What long has been a nonstarter for Republicans -- raising tax rates on wealthy Americans -- is now backed by GOP House Speaker John Boehner in his negotiations with President Barack Obama to avert a potential fiscal crisis. Party luminaries, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, have started calling for a wholesale shift in the GOP's approach to immigration after Hispanic voters shunned Republican candidates. And some Republicans who previously championed gun rights now are opening the door to restrictions following a schoolhouse shooting spree earlier this month.

"Put guns on the table. Also, put video games on the table. Put mental health on the table," Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said last week. Other prominent Republicans echoed him in calling for a sweeping review of how to prevent tragedies like the Newtown, Conn., massacre. Among those who were open to a re-evaluation of the nation's gun policies were Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

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January: Newt Gingrich

To anyone who’d just been teleported from the year 1999, the scene in Charleston, South Carolina on the night of January 21 had to be impossible to fathom: There was Newt Gingrich, the man who’d been marched off the political stage by his own party after a disastrous four-year run as House Speaker, declaring victory in a Republican presidential primary. And not just any primary: South Carolina, a historically pivotal early contest. And not just a victory – an absolute landslide.

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For most of the 20th century, speaker of the House wasn’t a particularly important job – powerful committee chairs ruled, and speakers could do little about it. A long process of reform, however, removed most of the clout of those barons and strengthened party leadership, making modern speakers far more powerful than their mid-century predecessors. Since the modern speakership emerged in the 1970s, there have been three basic models of how to handle the office:

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“I believe this will lead to a recession next year,” Newt Gingrich said. “This is the Democrat machine’s recession. And each one of them will be held personally accountable.”

He still hasn’t come to terms with how wrong he was, and neither has his party. Nearly 20 years after Gingrich uttered those words, the debate in Washington carries echoes of that ’93 fight, with Barack Obama and congressional Democrats demanding a return to the Clinton rates for the top two percent of income-earners and with Republicans, who have not provided a single vote for a tax increase in all of the intervening years, doing their best to resist.

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"Every Republican should focused on what we just talked about," Gingrich told David Gregory on Meet the Press. "I mean, if their competitor in '16 ia going to be Hillary Clinton, supported by Bill Clinton, and presumably a still relatively popular President Barack Obama, trying to win that will be truly the Superbowl. And the Republican party today is incapable of competing at that level."

Watch, via Mediaite:

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“It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires,” he said. “It really won’t, I don’t think. I don’t really understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer.”

As Alex Seitz-Wald explained yesterday, this is a potentially huge development. For more than two decades now, the Republican Party has been absolutely, unanimously opposed to income tax hikes. This might just be Kristol speaking for Kristol and no one else, but if his words signal – or trigger – an actual shift within the party, the policy consequences will be serious. It could also set off an intraparty civil war.

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ABC News reports:

Conservative news group Human Events manages the Gingrich Marketplace emails, but Gingrich has a say over which advertisers can have their messages go out to the list. And according to Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, Stansberry & Associates should have been on the blacklist.

Human Events Vice President Joe Guerriero said the email was 'a mistake.'"

The email was supposed to go to another Human Events list, Guerriero said.

"The truth is, the next election has already been decided. Obama is going to win. It's nearly impossible to beat an incumbent president," wrote Porter Stansberry in the email. "What's actually at stake right now is whether or not he will have a third-term."

Though Obama is prohibited from seeking a third term by the 22nd amendment, the email did not address this, and it even suggested he could stay president until 2020.

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As for the storm, everyone, of course, said their focus is on the well-being of people in the storm’s path, but pundits couldn’t help but try to find the political angle as well. There seem to be two main theories: One is that the race will essentially be frozen in place as the media and everyone else shifts focus away from the election for the next few days. Since Obama remains slightly ahead in key swing states, this scenario is seen as helping him by preventing Romney from gaining traction. Obama could also earn points by “looking presidential” while leading a successful federal response to the disaster, pundits said.

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The video is an imagining of what another four years under Obama would look like, and it’s not too rosy. Picture turning the whole country into blighted Detroit while gays run wild and churches are converted to mosques. There are lots and lots of riots. Riots in the inner cities (naturally), riots in the Middle East, riots at gas stations, riots in supermarkets, riots in the hospital over Obamacare. Fortunately, Obama appears to have implemented martial law so there's plenty of riot cops too. Meanwhile, gay men get married -- to each other! -- in modest little ceremonies by the water as crosses are chopped down with chainsaws and churches are converted to mosques. Abroad, Muslims are totally pissed at Obama for appeasing them, or something, and Iran builds literally dozens of nuclear sites. Florida also loses all of its electricity for some reason and the Statue of Liberty's face becomes a skull. For good measure, there’s even an allusion to George Orwell’s "1984," or rather Apple’s classic commercial riffing on the book.

