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Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:14 PM | Comments (219)
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Getting a lot of "I will never come back to this site again" comments. Or here's one, not a vow to block the site, but an admonition to stop covering the story:

Not an embargo; an executive decision that, having reported on it a couple of times, with no real news having occurred since, this story isn't important.

Because it's not.

I'm not letting the media pick Romney as the Republican nominee. I'll stick support Cain, unless something better comes along.

That's Evan's call, and that's fine. But many of us are not sold on this particular used car, and in fact have been a little worried about it. We've seen it sputter and conk out.

Now we hear there's something else wrong with it -- maybe; allegedly -- but some are demanding we just buy it anyway and ignore these sleazy, anonymous, fact-free, uncorroborated reports maybe the car isn't road-worthy.

I decline your offer to make a major purchase without knowing the vehicle's full history.

When I thought Rick Perry was the cat's tits, I had hoped to be part of pushing a quick, painless, and ultimately rewarding decision on the party. A lot of us did. A lot of us thought Rick Perry Was the One, and we got jubilant and a little stampede-y in trying to convince others of what we thought was Self-Evidently True.

Now, even at that time, I knew Rick Perry's problem would be immigration, and when I tried reaching out to people in his orbit -- well before he declared -- my questions were about immigration exclusively. I wanted to know how he planned to shift his stance, or recalibrate his stance, for a national GOP that was simply not as down with Mexicans as Texas Republicans.

For what it's worth, the answer I got was sort of "Perry's position is just awesome, he's not changing anything because nothing really needs changing."

Well, that was worrisome, but I trusted that that was just some PR offered to a blogger. Surely the Perry Camp must know it would have a problem with this issue, and had a plan for defusing it.

Well. I don't think I need to write any further about that.

Now, I can't say the people currently attempting to stampede the party towards Cain are blameworthy. After all, I did the same damn thing, didn't I? So if they're blameworthy, so am I.

Eh, maybe we're both blameworthy, or just equally anxious about picking a candidate we think will be the bee's knees.

But I'm shaped by my experience. Perry's problem with immigration did in fact turn out to be a major problem. It wasn't finessed. It didn't just "go away." It was, and is, a major problem.

A lot of people have jumped to Cain. They seem to like his lack of specificity and polish. I sort of find that alarming myself, but to each his own.

But I don't find it "charming." I don't care how many times I get told that not knowing the basics of the job you seek is "charming," I'll be right there saying, "No it isn't, it's worrisome."

But whether it's charming or not, we have the right to inspect the vehicle for flaws.

If this vehicle is flawless and in perfect running order, as some Caniacs are insisting, well then -- an inspection of the vehicle will only confirm that, correct?

I don't believe they believe the vehicle is flawless. I believe they believe the car has some problems. I believe that is the reason for the pressure to Stop looking, just buy the car.

No.

You didn't just buy the damn car when the car was Perry and I was keen on making a sale. And for what it's worth, you were right to be skeptical, to want a closer look.

But I'm not buying this damn car on your say-so either. Period. I'm not going to go all-in on Cain before I know what the hell I'll be getting, and what the hell I'll have to be spinning and defending come general election season.

As for Evan's belief there hasn't been anything newsworth on this story since Sunday: Oh dear God, what planet do you live on? There have been new developments in the story every four hours and this four-hour block is no exception.

This is why every Crisis Communications firm advises (usually) the strategy of giving a press conference and revealing all the details in one fell swoop, to avoid this drip-drip-drip of the story coming out on others' initiative.

Cain isn't doing this. Not my fault. Not my call.

I repeat, I do not know the truth here. I do not know if this is damning for Cain, or merely embarrassing and somewhat damaging, or not even very damaging at all.

But anyone claiming they know -- they KNOW! that this is not a story and there's nothing here worth knowing, move on -- is selling something.

They're selling Cain.

That's their right.

But no one in his right mind makes a very, very, very major purchase based on some people's high-pressure sales tactics.

I'm glad some have looked inside Cain's heart and know all they need to know about the man.

I do not have this ability. I need to look at the surface of things, not into the man's soul.

