• The overnight Drudge Report banner: “Insider: Gingrich repeatedly Insulted Reagan.” The headline linked to a devastating takedown by Elliott Abrams in the National Review, who wrote, among other things, that Gingrich had a long record of criticizing and undermining Reagan’s most transformative policies.
• Drudge also linked prominently to the American Spectator’s R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s similarly harsh takedown of Gingrich over character: “William Jefferson Gingrich.” In it, Tyrrell writes: “Newt and Bill are 1960s generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, has a proclivity for girl hopping… His public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out.”
• Conservatives are circulating a piece written by the editors of the National Review: “The Hour of Newt.” The editors, who have been extremely critical of Gingrich for weeks, waved conservatives off the Gingrich bandwagon. “Gingrich backers say that he is inspiring. What he mostly seems to inspire is opposition.”
•  Ann Coulter, the conservative columnist writing on her self-titled website, warns: “Re-elect Obama, Vote Newt!” She, too, gets Drudge promotion, with a column punctuated with this punch: “Hotheaded arrogance is neither conservative nor attractive to voters.”
•  Tom DeLay, a top deputy to Gingrich during the Republican revolution of the mid-1990s, joined the chorus of other conservative members breaking their silence about Gingrich’s erratic leadership style. In a radio interview with KTRH, DeLay said: “He’s not really a conservative. I mean, he’ll tell you what you want to hear. He has an uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up. But when he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined.” (Politico)

Father Who Turned in Son for Filmed Beating Says Punishment Too Harsh
A Chicago father who turned his teenage son over to the police after he was seen as part of a mob in a video beating and robbing a fellow 17-year-old believes that the legal system is treating his son too harshly.  Michael Palomino, who has been a sheriff's deputy of 30 years, turned in his son Raymond after he identified him in a YouTube video stomping, punching and slamming another boy to the ground, along with six other teens. All of the attackers covered their faces with hoods or masks during the attack last Sunday afternoon, except Palomino.  In the video the six attackers are seen beating and robbing a teenager of Asian descent in an alley behind a Chicago elementary school. They shout profanities and racial epithets while he is kicked and punched. The video received close to half a million views, and relatives of the 17-year-old who saw the clip informed the teenager's dad. "As soon as I saw the video I had to call 911, the police department," Michael Palomino told "Good Morning America" today. "I did what was right as a parent … I am in law enforcement myself. The right thing was to turn him in."

He says it was especially gut-wrenching for him because of the decision he was forced to make after he saw the video. And while he doesn't regret his decision, he says the consequences for his son's behavior are too harsh. Police have charged Raymond Palomino, 17, as an adult with one count of robbery and one count of aggravated battery. Three 16-year-old boys, three 15-year-old boys and one 15-year-old girl have also been charged as juveniles in connection to the case. Authorities are not releasing their names because they are minors, and they have been turned over to a juvenile detention center. (ABC News)

Dems fear union cash drain in Wisconsin
Organized labor’s plans to spend heavily to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has sparked angst on the left that the effort will come at the expense of Democrats in other states. The funding disparity between groups allied with either Republicans or Democrats is one of the biggest concerns for New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the Senate Democrats’ chief political strategist.  Unions have made ousting Walker a top priority and are poised to spend heavily in Wisconsin. But Democratic strategists and some senior political experts within the labor movement believe the initiative should have been launched before the November presidential election.  Labor officials are also looking at investing resources in Indiana, a red-leaning state, to battle controversial right-to-work legislation backed by Gov. Mitch Daniels (R). But the Wisconsin fight will consume far more resources. This is a stomach-churning prospect for Democrats and their allies because the labor expenditures could come just months before the general election, when money will be needed for more important battlegrounds such as Ohio and Florida. “Some were asking us whether we could wait until after the election, but we can’t. This is too big a deal,” said one labor official. (The Hill)

Gingrich admits ABC claim was false
After nearly a week on the defensive, CNN's John King reports tonight that Newt Gingrich'sclaim about offering witnesses to ABC News in his defense — to rebut the network's interview with his second wife, Marianne Gingrich — was not true. "Tonight, after persistent questioning by our staff, the Gingrich campaign concedes now Speaker Gingrich was wrong — both in his debate answer, and in our interview yesterday," King said on tonight's edition of John King USA. "Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond says the only people the Gingrich campaign offered to ABC were his two daughters from his first marriage." An important victory for John King in his ongoing effort to justify last Thursday's confrontation. (Politico)

