The suit alleges that Gingrich is knowledgable about copyright issues and that the violation is therefore knowledgable. Sullivan requests a court order requiring Gingrich stop playing the song at rallies and award damages.

The song is closely associated with the movie Rocky III (and the Rocky franchise in general), and was originally written in 1982 at the request of Sylvester Stallone for the movie. It was the number one song of 1982, and won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. And now, because I’m sure we could all stand an afternoon pick-me-up, here’s the music video:

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Fred Thompson and Senator John McCain, who endorses Mitt Romney, sat side-by-side. Each extolled the virtues of their respective candidates, prognosticated on the outcome and consequences of the upcoming Florida GOP primary, and talked about different topics of the day.

At one point, Fred Thompson referenced a New York Times article from that morning that outlined Mitt Romney’s recent attacks on his man Newt. In that context he also stated that Romney was getting biased support from Matt Drudge’s “Drudge Report” website in the form of positive coverage for Romney and negative for Gingrich, saying Romney has Drudge in his “back pocket”.

Recently, much hay has been made some supposed statements Newt Gingrich made in private, disparaging Ronald Reagan. And, that headline was played up big on Drudge.

Most GOP candidates go out of their way to speak glowingly of Reagan, who was an extremely popular president for them. To be seen as critical of Reagan in a GOP race would invite ostracism from the party faithful and old guard. And, Gingrich has been selling himself in Florida as a “Reagan conservative”.

Gingrich stumped in and won the recent South Carolina primary with the message that Romney was the GOP pick, regardless of what the people want. He presented himself as an anti-establishment Washington outsider who would challenge the GOP’s presumption.

The Drudge Report ran the story of Thompson’s accusations, and responded with links to three stories that had reported Newt in the lead in weeks prior.

But, they also soon top-lined these gems.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have been giving each other body blows, sometimes through surrogates, all week. Last night they had a chance to go toe to toe, and they did not let the opportunity go by.

A nice compilation video of the night’s best lines:

There seemed to be far less Twitter traffic during this debate, as most people wonder what there is left to talk about. But, there’s always some good snark to be had if you dig deep enough.

Apparently I missed a GOP debate last night. Last one til Feb 22??? What will I use Twitter for til then?

— Daniel Dennis Jones (@blanket) January 27, 2012

@RickSantorum ‘s 93 year-old Mother “stole the show” @ GOP debate in Jacksonville, Fl last night. Wow, she looked amazing, so youthful!

— Conway-Vogel (@Margaret_Conway) January 27, 2012

The GOP debate last night was a waste of everyone’s time. If Newt or Romney win the Fl primary, it says a lot about the voters in Fl.

— Curtis (@ULshootUrIout) January 27, 2012

The one month GOP debate break made last night’s strong Romney performance even more important.#FLdebate

— Steve Lombardo (@Steve_Lombardo) January 27, 2012

Tonight is last GOP debate for a while. If you still want to watch poor getting swindled, watch one of the pawn shows.

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) January 26, 2012

I’ve been told there is yet another GOP Debate tonight! This is like being instructed by your dentist that you need a root canal every week.

— The Bill Walton Trip (@NotBillWalton) January 27, 2012

Yes, this is probably the most important GOP debate. It’s not a cliche for once.

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) January 27, 2012

This is the 19th GOP debate. If you’ve seen every one, I don’t know what happened in your life, but I want you to know it gets better.

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) January 27, 2012

GOP debate highlights: Fat moron argues with idiot Mormon while creepy homophobic sweater vest dude and crazy old guy look on #CNNdebate

— Paul Solomon (@FrankTheDoorman) January 27, 2012

The debates and speeches get live-tweeted, and there’s a lot of fun to be had from that. But, some folks are hitting the Tweet button sooner than later.

Including this guy…

Newt Gingrich has a long record as a Washington insider & is the only Speaker to be reprimanded for ethics violations mi.tt/zgoIOh

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) January 24, 2012

And this guy…

If you are for paychecks you are with us, and if you are for food stamps you are with Barack Obama. newt.org #withnewt

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) January 26, 2012

@newtgingrich Let’s have a refreshing debate tonight and not the same old questions and answers.These debates are repetitive!!!!