The truth will eventually out. If this truth is on Cain's side, neither he or his supporters should fear it.

Bear in mind: You can bring pressure to tell conservative bloggers to shut up.

You have no such ability with the major media. I mean, they just ignore you.

Is Cain able to put this baby to bed in a satisfactory manner? In a way that it will not damage him down the road?

So far he has not put the baby to bed.

Don't Cain's supporters care at all whether or not our candidate for president will be able to effectively put this issue to rest?

Or is the plan merely to mau-mau conservative blogs into shutting up about it?

And what the hell does that accomplish?

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (841)
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Verum Serum has been on this doggedly. For reporting the truth, of course, Mother Jones and left-wing blogs like Alternet implied he was part of a right-wing "smear campaign."

Girls are getting raped at these events. That is not particularly the Occupiers' fault. In any group, there will be some criminals.

What is their fault is discouraging the girls from reporting the rapes, in the interest of PR for the movement. Apparently talking the position that girls should just close their eyes and think of England.

The ABC report John partially praises fails to mention that fact about Occupy.

In a video by Lee Stranahan and Brandon Darby, one disgruntled Occupier is leaving, because someone on the Sanitation Team (???) took a swing at him, and then the Public Relations Praetorian Guard immediately swept in and began telling him no one took a swing at him.

These droids? What droids? Oh these droids.

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

So, women under-report rapes? Thanks, Occupy!!!

Oh: Good piece on Occupy.

Asking “Where did the Occupy movement go wrong?” is akin to musing “Where did Michael Moore’s fitness regime fall apart?” The answer: early, often, all over the place.

The propelling mindset driving the vast majority of the Occupy movement is not one of genuine civil service, dedicated to the honest betterment of America as a whole (like, say, the Tea Party), but rather one of entitled victimization from a growing number of those who think other people should be forced to share their success.

This compilation of old hippies pining for revolution amongst college kids who simply donÂ’t want to make their own way is the unsurprising result of liberalism in America today. This is what happens when children are fed faux lessons in self esteem and tolerance from broken family systems and then taught in school that the theory of communism is noble, if only the implementation could be mastered. American students are engulfed in a sea of liberalism from kindergarten through university, often void of any opposing views and without prompting to study the historical precedent and common sense consequences of the ideology with which theyÂ’re being indoctrinated.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (194)
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Cain 26%, Romney 23%, Gingrich 14%.

Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (234)
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Down in a dark place you don't like to talk about, you know the world is filled with bad men who want to outlaw abortion, and you need strong men with rifles to keep it free.

And who's going to do it? You? You, Weinstein?

The RomneyCard: It's Anywhere You Need It To Be.

Mitt Romney was firm and direct with the abortion rights advocates sitting in his office nine years ago, assuring the group that if elected Massachusetts governor, he would protect the stateÂ’s abortion laws.

Then, as the meeting drew to a close, the businessman offered an intriguing suggestion — that he would rise to national prominence in the Republican Party as a victor in a liberal state and could use his influence to soften the GOP’s hard-line opposition to abortion.

He would be a “good voice in the party” for their cause, and his moderation on the issue would be “widely written about,” he said, according to detailed notes taken by an officer of the group, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.

“You need someone like me in Washington,” several participants recalled Romney saying that day in September 2002, an apparent reference to his future ambitions.

But now he's completely against abortion, or something.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (484)
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Nuisances?

A lot of people are angry that this blog has given any credence at all to this story, or has even mentioned it.

What is the alternative suggested? A simple embargo?

What purpose would that serve? All that would happen is that readers would go to Politico and liberal sites (and non-participating embargo-refusing conservative sites) to get the latest details.

I'm not sure what the plan is. If I had to guess, it's this: Cain supporters know that if he becomes the nominee, the whole party will be obligated to spin like the Dickens for him. As we had to with John McCain, once he became the nominee. We had to make peace with his obnoxious flaws and put a positive light on everything.

So is the plan that we try to keep this information from conservatives, so that conservative voters don't have it (or don't trust it, if they hear it), so they all just vote for Cain without the relevant information, and then, when he's captured the nomination, everyone, whether Cain supporter or Cain skeptic/opponent, will be obligated to be on the same page as far as spinning the story/defending him?

