The big news this afternoon is that Mittens admitted his effective tax rate is only about 15 percent, This is not a big surprise to those who’ve been paying attention. And that clacking sound you hear is coming from the rightie blogosphere furiously defending the right of the obscenely wealthy to hang on to their dough while benefiting from the taxes paid by the rest of us. Still, I doubt it will help Romney much.

So the GOP candidates stage a debate on Martin Luther King day, and the candidates and audience gang up on Juan Williams for bringing up, you know, the race thing. Newt wowed the crowd by implying that African Americans are parasites who need to learn how to work.

At Balloon Juice, Dennis G. responds with this:

Yeah, pretty much sums up how I feel. On the plus side, I do believe they all managed to refrain from telling watermelon jokes, at least on camera.

Gingrich made some remark about “Only elites despise earning money,” which I thought were brave words from someone who gets paid handsomely for being a phony intellectual blowhard. Nice work if you can get it.

Gingrich also scored with the crowd by attacking Ron Paul –

Newt Gingrich said that equating terrorist leaders to Chinese dissidents that might come to America – as Paul did to illustrate his point – was a false analogy. …

…”South Carolina in the Revolutionary War had a young 13-year old named Andrew Jackson who was sabered by a British officer and wore a scar his whole life. Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear cut about America’s enemies: kill them,” Gingrich said.

Let us pause to remember that Newt managed to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam era and has never served in the military.