— April Roga (@swtypy) January 26, 2012

@JohnKingCNN It’s a disservice to serious voters when raucous erruptions at #cnndebate overshadow actual substance.Please maintain order.

— Shirley Widlacki (@patriotmom61) January 26, 2012

Newt promises “there will be plenty of moon taco bells” on our future moon colonies and asks everyone to “get off his back about it”

— Kelsy Abbott (@kelsyabbott) January 26, 2012

Weird that the GOP candidate discussing moon colonies is not the Mormon guy.

— Kasey Anderson (@KaseyAnderson) January 26, 2012

Santorum: Everyone knows moon colonies are a common ploy forthe 10-yr-old boy vote, but the politicians never follow through.

— Pema Levy (@pemalevy) January 26, 2012

Gingrich goes to Miami and panders on immigration. He goes to Space Coast and panders on moon colonies. Can’t wait to see Newt’s Vegas act.

— Alberto Martinez (@albertemartinez) January 26, 2012

The longer “moon colonies” continues to trend the less likely it is that Newt will win…#GOP2012 #cnndebate

— Eric Nichols (@enichols679) January 26, 2012

@MittRomney At tonight’s debate, when Newt attacks capitalism, tell him that this is a Republican Debate, & tell him he’s at the wrong one.

— Chad Jay Mahoney (@CJayMahoney) January 26, 2012

Gingrich divorced his cancer stricken 1st wife. Asked his 2nd wife for an open marriage. Calls CNN “despicable” for mentioning it #CNNdebate

— CJ Werleman (@rationalists) January 20, 2012

I say we add “and book signing” to every GOP event. The GOP Debate And Book Signing. The Republican National Convention And Book Signing …

— Brian Young (@BrianYoung) January 26, 2012

Talk about answered prayers. There’s another Republican debate tonight! I’m sure Newt is mainlining venom right now.

— Margo Howard (@Margoandhow) January 26, 2012

Get set for the vitriolic barbs to be flying back and forth at tonight’s Republican presidential debate in Florida: apps.facebook.com/dailysocial/ar…

— Carmel Melouney (@carmelmelouney) January 26, 2012

Why yes, I’m LiveTweeting tonight’s Republican Debate. 5pm PST, CNN.Get yer jowl-jowls out, Newt!

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) January 26, 2012

Good God, there’s another Republican debate tonight. It’s almost as if they think people enjoy these things.

— Aaron Flynn (@AaronMFlynn) January 26, 2012

Twitter lit up in response:

Here’s how the Twitterverse responded to this rash of nods from all four remaining GOP candidates.

Newt Gingrich answered the SOPA question first, saying, “I favor freedom.” He said that there are already tools and avenues of recourse in place to allow copyright holders to sue and stop piracy domestically. Gingrich continued:

“The idea that we’re going to preemptively have the government start censoring the Internet on behalf of giant corporations’ economic interests strikes me as exactly the wrong thing to do.”

Mitt Romney chimed in:

“I think he got it just about right… The law as written is far too intrusive, far too expansive, far too threatening to freedom of speech and movement of information across the Internet. It would have a potentially depressing impact on one of the fastest growing industries in America, which is the Internet and all those industries connected to it.”

Ron Paul pointed out that the others were late to the party:

“I was the first Republican to sign on with a host of Democrats to oppose this law… The Republicans, unfortunately, have been on the wrong side of this issue.”

Rick Santorum, while agreeing with everyone else that SOPA goes too far, did have a personal axe to grind.

“The Internet is not a free zone where anybody can do anything they want to do and trample the rights of other people… The idea that ‘anything goes’ on the Internet, where did that come from? Where in America does it say that ‘anything goes’?”

Of course, Rick Santorum has been embroiled in his own personal fight with Google and difficulties on the Internet.

Will Mitt Romney keep his 25% momentum rolling? Right now he actually polls at 47%, more than double his nearest rival.

Will flavor-of-the-week Rick Santorum still be relevant by then?

Will Jon Huntsman’s efforts in that state pay off with a surprise?