If so, that sounds like the "plan" being offered by Cain supporters is to get the rest of the party a little bit (actually, a lot) pregnant with Cain, and, once pregnant with him, thereby forced to do a bunch of things we might otherwise not have done.

That doesn't sound very honest to me -- springing an unfair surprise on the rest of the party.

I don't know what Cain did or did not do, yet. But I do know I want this information before we select a candidate. Maybe what Cain did is fairly forgivable and pedestrian, a semi-nothingburger, and we can agree that this only makes him slightly damaged but otherwise a good candidate. Maybe in that case we can make a knowing judgement about whether to select him, and take his flaws as well as his strengths.

Some people are debating that very issue right now with Newt Gingrich (and Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney, and the rest of the flawed candidates).

But the key is making a knowing decision, knowing the promise and the baggage of a particular candidate.

I get the feeling that some are so on the Cain Train they've decided the rest of us don't need to know, and should just suck it up, whatever the ultimate facts turn out to be.

Well, I think that's kooky. I have said before that I do not understand this certitude that Cain is such a great conservative candidate -- I have challenged supporters to offer up examples of his great articulation of conservative principles, and no one has met the challenge.

Here's what I think has really happened:

1. We start with the premise that There must be a great conservative candidate we can get excited about, there must be; it couldn't be the case that the current field is simply weaker than usual when we need it to be stronger than usual.

2. We know the least about Herman Cain, for good or for ill.

3. All of the other candidates, who we know better, are not Great Conservative Candidates.

3. Since there must be a Great Conservative Candidate, and we know the least about Herman Cain, and we know the others are not Great Conservative Candidates, then, putting all our premises together, It must be the case that Herman Cain is a Great Conservative Candidate.

And this is why the largely unknown Cain, who stumbles over extremely basic questions about abortion and trading every Gitmo prisoner for a single hostage, is assumed to be, despite the evidence on the table, a Great Conservative Candidate.

But I don't buy that. I think the syllogism fails at step one: It is not, in fact, necessarily true that we must have a Great Conservative Candidate. That is merely what we wish. (That is why I got so in the bag for Perry, by the way; I subscribed to this syllogism myself, and decided that Perry must be our shining hope. Turns out, of course, that he is very flawed.)

I don't intend to say, or believe, that Herman Cain isn't a potentially good candidate. What I am objecting to is this unstated assumption, which I do think is lurking around, that we must have a Great Conservative Candidate among us, and oh, I guess it must be Cain, then.

I'm still waiting to hear the great articulation of conservative principles from him that should be natural for a real Great Conservative Candidate. Honestly, I never hear anything particularly interesting or persuasive from him.

It just seems like he's the Outsider, and of course the Outsider must be the best candidate.

I forget who, but a commenter put it very well. He said something like, "It doesn't bother me that Cain doesn't have any experience in government office. It bothers me a great deal that he doesn't have any experience in campaigning for a government office."

Now, actually, Cain did run for Senate in 2004, but he didn't even win the primaries, so 1, he didn't do a particularly good job of it, and 2, he didn't get the increase scrutiny of being a general election candidate.

So, for all intents and purposes, this is the first real scrutiny Cain has gotten.

What that commenter meant was that if you campaign for high office, at least there's a good chance that most of your skeletons have already fallen from your closet.

If you haven't, then your entire past life is a great big Black Box of surprises. Sometimes there will be no bad surprises. Sometimes there will be a very, very minor bad surprise, as with Joe Miller and his stupid Freeping of an online poll. (And in that case, Miller's inexperience with campaigning cost him badly, since he made such a big deal of that himself, acting like he had something big to hide, and wound up seeming shifty -- over nothing.)

Sometimes there will be bad surprises in that Black Box.

So that was this guy's point. A lot of Tea Partiers are very, very firm on the idea that they do not want any professional politicians or people with experience in government. Untainted by the system.

