS: (2961)

Embed

Retiring Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) joked Sunday that he was casting a remake of "The Wizard of Oz" starring Republican presidential candidates.

"I look at the Republican debate -- I've been casting 'The Wizard of Oz,'" Frank told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "Obviously, Mitt Romney is the tin woodman without a heart, and Rick Perry is clearly the scarecrow."

"Let me just say about Rick Perry: He illustrates the point that what's scary about some people is not what they don't know, but what they know that isn't true. I just heard this ad which he said, some liberals say faith is a sign of weakness. That is just bizarrely delusional."

He continued: "Newt [Gingrich] is the Wizard of Oz. I just think Newt, there's nothing there."

"I think he's ginned up this whole big thing, but when people focus on him, as opposed to him being the not-Romney, this is a man who served as speaker, was a relative insider, he was twice reprimanded by House -- by the way, I was reprimanded by the House, one of the reasons I wouldn't run for president. There was a problem with the marriages. There is this incredible hypocrisy of criticizing Chris Dodd and me because we weren't doing anything about Freddie Mac when we were in the minority. We did when we were in the majority. And he was taking money from them when the Republicans were in the majority to make sure that nothing happened. I just think that he is an obvious weak candidate."

At a press conference announcing his retirement last week, Frank said he welcomed Gingrich's rise to Republican frontrunner.

"I did not think I had lived a good enough life to be rewarded by Newt Gingrich being the Republican nominee," Frank told reporters. "I look forward to debating — to take one important example — the Defense of Marriage Act with Mr. Gingrich. I think he is an ideal opponent for us when we talk about just who it is that is threatening the sanctity of marriage."

Gingrich, who supports the Defense of Marriage Act and opposes same sex marriage, has been married three times himself.

"He would be the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party since Barry Goldwater," Frank concluded.

DOWNLOADS: (205)

PLAYS: (800)

Embed

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Sunday continued the trend of presidential candidates comparing themselves and others to ice cream

A recent poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers by The Des Moines Register has Paul in second place behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"We've had the flavor up the month up and down so far in this campaign," Paul told CNN's Candy Crowley. "I like to think of myself as the flavor of the decade."

"We keep plodding along on a couple of issues that are really striking a chord with the people. And that is, of course, the wars, the endless wars going on as well as the financial condition of the country."

After Herman Cain rose to the top of some polls in September, failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin referred to him, who she called "Herb," as "the flavor of the week."

Within a week, Cain had embraced the idea, saying that "black walnut isn't a flavor of the week."

Cain later told GQ magazine that most of the other Republican candidates were like ice cream too. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was vanilla, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was rocky road and Rep. Michele Bachmann was tutti-frutti.

Paul, however, was "just not an ice cream flavor," Cain said.

Cain suspended his campaign Saturday after at least three women accused him of sexual harassment and another claimed she had been involved in a 13-year affair with the candidate.

DOWNLOADS: (67)

PLAYS: (250)

Embed

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann insisted Saturday that it was time deported all undocumented immigrants.

During a forum with the GOP candidates on Fox News Saturday, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) asked Bachmann how she would go about deporting all 11 million of the undocumented.

"I want people to know that there is a cost already to having illegal aliens in the United States," Bachmann claimed. "It costs us, the taxpayers, $113 billion every year, and $32 billion of that cost is absorbed by the states. And that actually works out to about a thousand dollars per American household."

"This is the thorniest, most difficult issue in dealing with illegal immigration. What about deportation? I believe we should uphold the laws of the land, which does include deportation."

"What is your plan for executing it?" Bondi wondered.

"It would be enforcement," Bachmann replied. "Enforcement both at the border but also by the [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents. Right now the ICE agents -- those are the agents in the interior of the country who are tasked with enforcing the law -- they are not enforcing them and we also have sanctuary cities now where they don't enforce the laws on deportation. I think that what we simply need to do is to start enforcing the laws which we are not doing and begin the process of deportation."

As for Bachmann's claim that undocumented immigrants cost taxpayers $113 billion each year, the Center for Immigration Studies puts that number at closer to $50 billion. That's before you consider the $11.2 billion they pay in taxes each year.

But Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia says that those numbers don't tell the whole story.

"Since undocumented workers have only fake [Social Security] numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for," Dalmia wrote in 2006. "Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers — that the Social Security administration stashes in the 'earnings suspense file' — added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year."

According to the non-partisan National Resource Council, undocumented immigrants contribute $80,000 more in taxes than they consume.

DOWNLOADS: (243)

PLAYS: (1705)

Embed

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachman says it's fine for a gay man to get married -- as long as it's to a woman.

During a town hall event in Iowa Wednesday, Jane Schmidt, president of Waverly High School Gay-Straign Alliance, asked the candidate why same sex couples couldn't get married.