Will Ron Paul’s never-say-die base pull off a big upset?

Will Newt Gingrich show up? Or will there be a book signing schedule conflict?

Before the Primary on Tuesday, the remaining candidates square off in yet another debate on Saturday the 7th. This one is staged jointly by NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Facebook.

Taking advantage of the nature of social media, the debate will feature days of opportunity for viewers to submit questions, chat up each other about the candidates, and watch videos.

Facebook is highlighting how the candidates use social media, specifically Facebook of course, to interact with voters and get their message out.

Their “U.S. Politics on Facebook” page talks through how the candidates are doing.

The Facebook presence for Meet the Press is pushing the upcoming debate heavily.

As for the event itself. it will take place at 9:00 a.m. ET in Concord, NH. Of course, Facebook will carry a live stream, and video will be available on Facebook afterward.

Most candidates keep their noses clean. “Macaca” moments will sink a ship, and all the faster if they’ve been re-tweeted and embedded before you get sober enough to remove the post.

Some tweets are pretty revealing about the candidate or their plans. For example, Mitt Romney seems to care little about the other also-rans. He’s focused on the Big Man himself, President Obama…

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich aims at Romney…

…and, compares himself to Reagan.

Rick Santorum is just happy that someone is talking about him without mentioning Google.

Rick Perry doesn’t like seeing Santorum all that gleeful. Got to bring him down a peg…

And, while he’s at it, let’s throw rocks at Romney and Gingrich, too…

Not to be out-Reaganed by Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann piped up…

And, she planted her flag heading into Iowa.

Then, on January 4, the day after the Iowa caucus…

Well, she hasn’t tweeted since. I wonder why?

Herman Cain also went out with a whimper back on December 5…

But, Ron Paul is the sassy one, dissing Newt…

And, the most “oh, snap!” tweet to date, for Jon Huntsman after Iowa…

Huntsman did not tweet a reply, but someone within earshot of him did, and he re-tweeted it…

Raawwwr!

With South Carolina coming up soon, it’ll be fun to see if anyone accuses another candidate of having an extramarital affair that resulted in a black baby.

Naaahhh. No one would do that.

Turns out, it was far less exciting.

The press release from Trojan Tree touting the newest release of “Obama Clock”, a giggling favorite in the conservative world, says that “a simple click on each countdown statistic calls forth a graphical depiction of the depressing trend in unemployment, gas prices, housing depreciation, and public debt over the entire Obama term.”

So, I popped over to the iTunes App Store to download the free version of the Obama Clock app to see what this was all about. The reviews of the app were not encouraging. They were divided between hardcore Republicans who approved of the spirit of the app and people who were disappointed with the app itself as less-than-functional or pandering for upgrades.

Upon firing it up, the first thing that happened was a pop-up ad that tried to up-sell me to the Deluxe version of the app for $1.99.

Turns out, you have to shell out that amount to actually see the “graphical depiction” they announced. After clicking [No Thanks], I landed on the main screen. Here there are statistics displayed that reportedly show:

* President Obama’s approval rating, as reported by Rasmussen Reports.

* Unemployment, from Dept. of Labor figures.

* Gas prices, US average.

* House prices, from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, averaging all transactions.

* Public debt. From Treasury.

* A countdown clock to Inauguration Day 2013

Todays numbers look like this:

The purpose of this app, according to their press release, is “to meaningfully influence the 2012 election”. Since it seems unlikely that a Democrat would care at all to buy the deluxe version of this app, and it seems to be mostly marketed toward the same Fox News viewers who bought it up last time, I am not sure how they intend to achieve any “meaningful” influence on the election. A preacher can’t fill a revival tent by firing up the choir.

Any serious person who wants to make the best informed decision about whom to vote for in November will look at the stories behind the numbers this “clock” displays. Where did those employment numbers come from? Who is doing anything about those numbers? Who is obstructing those efforts? What actually causes gasoline price increases? What were unemployment numbers under the previous Republican administration? How have they changed since then?

This looks like this is a cute little app designed to take money from die-hard Republicans. The information it displays is nothing you can’t find in a quick Google search for the rest of the country.