Well, such people may be untainted by the system, but they're also so far unvetted by the system, and it is foolish to expect that there aren't going to be problems in people's pasts. People are flawed, often badly flawed. There are relatively few exemplary individuals among us -- some, but a minority. Few people can look good under a very high-powered microscope.

There are upsides to pure political neophytes. But there are also downsides.

At any rate: Since I don't support Cain it's rather easy for me to say "I'd like to know all the facts." After all, I've got no skin in the game. Won't hurt me if the facts wind up damning him (and actually, that would "help" me, as I've never been on the Cain Train anyway).

But even though it's easy for me to take that position, what possible other position can one take, even if a Cain supporter?

Can you really take the position that conservative media outlets should withhold relevant information from its audience, so that people are intentionally disabled from making knowing, informed decisions?

I have to tell you I was getting kind of worried about this story, because I knew (or believed I knew) it was coming at some point, and yet hadn't broke yet. What was the media up to?, I wondered. Were they going to suppress the story through the primaries and only "discover" it after Cain had won the nomination?

I'm sure everyone remembers how the NYT campaigned for John McCain to get the Republican nomination -- and then, weeks after he secured it, dropped a story implying that McCain had had a long term affair with a lobbyist.

They could have published that months before. But they held it. Because they wanted him to win the nomination, and then they wanted to destroy him.

As much as you might not like Politico, it being obviously a Democratic water-carrying outfit, at least they did not pull a NYT special and hold the story until after Cain was well on his way to winning the nomination.

We should know these things. Some secrets may remain secret. But if some secrets are guaranteed to come out -- and this one seems to have been absolutely guaranteed to come out -- we should know about them sooner rather than later.

Posted by: Ace at 10:38 AM | Comments (545)
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One year to go.

Thanks again to JohnE, whose new map designs are far clearer than any MSPaintJob I was throwing out there.

I have made projections for both current front-runners, Romney and Cain. I was going to do Perry as well, but to be frank, you guys don't like that much blue. Both have paths to 270, Cain's is albeit far narrower.

Senate projections are being crunched as we speak.

Maps are LARGE, so be ready.
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Posted by: CAC at 09:41 AM | Comments (171)
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Above the post update:

PJ Media has appended corrections to the story.

(CORRECTIONS: A previous version of this story mentioned that a source witnessed Cain and the woman entering a taxi together. This was incorrect.

The previous version also mentioned that the woman awoke in Cain’s bed — the source only claimed that the woman awoke in Cain’s apartment.

The previous version incorrectly attributed comments from one source to the other source.)

That's not good. This is obviously a big and sensitive story.

Original Post:
If (and it's a big if) this is true or even close to true, we've moved past misinterpreted hand gestures.

The female source told PJ Media that she witnessed the woman entering a taxi with Herman Cain.

Neither source has direct knowledge of what occurred at Mr. Cain’s residence, but several days after the alleged incident, the male source witnessed the woman returning to her workplace “distraught.” “She was very upset.”

I don't want to take too much from PJ Media (not Politico or an MSM outlet), so follow the link for their whole story.

Via Ben Domenech, the aide, Curt Anderson, Team Cain smeared as the leakier of the original story with no evidence is not taking this quietly.

"All this stuff about who leaked whatever, any reporter in the free world is free to say anything to anybody that I ever said to them about can Herman Cain,” he said. “I give them carte blanche to do that because I have absolutely nothing to hide."

Update: Incompetent Cain campaign "walks back" unsubstantiated attack.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:56 AM | Comments (446)
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It's not going away anytime soon.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted Thursday to subpoena the White House for all internal communications related to the failed solar company Solyndra,

...

“I regret that we have reached this point,” Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee and the GOP’s pointman on the Solyndra investigation, said Thursday. “At this point in time, I am not confident that we will have a good faith response from the White House without issuing a subpoena.”

“Sometimes, in the course of an investigation, we find ourselves unable to secure necessary evidence,” full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said. “House Rules expressly give us the power of subpoena to compel cooperation in these instances. It is a tool we use sparingly and only as a last resort. Today, it is our last resort.”

Yesterday, the Department of Energy's Inspector General testified before the committee about the massive waste and fraud that went on as part of Obama's Green Energy "stimulus".

