(freshrant.com)  Multiple sources confirm that Arab dictators, despots and kings fearing the ability to quickly flee protesting mobs, have hired The Negotiator and his sidekick, The Big Deal, to force luxury resorts into offering the best possible deals. Libyan megalomaniac, Muammar Gaddafi, had said, "I am really tickled with Priceline's special dead of night escape travel plans" arranged by The Negotiator.  Gaddafi seemed particularly pleased with the bargaining tactics employed by The Big Deal. "I told The Big Deal I needed a resort roomy enough to accommodate at least four Ukrainian nurses and fifty female bodyguards.   When The Negotiator's karate chops were not sufficient to get the

Brett Flashnick/Associated PressTexas Gov. Rick Perry pretends to recognize a face in the crowd during a G.O.P. lunch in Columbia, S.C. on Friday. By CLAY RISEN Consider the Rick Perry paradox: in a G.O.P. field notably bereft of experience in elected office, he has won nine back-to-back elections and spent the last decade as governor of America’s second-most-populous state. And, though the Thread has yet to see him in person, he is apparently the Red State equivalent of Kal-El. Or so says this rapturous lede from Politico: It sounds like a political fairy tale: Months of campaigning by nearly a dozen candidates have left Republicans restless and worried. No

Michele Bachmann's campaign announced today she will now be basing her entire campaign on "gaffes, kerfuffles and boo-boos." A carefully worded statement released by her campaign director stated, "As Ms. Bachmann looks forward to continuing her pursuit of the crown in all 53 states from the tiny ones in South America to the grand shores of the Bay of Fundy, she will not be distracted by spurious reports in the lame stream media or by a increasingly out-of-touch socialist parliament in the heart of our nation's capital, Seattle, Washington." When asked at a county fair in New Hamshire what led to her full-throated embrace of her on-going