Obama’s Former Faith Adviser: ‘I, Frankly, Am Glad American Civil Religion is Dying’
Shaun Casey, the religious affairs adviser to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008, said at a discussion on Tuesday about  “God and Politics” that the demise of religious society in the United States is a good thing. “I, frankly, am glad American civil religion is dying,” said Casey, who is an associate professor of Christian Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Casey made the remarks at an event focusing on religion and the 2012 presidential election at the liberal Center for American Progress where he was a panelist along with Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Hispanic Evangelical Coalition. Casey was responding to Salguero’s claim that civil religion is employed by politicians as an “iconic use of faith.”

“There is also a negative underside to that history with respect to slavery, manifest destiny, to war, you know, to empires, so I, frankly, am glad American civil religion is dying,” Casey said. “But it does raise the practical question, what does bind us together in some way as a country? We need some substitute for that and I don’t think we’ve found it yet,” Casey said. (CNS News)

Woman Accuses New York Police Commissioner’s Son of Rape
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is investigating an accusation that Greg Kelly, a local television anchor who is a son of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, raped a young woman in Lower Manhattan last October, law enforcement officials and Greg Kelly’s lawyer said Wednesday. Police detectives initially interviewed the woman late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, one of the law enforcement officials said. But because of the conflict presented by the Police Department’s investigating a sexual assault accusation against the commissioner’s son, the case was handed over on Wednesday to the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. Mr. Kelly, 43, denied the accusation in a statement by his lawyer, Andrew M. Lankler, that was released Wednesday evening. “Mr. Kelly is aware that the New York County District Attorney’s office is conducting an investigation,” the statement said. “Mr. Kelly strenuously denies any wrongdoing of any kind, and is cooperating fully with the district attorney’s investigation. We know the district attorney’s investigation will prove Mr. Kelly’s innocence.” (NY Times)

Volt safety sparks talk of federal conspiracy
The apparent safety woes of the much-touted, all-electric Chevrolet Volt touched off a firestorm on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning, as House Republicans charged that the Obama administration conspired with General Motors Co. to conceal those risks from consumers while pushing the vehicle as part of the “green” future. “We have now created a question of trust. I think we’re protecting the administration more than the American public,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, Pennsylvania Republican and member of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on regulatory affairs, which heard testimony Wednesday from GM CEO Daniel Akerson and administration officials. Mr. Kelly and others suspect that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration intentionally withheld concerns for several months that the electric Volt’s lithium-ion battery could explode during a crash. (Washington Times

Poll finds Perry’s ratings sink to all-time low in Texas
In the wake of his fumbling presidential run, Gov. Rick Perry’s job approval level has sunk below President Barack Obama’s among Texans and more than half think the Republican shouldn’t run for re-election, according to a new poll by a consortium of newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. “Rick Perry didn’t just not do well in his presidential campaign, but he didn’t do himself any favors at home,” said Micheline Blum, director of the poll conducted Jan. 21-24 by Blum & Weprin Associates Inc. Rick Perry's approval rating has dropped below President Obama's. Among Texas adults surveyed, 40 percent approved and an equal percentage disapproved of Perry’s job performance. Obama had both a higher job-approval level at 43 percent and higher disapproval at 47 percent in this red state. Looking only at registered voters, Perry’s 42 job approval rating was 1 percentage point higher than Obama’s, and his disapproval was 43 percent compared with 50 percent for the president. The figures represent Perry’s lowest-ever job-approval level, Blum said Wednesday. (Houston Chronicle)

Facebook app traffic triples at work
Facebook apps are increasingly being used by employees at work. Should employers be worried about Facebook games or is there another trend that is hard to see at first glance? The percentage of social networking bandwidth consumed by Facebook apps has more than tripled in the work place. In fact, it has grown from 4 percent in October 2010 to 14 percent in December 2011, according to a 22-page report titled "Application Usage and Risk Report" by network security vendor Palo Alto Networks. Worldwide, Facebook accounts for 80 percent of the social media traffic in the enterprise. The numbers come from network usage tracked at more than 1,600 firms between April 2011 and November 2011. Previous reports showed that the use of social networking was voyeuristic in nature; users would watch their Facebook Wall while at work but would not be actively posting, using plugins, or apps. (ZDNet)