He added that the under-resourced department faced a series of logistical obstacles in delivering money to companies such as Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy in September after receiving a $528-million government loan.

"The concept of 'shovel-ready' projects was not realized, nor, as we now have confirmed, was it a realistic expectation," Friedman said.

Even after department employees strained to quickly dispense loans that were not properly documented, Friedman said only 45% of the money allotted to DOE under the stimulus law has been spent. He attributed the inefficiency and slowness of loan distribution to a "diverse, complex, and often asymmetrical set of stakeholders," which included state and local officials, contractors and businesses.

Friedman said he could not comment specifically on the ongoing Solyndra investigation, but did say his office has launched more than 100 investigations of stimulus-funded companies that have recovered $2.3 million and resulted in five criminal prosecutions.

So clearly what he need is more wasteful "stimulus". It's what God would want.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:02 AM | Comments (211)
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It looks like the gentle hippie "occupiers" in Oakland got a little out of hand last night. So now a major port is shut down because of these idiots, causing who knows how much more economic damage to the country. And to what end? Not even the idiots who are protesting can really explain themselves.

More US citizens oppose the "occupy" retards than support them, and I don't think that's a new development. It's always been the case, but the media worked really hard to sanctify these idiots in the eyes of the public. But in light of the rapes, the drug-use, the general lawlessness, and the utter incoherence of the movement's aims and goals, it's hard to cast these people as anything other than a dangerous mob.

I sometimes think that maybe I am too DOOM-y, that maybe IÂ’m letting my innate cynicism get the better of me. Then I read stuff like this and think that IÂ’m not DOOM-y enough.

"The Big Ugly" -- the Fed massively cuts its economic outlook. I don't think Bammer can count on a surge in the economy to carry him to victory in 2012.

Greece: Papandreou may be stepping down. Or not? This seems like some kind of power-play on Papandreou's part, and it may be a strategem to head off an internal vote of no-confidence (or even a coup). It's clear that things in Greece are moving quickly to some kind of crisis, though.

Eurozone to Greece: S**t or get off the pot. Nothing but ruin and hardship await the Greeks, whichever path they choose: default and reversion back to the drachma means an abrupt return to third-world nation status for about a decade, while staying inside the Euro means...a decade of grinding austerity, hardship, and financial ruin. And the most bitter pill for the Greeks to swallow is that they brought much of this ruin upon themselves.

If the Eurozone is gonna kick Greece to the curb, maybe they ought to just completely clean house and get rid of Portugal, Spain, and Italy while theyÂ’re at it. Or, you know, maybe just admit that this whole Euro project is just a catastrophe all around and let everyone go back to their national currencies.

Jeremy Warner of The Telegraph: The euro tragedy is reaching its bloody end. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

The trade that killed Jon Corzine's MF Global. This is why I keep talking about the European sovereign debt crisis: what happens over there has a big impact on what happens here. Everything is connected.

Rick Perry's flat tax plan: intergenerational warfare?

Teh Bernank fears that the US faces the same stagnation as Japan. Which is odd, because he's making the same damned Keynesian mistakes Japan has made, and with the same results.

Politically-correct employment.

I think that this is a good time to raise some challenging questions about college education as we know it.

Would students be better off delaying college and instead trying to work for a year or two first?

Should young people be allowed to pursue professional training without going to college? (In other countries, someone going to law school, for example, might skip college.)

The New York Post advises Mayor Bloomberg to throw the bums out. I hope he leaves them right where they are. This Fellini-esque display of squalor, incoherence, and lawlessness only helps the conservative cause. The longer it goes on, the better our chances are of an electoral landslide in 2012. (Plus the thought of a bunch of blue, shivering hippies trying to survive a Manhattan winter warms my cold black cinder of a heart.)

China's millionaires: "Get me outta here!" A person in China is "rich" only at the forbearance of their own government -- an authoritarian, Communist regime. That wealth could disappear in a moment if the government decides it should, and China's entrepreneurs and business-owners know that.

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Posted by: Monty at 04:59 AM | Comments (247)
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