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The subtle appeals to racism, reminiscent of President Nixon's "Southern Strategy," help pave the way for the more outrageous forms of blatant racism.

From the coded appeals to the blatant manifestations, here are 9 racist things that have happened during the 2012 election campaign.

1. Wisconsin Senate Candidate's Son: We Can Send Obama ‘Back to Kenya’

The website Buzzfeed reports that yesterday morning, Jason Thompson told a crowd of supporters at a brunch that “we have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago — or Kenya.” Thompson is the son of former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, who is now running for Senate. In attendance at the brunch was Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

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"I think you've got to look carefully at how Romney structured -- what he said is, something that, frankly, true supply-siders don’t necessarily love, but it’s good politics — he said, ‘I will close enough deductions that wealthy Americans will not get a net tax cut,’” Gingrich said.

Gibbs pointed out that in the Republican primary debate in Arizona, Romney said: “We’re going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20 percent, including the top 1 percent.”

"Was he dishonest when he said that?" Gibbs asked Gingrich.

“I think it’s clear he changed,” Gingrich replied.

Watch, via TPM, ThinkProgress:

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"We are very sorry that your song "Eye of the Tiger" was associated with the 2012 Newt Gingrich campaign," Newt wrote to the song owners, TMZ reported. "We will do our utmost to assure that this does not happen again."

He's just the latest Republican to apologize to the rock gods.

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Life? The differences in life expectancy between wealthier and lower-income Americans are increasing, not decreasing.

Liberty? Digital corporations are assaulting our privacy, while banks trap us in indebtedness that approaches indentured servitude. The shrunken ranks of working Americans are being robbed of their essential liberties – including the right to use the bathroom.

The pursuit of happiness? Social mobility in the United States is dead. Career choices are increasingly limited. As for working hard and earning more, consider this: Between 1969 and 2008 the average US income went up by $11,684. How much of that went to the top 10? All of it. Income for the remaining 90 percent actually went down.

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Also: Newt Gingrich's wife, Callista, has a new children's book coming out, and it was more challenging to write than her earlier children's book. Newt's next book is about George Washington. (It is a novel.)

Newt Gingrich enjoyed Paul Ryan's speech, but he wishes Paul Ryan had said "Mr. President, she did built that" after he introduced his mom.

Here is an actual question Mike Allen -- Politico superstar reporter -- asked Newt Gingrich: "You have always been the ideas machine in the Republican Party. Are you worried that now that's going to be Paul Ryan?" Newt Gingrich, for the record, thinks there is room for two ideas machines in the Republican Party.

Here's another actual question Mike Allen asked Newt Gingrich: "You recently made a very fundamental change in your life: You switched to an iPhone from a BlackBerry." Wait, sorry, that's not a thing Mike Allen asked Newt Gingrich. That's just a thing Mike Allen said to Newt Gingrich while he was interviewing him.

Mike Allen makes around a quarter of a million dollars a year.

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According to a Kaplan press release, KAPx (which seems to be just Google+ Hangouts meant to be sold to learning institutions at a high markup):

“The KAPx™ platform is designed to help schools, organizations, businesses, and individuals who want to share information and knowledge in an exciting, interactive, and highly participatory manner that is aligned with the best instructional practices,” said Edward Hanapole, Kaplan Inc.’s Chief Information Officer. “We will continue to refine the platform to reflect our leadership in learning science and how to marry technological innovation with educational achievement.”

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As has already been widely noted, the line of attack is complicated by a few problems. First of all, it’s not true, or at least wildly misleading. Obama’s plan doesn't end work requirements, but rather grants waivers to states that propose alternative requirements that suit them better than a one-size-fits-all federal plan, something conservatives usually  support. As the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein wrote last month, when the story first started gaining traction on the right, “The Obama administration is not removing the bill’s work requirements at all. He’s changing them to allow states more flexibility. But the principle that welfare programs must require recipients to move toward employment isn’t going anywhere.”

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