"They can get married," Bachmann explained. "They can marry a man if they’re a woman. Or they can marry a woman if they’re a man."

"Why can’t a man marry a man?" Schmidt wondered.

"Because that’s not the law of the land," Bachmann insisted. "[T]hey have the same opportunity under the law. There is no right to same sex marriage."

"So you won’t support the LGBT community?" Schmidt pressed.

"No, I said that there are no special rights for people based upon your sex practices. There’s no special rights based upon what you do in your sex life. You’re an American citizen first and foremost and that’s it," the Minnesota Republican replied.

Bachmann is at least wrong about one thing: Same sex marriage is "the law of the land" in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont and Washington, D.C.

DOWNLOADS: (250)

PLAYS: (2537)

Embed

The BBC has apologized after one their most popular hosts called to have striking public workers killed "in front of their families."

Labor unions claimed Wednesday that as many as two million public workers joined a strike over cuts in pension rights as part of an austerity program by the British government.

In an interview on BBC's The One Show Wednesday, Jeremy Clarkson, host of BBC's Top Gear, was asked about the strikes that had affected "schools, hospitals, airports, even driving tests."

"Frankly, I'd have them all shot!" Clarkson exclaimed.

"I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean how dare they go on strike when they've got these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?"

Those remarks left The One Show host Matt Baker making an on-air apology at the end of the show.

"Although we enjoy Jeremy’s views, which he sometimes exaggerates for comical effect, we are seriously sorry if his comments about deaths on the railways has upset anyone," Baker explained.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told ITV Thursday that he hadn't see the interview but, "it's a silly thing to say."

As a BBC employee, Clarkson is essentially paid by the same British taxpayers who he was calling to have executed.

UPDATE: As several of the commenters have noted, the full context of Clarkson's remarks show that he was most likely making a point about how the BBC wants all opinions to be "balanced" with a counterpoint.

"It is evident he is adopting a different persona for comedic effect as he says this, shifting his weight before he says it," Calum Nicholson wrote for The Huffington Post. "He is role-playing, in order to satirise the BBC's need for 'balance'. To balance, in this case, his expressed opinion that the strikes are a good thing."

"It looks like this has been missed by even his defenders. Probably because he transitions into this persona with barely a pause, and delivers the lines in complete dead-pan. And so unless you are paying close attention, it is perhaps not wholly obvious."

Clarkson has since clarified that the remarks were not meant to be taken seriously, but "[i]f the BBC and I have caused any offence, I'm quite happy to apologise for it alongside them."

As of Monday, the BBC had received more than 30,000 complaints about Clarkston.

DOWNLOADS: (359)

PLAYS: (2306)

Embed

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann says schools should teach children about evolution and intelligent design because "the best thing to do is to allow all scientific facts on the table."

During a question-and-answer session at the University of Northern Iowa Wednesday, Bachmann was asked if intelligent design should be taught as science in public schools.

"I think that all science should be on the table," the candidate explained. "I think the one thing we do not want to have is censorship by government."

"I do believe that God created the Earth," she continued. "And I believe there are issues that need to be addressed -- the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the issue of irreducible complexity, the dearth of fossil record."

According to many scientists, all three issues Bachmann mentioned do not discount the theory of evolution.

Scientific American's Steve Mirsky wrote in 2005 that arguing irreducible complexity as evidence against evolution was a "full-blown intellectual surrender strategy."

While Charles Darwin cited a lack of fossil records as "the most obvious and serious objection that can be urged against the theory," University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne believes the objection is no longer valid.

"Since 1859, paleontologists have turned up Darwin's missing evidence: fossils in profusion, with many sequences showing evolutionary change," Coyne explained in a 2005 article.

And University of Minnesota, Morris associate professor PZ Myers says the claim that the Second Law of Thermodynamics makes evolution false is "one of the oldest canards in the creationists' book."

A student from Bancroft, Iowa, who identified himself as a Catholic, explained to Bachmann that there was big difference between a "theory" like intelligence design and a "scientific theory" like evolution.

"The idea of creationism by an intelligent designer is not scientific," he said. "It is pseudo-science. There is no hard evidence that says that God created Earth. There is nothing like that. Whereas, we have physicists, chemists, biologists, many other people in the science field that say this is how the Earth was created, this is how the universe was created. ... How can you say that creationism can be taught in a public school where this would actually increase the combining of church and state?"

"I think what you are advocating for is censorship on the part of government," Bachmann replied. "I want all facts on the table. ... Why would we forestall any particular theory? Because I don't think that evolutionists, by and large, say that evolution is a proven fact. They say that this is a theory as well as intelligent design."

"So I think intellectually, the best thing to do is to allow all scientific facts on the table and let students decide."